Are Manual Safeties on Striker Fired Handguns Heresy??

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If youre uncomfortable with a gun that doesnt have a safety, then that gun is the gun you need to spend some time with so you can learn it.

Personally, I think too many people put too much faith in guns with added safeties. It doesnt matter if the gun has one or not, if you arent willing to put in the time and effort to learn the gun and be safe with it, whats it matter?

The gun is just the gun, training is the issue. The gun is as safe as you are with it. People just want something to blame for their screw ups or lack of skills when problems happen.
 
Homerboy said:
I remember this one. The article I read had a picture of the weapon. A S&W Shield. Don’t recall if it was the safety or non safety model, but I can guarantee if it had the safety, it wasn’t on, because I don’t believe a 2 year old figured out how to flick the safety off on that pistol. Either way, a 2 year old was able to pull that 5.5 pound trigger. And who knows if the gun had one of those popular 3 pound aftermarket triggers installed?
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Horsepucky. One thing I learned watching my three and five year old kids is from almost day one as soon as they picked up a new thing they immediately pushed all the buttons and switched all the levers, a safety would be one of the first things either of them would fiddle with, and none of them I've encountered are heavy enough to stop a curious kid of they fixate on it.

The safest gun I can think of for either of my kids would be a DA/SA or DAO with a strong hammer spring, probably would stop them longest, or definatley a BHP with hammer down, my wife couldn't even thumb the hammer back on that beast.

Or, ya know, keep track of your loaded guns. Especially if you have kids.
 
BobinNC said:
Or are they? Why not have a manual safety on a Glock, or a Sig (Wait Sig does have them, as does S&W) or whatever polymer wonder pistola you carry. Except Glock of course, cause Gaston won't let you have a choice, right??

If you don't need them, then why does the US Military buy them in the 100's of thousands and insist their Soldiers, Sailors and Marines must have manual safeties on their pistols??

Yes, I know SOCOM buys Glocks and other stuff without them, but how many of us has anywhere near their skill and training?? Damn few...

Also how many have no use for their manual safeties on the PCC's or their AR15's, AK's, Mini 14's, shotguns, et al??

Here's a nice article to get the debate going to a good clip.

https://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/the-truth-about-manual-handgun-safeties/

Be gentle, be respectful and make cogent arguments.

Gentlemen, Start your engines......
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Are you buying for yourself? Get what suits your needs or wants and put it in an appropriate holster.
 
JR24 said:
Horsepucky. One thing I learned watching my three and five year old kids is from almost day one as soon as they picked up a new thing they immediately pushed all the buttons and switched all the levers, a safety would be one of the first things either of them would fiddle with, and none of them I've encountered are heavy enough to stop a curious kid of they fixate on it.

The safest gun I can think of for either of my kids would be a DA/SA or DAO with a strong hammer spring, probably would stop them longest, or definatley a BHP with hammer down, my wife couldn't even thumb the hammer back on that beast.

Or, ya know, keep track of your loaded guns. Especially if you have kids.
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It’s not bull. The safety on a Shield is very flush and requires a bit of force. I’ve owned several. Yeah, I’d believe a 2 year old can disengage the big lever on a 1911 or a Beretta 92, with a spring in it to assist in operating it. On that Shield, highly unlikely. Certainly makes it less likely that the shot will be fired when the human being makes a mistake. And yeah, keep track of your guns. Guess you’ve never, for one split second, made a mistake?

Regardless, the ease of pulling that trigger is an issue. Until my son was about 11, it was an effort for him to pull the trigger on a double action trigger. He flat out wasn’t able to do it in the trigger of a Ruger SP101 .22 I once had.
 
From a safety perspective, the type of firing mechanism (hammer or striker) in a pistol is largely irrelevant. What matters is how easy or difficult it is to manipulate the trigger to fire a gun. Manual safeties are available to help avoid unintended things from happening with guns.

A pistol with a long 10-pound trigger pull is less likely to be fired unintentionally than one with an ultra-short 2-pound trigger pull. The easier a trigger is to manipulate, the more likely a gun might benefit from a manual safety. However, there is no bright line that defines when a manual safety is appropriate. Every shooter has to evaluate different trigger pulls and decide whether they need a manual safety on a specific gun, particularly in light of their experience and training.
 
I started out believing that all semiautomatic pistols should have a manual safety. In the early days, the only one I knew of that did not have one was the Radom 1935, and it had a grip safety.

I knew nothing about defensive shooing, and it did not occur to me that the safeties on quite a number of small pistols would be nigh impossible to disengage rapidly on the draw with one hand.

From that standpoint, I consider the 1911 to be just about ideal.

I had an occasion in a defensive shooting class in which my thumb failed to disengage the slide mounted safety upon the draw. Had that occurred in a real encounter, the result would have been disastrous. I was not safer with that safety.

That cannot happen with a 1911; one's thumb must be placed directly on the safety to grip the gun for firing. But it can happen wit ha BHP. That was one of to reasons why I di not buy one. Instead, I bought pistol with a slide mounted safety that I thought similar enough to the 1911, but was wrong. I almost learned that the hard way.

The 1911 is the only handgun that I would consider carrying hat has a safety that requires a separate operation. I much prefer a pistol with a grip safety. Next in the order of my preference is a trigger that is not pulled too easily. But one does have to be careful to keep the holster clear when reholstering.

The US military? Their needs do not coincide with mine. As a civilian, I must keep my firearm holstered until the moment that I must present it to defend myself against an imminent threat of death or serious bodily harm.

think in terms of the Tueller dill. One does not want to draw against a person who can get to one ina second and a half and then find, upon pressing the trigger, that the safety has not been disengaged.
 
I have never had a dislike of safeties. I learned to disengage one quickly during my time in Nam where a M191l was my primary firearm. As a civilian I have had guns with and without safeties. Today I have 3 Rugers. LCP has no safety. LC9S has a safety, and my EDC Security 9 Compact has a safety. I hike a lot and carry the Sec. 9c OWB when I do. I keep the safety engaged in case the gun were to come loose if I fell or slipped. I CC with the same gun IWB, but the safety Is disengaged. One thing about the gun is that the safety is designed to be released very easily, but it engaging requires a distinct method that makes the process one that requires some control of the pressure on the safety. If you just push up on the safety it will not engage. You can only engage it by applying considerable pressure to the lower left corner is the switch. So it can be disengaged easily but would be very difficult to accidentally engage it.

171433B1-7455-4FC5-8128-63E8B6A5340E.jpeg
 
Several personal observations:
1. I also find the thumb safety on the 1911 easy to deal with and a trainable skill.
2. I have tried some guns with a difficult to use manual safety, which could be problematic if in a SD situation. My new Buckmark (admittedly not a SD firearm) has a stiff and frustratingly vertical manual safety.
3. When I asked a gun-counter sales specialist at Academy why it was so hard to find the Shield EZ without manual safety (S&W offers both with and without in all their plastic guns) in stores, he said that the EZ is so often bought by first time handgun owners. The stores think that such novices will be safer with a manual safety, and as minimally informed shooters may think that such a safety is essential.

Craig
 
If you think about it, what real benefit is there to the manual safety? When the gun is in a holster, there really is no need for it, and when the gun is in your hand, any and all added safeties should be off and the gun ready to go. So a striker gun without a safety is really no different than a gun with a safety, from a safety standpoint. Other than you don't have to worry that the safety wasn't taken off when the gun went into your hand.

About the only added safety that might make sense to me, is one I really dislike, the mag safety. If you are in a position where the gun might get taken away in a struggle, you can drop the mag, and its now useless to whoever took it, unless they understand whats going on and can get to the mag. Works too for those who leave guns around where someone else might pick it up.
 
trackskippy said:
If you think about it, what real benefit is there to the manual safety? .... when the gun is in your hand, any and all added safeties should be off and the gun ready to go.
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Unless you are riding a galloping horse.
 
The mistake is thinking that the style of primer activation has anything to do with having a thumb safety.

1) The first striker fired guns on the market, predating the 1911, had thumb safeties.
2) Glock bids and supplies firearms on contract with a thumb safety. Money talks, it's not a line in the sand with them. You want safety, you get safety. Glock get contract, Glock get profit. It's a business.

When a weapon discharges, If the thumb safety is off, few accept an argument the weapon is defective. If a thumb safety isn't there, then the gun is frequently accused of being defective, not the operator. Yet they are often proven to have negligently handled the firearm.

That is the current state of the affair, therefore, I only conceal carry a weapon with safety. I accept that I'm responsible for how I handle it and that is how I will have to answer for it. The odds of a negligent discharge being reviewed are less than one without a thumb safety, as the numbers continue to prove.

We each accept the level of risk as we assess it.
 
I couldn't care less what other people buy, so if folks want a safety on a gun that only needs a proper fitting holster that covers the trigger, have at it.

Heresy? Nope. Desirable? Not to me. Worth my time to have a feeling about? Nope.

As far as certain activities making a safety a good idea, I'd ask why your finger is on the trigger if you don't INTEND to fire?
 
This is just one useful aspect of manual safeties:

Children are extremely familiar with how to squeeze a trigger. Every manner of toy guns, from cap guns to Nerf guns to water pistols has given every child extensive experience in pulling a trigger.

Manual safeties, however, are completely unfamiliar to almost every child. That one extra step could very well prevent a tragedy in that once in a lifetime chance that a child was able to access your firearm.
 
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Personally, I prefer to have a gun without a manual safety, but I also prefer a gun with a higher, long, DA trigger pull. I EDC a DAO revolver. If I pocket carry it's an original LCP. My nightstand guns are a P226 and a 75b. I don't really want to be walking around the house at night half awake with a striker fired gun with a 5lb trigger pull. I also practice with each of these and dry fire them a TON so I have a smooth, consistent trigger pull.

I don't have anything against safeties, and Kleanbore makes an excellent point that not all safeties are created equal. And I also think there's a ton of people out there carrying striker fired guns with light trigger pulls who don't have enough (or any) professional training and don't get enough range time, and some of them are a danger to themselves and those around them.
 
Boomholzer said:
Cowboys can ride on a empty chamber or condition 3 for a revolver.
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Right but they still don't have a manual safety, even if they are running double action and a full cylinder.

Kleanbore said:
I was speaking of cavalrymen with the 1911
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This is a pretty niche application that last only a few years in any real sense. I would also be willing to bet very few used the manual safety. You keep your finger off the trigger until you sights are on the target and the manual safety is unnecessary.
 
A manual safety on an automatic was considered a reasonable thing until the Walther type DA/SA caught on and then there was a lot of debate over the choice.

But then Herr Glock's people decided that a uniformly bad trigger would be adequately safe. I assume that the Glock design philosophy was the same as the Steyr AUG; it should be simple to use by short term conscripts. Austria has universal military service, all able bodied males do six months (!) in the Army with a reserve commitment. Their weapons had to be boiled down to aim-pull trigger.

Now every manufacturer is making cheap striker fired pistols, shooters want light pulls, and the guns are getting manual safeties. Again.

Me?
I couldn't make up my mind which hideout gun to get, so I bought two. I am comfortable with a Glock 43 in a pocket holster, depending on the Safe Action to let me get it going. But I got the Ruger LC9s with thumb safety. It has a DAO type trigger that is so light and smooth (Better than my tuned revolvers.) that I felt a need for a safety catch. I note that they make these both ways, like a lot of other current striker fired pistols.
 
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