And keep in mind that often these accidental discharges were caused by highly-trained LEO’s who handle firearms for a living. There have been reports of cops unintentionally shooting themselves with their Glock, accidentally shooting their partners with their Glock, and accidentally shooting suspects when they inadvertently touched the trigger on their Glock.
Maybe they should have been
more highly trained?
I don't claim to be a pistol expert or even particularly knowledgeable about Glocks. I have Ptooma's manual on hand to consult and I have become a pretty big fan of Glocks since acquiring my Glock 20 a few years ago.
But I don't see what all the hub-bub is about. I'll go so far as to say that if you don't trust yourself with a Glock because it doesn't have an external active safety, you shouldn't be trusted with any firearm. A traditional safety on an automatic pistol is not a crutch. It doesn't excuse poor gun handling. Even as a little boy, I can remember my grandfather emphasizing the importance of never trusting the safety. These were lessons that stuck with me.
I won't say I've never had a brain fart and did something stupid with a firearm. I've had an AD before. But it was with a .22 caliber rifle that, interestingly enough, has an external safety. No one was hurt, because thankfully, I forgot my trigger discipline but not my muzzle awareness.
Maybe it is being aware that there is no safety, but even more than with other automatic handguns, I find myself being religiously diligent to safe gun handling with my Glock. Since I've owned it, these practices have expanded to include other handguns, but they originated with the Glock. My Glock made me a safer gun owner. I'd check the chamber every time I picked up a gun before, but I wasn't as anal about dropping the mag, racking the slide 2 or 3 times, locking it back, then checking the chamber. That is a habit my Glock got me into, namely out of necessity cause I don't want to put a hole in something breaking it apart to clean it, ect.
I don't buy the "Glocks just going off" thing either. People claim thumb breaks on holsters will make them go off. I call BS. Once I was running along some tracks. I had my G20 in the Uncle Mikes on my hip, as is customary for me. A railroad tie shifted underneath my step, and snagged my other foot as it came down. I went down hard, and my G20 was sent clattering across the tracks. It came to a rest with its muzzle oriented straight at me as I laid their sprawled out next to the tracks. So I put the thumb break on the holster to prevent such accidents from occurring again in the future. People keep telling me the thumb break can catch the trigger and cause it to go off during reholstering. This is understandably troubling for me, so I clear the pistol and spend the next 30 to 45 minutes jamming it in at every conceivable angle trying to make this thumb break drop the striker. In the end, the only way I succeed it removing the holster from my hip, taking the stiffer inboard plastic end that the strap snaps too, orienting the pistol 90 degrees to it with it in the trigger guard, and jamming it forward. This motion was so awkward even with the holster off my hip that I am going to go ahead and say that if you manage to accomplish this feat in real life, you deserve a gunshot wound to the leg--you earned it.
And if you are really that worried, there are several heavier trigger options out there known as New York 1 and New York 2 which provide a, IIRC, 8 and 12 pound trigger pull, respectively. This makes the trigger pull pretty much identical to a revolver.
So again, what was the issue?
