Glocks... Operator error or Weapon error?

[aryfrosty]

Mistakes, errors, accidents??

I will stand firmly with the groups that finds that there are ZERO 'accidental discharges'. ZERO mistakes. There are only 'negligent discharges' where Glocks are concerned. Glocks are not engineered for 'fans' or 'groupies' who think they become an automatically a gun genius of they just buy a Glock, 1911, Sig, or whatever you like. Glocks are engineered to be carried and used by folks who train and learn their system to the point that they are a safe operator with one. Glocks don't come with mulligans that you can throw down if you have a brain cramp and touch off a round. Glocks do come with the ability to create an instant casualty if you play with the trigger. Glocks require a decent holster in order to remain safe. They aren't good to carry in a pocket or the small of the back. They don't need to be in a holster that you have to 'shoehorn' them into. The require foresight and forethough in all areas. When you respect and enjoy your Glock and treat it so you'l have one of the best combat pistols available today.

 

[GLOOB]

Never point a gun at anything you don't intend to destroy. You've got to be pretty careless to shoot yourself.

Even if your holster cants towards your leg, you don't have to point it at yourself until it's all the way in the leather. Better yet, I prefer a rake on my holster so it doesn't point down at the side my leg.

 

[Skylerbone]

JMR, that statement is laughable. Those 10,000 include people who admitted to thinking the trigger had to be pulled while closing the bolt, thought the rifle was empty and on and on. The "evidence" video demonstrated people intentionally attempting to "trick" aka defeat the safety and Mr. Walker's "flaw" was in labeling it a safety. He recommended either a redesign to make it a true safety or renaming it.

You can defeat the safety on a 1911 if you squeeze the trigger hard enough. Flaw? No. Abuse? Absolutely. It is the nature of firearms to be dangerous even when handled correctly. That is why people who wear or should wear helmets ought not touch them. A true respect for the consequences and proper training are the biggest keys to limiting negligence.

 

[Red Cent]

Armoredman, the safeties are not "released" until there is noticeable movement of the trigger bar. A lot of people don't realize that the pretravel (actual trigger movement after the trigger lock is pulled back) is actually the trigger bar moving rearward. The resistance that you incur at the end of the travel is the compression of the firing pin spring and the cocking and firing of the weapon. My G34 has a two pound trigger and the pretravel has almost no resistance.

http://www.genitron.com/Basics/Glock23/P2Glock.html

 

[Waywatcher]

rcmodel answered the question. The end, IMO.

 

[Apocalypse-Now]

No, this is not your safety. It's just your finger!

I do understand the point you're trying to make

his point is simply, keep your finger off the trigger until ready to fire.

 

[HippieMagic]

I recall a video of a guy pulling a Glock behind his truck for so long that it nearly falls apart and it still doesn't discharge. The gun was empty but still if that doesn't fire the gun I don't know of anything that would beyond just pulling the trigger.

 

[The Lone Haranguer]

It is only doing what it is designed to do - fire when the trigger is pulled. It was also purposely designed to be simple to operate, with no external "safeties," and to be easy to shoot, with a short trigger stroke. If you don't like it, there are plenty of other makers, producing different designs, who will be happy to separate you from your money.

 

[BlackCoffee]

Not possible by design, and I have a strong distaste for Glocks. The intial safety on the trigger. Then the design of the stricker block prevents any stricker forward movement without rear trigger movement.

 

[Usmc-1]

I thinks safe to say that given almost all safety review boards agaisnt cops for this exact reason has been negligence on the officers part , Im not saying in a bad way , s_ _ t happens , but like many have said Glock would have been sued out of business along time ago , there would be no 2nd,3rd,4th gen Glocks out there! Glocks are tight weapons , if you can find a legitimate "machine " malfunction on a Glock I would love to see it (and so would the Glock campany) !

 

[possum]

much like people's issues with inaccuracy with most handguns. Everyone wants to blame the gun and the sights, but 99.9% of the time it is do to the lack of shooting fundamentals, or the application of those fundamentals. The same is the case here with ND's, operator error.

 

[holsm50]

I agree that most AD/ND discharges of Glocks occur when someone or something pulls the trigger, as opposed to a mechanical failure of a component of the pistol. The same can be said for virtually every decent semi-automatic pistol on the market today.

When we talk about Glock "safeties", we are strictly talking about the gun being "drop safe". All of Glock's so-called three (3) safeties amount to nothing more than the gun being passively "drop safe". I am not suggesting that that is a bad thing, but people should not try to make sound like some extraordinary breakthrough. Most pistols are "drop safe" at 5 feet, which is what the Austrian spec called for when Gaston (or whoever) designed the pistol. Sometimes I hear Glock fans talk about their pistol being safe even if it were dropped out of a helicopter. So what. Even if this were true, where's the benefit. The gun is of no use to you once it drops out of the helicopter. Whether it discharges or not when it hits the ground is also irrelevant. It's just as likely to kill someone when it lands on someone's head.

I would venture to say that very few people drop their pistols. I am not saying that it can't happen, but it doesn't happen often. And when it does, most guns are drop safe, like the Glock. In my opinion, the greater risk of AD/ND is when someone or something inadvertently contacts the trigger. Glock provides absolutely no protection to the user or bystanders from this risk of discharge. In my opinion, that is the "fatal" flaw of the Glock design.

 

[Weevil]

So the "fatal flaw" with Glocks is they go off if someone or something pulls the trigger???



I thought that's what they were supposed to do.

 

[thefamcnaj]

The left wing media as well and ANTI gunners want you to believe than glocks (or any other gun for that matter) jump up, pick the lock and get out of the safe, then go shoot the first family member it sees in the leg. In reality if a Glock discharges, its becasue someones booger hook was in the trigger guard.
I own four glocks and none of them have ever went bang unless I wanted them too.....to bad I cant get the kids to listen that well.

 

[holsm50]

Since when did gun safety become an issue exclusive to the left wing media and ANTI gunners? Was Browning a left wing, anti-gunner? Mauser? Luger? Walther? Smith & Wesson?

My point is that gun manufacturers should strive to improve their designs to make them as safe as possible. To accomplish this, the manufacturer needs to consider human nature and the fact that people occasionally make mistakes or have a brain fade, and design the weapon to reduce the risk of injury when this happens. All of the firearms designers mentioned above knew this and sought to incorporate safety features in their designs to reduce the risk of AD/ND.

I do not consider Glock's elimination of certain traditional, time-tested safety features (ie., manual safeties, grip safeties, etc.) that are aimed at reducing the risk of AD/ND to be a step in the right direction. In my opinion, this does not represent progress in gun safety, but rather a giant step backwards.

 

[Red Cent]

As I understand the thinkology that was transferred to the Glock was its simplicity. Ergo, pull the trigger. No need to worry otherwise. Wait aminute. Hold on. I got it. Hey, my Smith M19 does the same thing.

I have one Glock. G34. I like it. I like my Colt 1911s better. Sorry.

Ain't nothing wrong espousing the toughness, reliability, functionality, and the ugliness of the handgun. It is.

 

[thefamcnaj]

Look I'm all for saftey. But where do you draw the line?
If I decock my px4 storm and forgert to flip it back to fire mode befor holstering, the gun is useless. Should I draw it and need it in a stress full situation.....ooops i'm toast. Or what if I have my xdm and a round isn't chambered and I need it quickly? If I don't depress the grip saftey just right then the slide won't even rack back.
I work at Michelin in the big truck tire division. We swing 5 shifts every month. Some 8 hr. days and nights and some 12 hr days and nights. So we get fatigued and brain fade from time to time. The company has saftey devices all over our machinery.(Trying to account for all human error that may occur.) If you make one wrong move on the machine, it can shut the whole machine and building process down. In a time crunch to make production that is valuable time lost reseting all the saftey devices to get the machine back up and running because you accidentally hit a saftey device. We have 5 cardinal saftey rules we must abide by while on the clock. If the 2000 men employed at the facility abide by the rules they will go home just like they clocked in.
Same thing with fire arms if you abide by the cardinal saftey rules you will be fine period.
If you are more accident prone than the average jo, or careless, or don't pay attention to what your doing you shouldn't: drive cars or operate industrial machinery, and most definately not mess with fire arms.
Gun companies should not start designing un user friendly fire arms because a few people are careless. I'm pretty sure the gun manufacturers have the technology to make a gun that requries the shooter to " press button A, while at the same time pulling lever B, and then twist the 3 knobs on top, then your gun will fire. What good will that be. You have to put a certain amount of responsibility on the human being to do the right thing.

 

[Weevil]

Yeah I'd agree that Glocks aren't as idiot proof as some other pistols.


If you "inadvertently" pull the trigger it's gonna go off, of course if you "inadvertently" pull the trigger on a gun with a grip safety it'll go off too since you're usually holding the pistol when you pull the trigger, if you "inadvertently" pull the trigger on a pistol with a manual safety and the safety isn't on it'll go off too.


Now external safeties would help if you use a really cheesy holster or let your clothes droop into your holster, but then again only if your hand isn't on the grip, [not sure how you'd holster one without holding the grip though], and/or you remember to put the manual safety on.


Yeah extra safeties sometimes help to idiot proof a pistol to an extent, but nothing is ever going to protect you everytime if you are careless when holstering a gun or have a habit of "inadvertently" pulling the trigger.

 

[Lord Palmerston]

It is easier to negligentally/accidentally disengage the manual safety of a 1911 and causing a ND/AD than negligentally/accidentally pull the trigger all the way back in a GLOCK, imho.

 

[wideym]

Most Glock AD/ND that I have heard about since the early 90's have mainly happened when the operator was attempting to disassemble the pistol.

What mainly happened was that nobody ever had to pull the trigger to disassemble a pistol before, and either forgot to check the chamber or while checking the chamber forgot to drop the mag and chambered a round.

Many long time gun owners and expecially Concealled Carry Permit holders become so complacent about safety, that they literally shoot themselves in the foot.

 

[holsm50]

With the exception of my revolvers and lever action rifles, all of my firearms have manual safeties. This includes many pistols, rifles and shotguns. Operating a manual safety is not rocket science. With practice, it becomes second nature with little or no thinking involved, and virtually no lost time. Click on, click off. It's not complicated.

To those people who feel that they would fumble a manual safety under stress, I would state that they should seriously consider whether they should be carrying any type of firearm without being totally familiar with the weapon and proficient. It all comes down to practice. If they are the type of person who fumbles under stress, there is a good chance that they won't be able hit what they are shooting at with the Glock, despite the absence of a manual safety.

I have seen the results of time-testing for drawing and firing a number of pistols with manual safeties. On average, the difference between drawing and firing with the safety-on vs. safety-off is about .25 to .30 seconds. Unless you're in a wild west fast draw competition, this difference in time is meaningless.

When it comes to hunting, I would never hunt with anyone who did not have a manual safety on his rifle or shotgun that was kept engaged at all times until ready to shoot. To do otherwise is to invite disaster. I see no difference when it comes to pistols.

I know this reply is a little off the original topic of Glock mechanical failures vs. operator error, and I apologize. I was actually trying to reply "thefamcnaj's" recent post.

 

[Weevil]

I always use a safety on my shotguns and rifles when hunting too.

That's what makes me leery about having one on an SD handgun.

There's been more than a couple of times where I've gotten excited by the sight of a deer or a flock of ducks took aim pulled the trigger and "CLICK"!

Oops I forgot the safety.


Now it really sucks to miss a shot on a trophy buck but I would really hate for that to happen if I was attacked and had to pull out a handgun.

It's nice to think we'd be calm cool and collected if suddenly attacked without warning but I'm not so sure.

That's why I like a point and shoot type of weapon.

I'm not planning on well aimmed shots using the sights but rather a sudden and violent CQB situatation with shots fired at very close if not point blank ranges.

Of course YMMV and you maybe be planning for other scenarios that are less stressful.

 

[holsm50]

Yes, I certainly understand the argument you make. It is essentially the standard Glock marketing hype/argument that they have been so successful with in selling to the public. After all, when police departments began transitioning from revolvers to semi-automatics in the mid-1980's, one of the main selling points (aside from the plastic frame, cheap cost, and buy-back/give-away programs) that separated Glock from the competition was that the pistol lacked a manual safety. Up until Glock came along, it was virtually unheard of for a semi-automatic not to have at least a manual safety. I have often said the genius of Glock is his marketing and his ability to turn what would seem to be a negative into a positive. He certainly started a trend, which other manufacturers quickly followed because they feared they were being left in the dust.

The problem, of course, is that as soon as LEA's started transitioning from revolvers to Glock's, AD/ND's skyrocketed. The D.C. police department alone had over 120 AD/ND's. Cops were accidentally shooting themselves, shooting their partners, shooting bystanders, and shooting suspects. They couldn't keep their fingers off the trigger, particularly when under stress. There have been numerous detailed studies that have established that under stressful conditions, it is very difficult for police officers to keep their fingers outside the trigger guard, despite the best of training. If trained professionals have difficulty keeping their fingers off the trigger in stressful situations, just think how hard it would be for the average Joe.

So, back to my point. There have been literally hundreds, if not thousands, accidental/negligent discharges of Glock pistols. Many go unreported because no one was hurt. For the average guy who owns a pistol for self-defense, he is likely to live his entire life without ever needing to use the gun in a life-threatening situation. Yet, he may be carrying the pistol everyday, where there is always a chance for a mishap and AD/ND of the weapon. In my judgment, the advantages of having a manual safety to reduce the risk of AD/ND far outweigh the unlikely event he will actually be called upon to draw his weapon to defend himself or others, where he might fumble with the safety. And as I said before, if he practices with the safety, it becomes an instinctual response.

Obviously, the effects of stress can be argued as pros or cons for a manual safety. It seems to me that the advantages of a manual safety (and/or grip safety) in reducing the risk of AD/ND outweigh the disadvantages, which, in my opinion, can be overcome with practice. Just ask any guy with a case of Glock leg.

 

[amd6547]

I am safety conscious to the extreme...after all, when I was young and foolish, I had a negligent discharge involving a pistol which HAD a safety.
Having learned my lesson the hard way (not too hard, as no one was hurt...I just had to endure the loudest shot I hope to ever hear, and reaction of my Father), I am anal regarding the loaded state of my pistols chamber.
I recently went back into Glocks in a big way, finding them accurate and reliable.
In the few months I have carried and shot the two Glocks I own, I have trained myself to the Glock manual of arms.
My finger is off the trigger unless I am preparing to fire...I keep my trigger finger straight along the frame, the tip resting in the notch where the takedown latch is. I practice moving my finger onto the trigger from this ready position.
Yes, the Glock requires pulling the trigger prior to disassembly...pistol is fully loaded, and continue to check it even when I KNOW it isn't.
I use a stiff kydex holster which covers the trigger guard, and use care when holstering...loaded or not.
I intend that my Glock will never fire unless I want it to, and trust that it will when I do.

 

[Paul7]

I personally consider the Glock to be inherently less safe than a gun with a stiff double action pull or manual safety. That little trigger thingy is nothing but a gimmick. Col. Jeff Cooper said he couldn't even imagine a circumstance where it would be useful.

Interesting how even he once had an AD, but the keyboard commandos here think it could never happen to them.

From my experienc, Glocks aren't especially reliable either.