I've Been Saying This For YEARS

One thing thats always amazed me about the safety arguments is, once the gun is in your hand, the safety should be "off" and if possible, secured at off.

If its in a "proper" holster, its safe, safety or not. And from personal experience carrying handguns with safeties in holsters for over 25 years, the safety doesnt always stay on in the holster either.

And with just minor stress or distraction, the safety doesnt always go back on, or the gun decocked, depending on the gun, while reholstering. So basic, good gun handling of a gun "without a safety", should be the base and norm of how you handle "all" guns.

And if you cant safely handle, carry, and shoot a firearm without a safety, then you shoudnt be handling a firearm at all. ;)
 
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Makes sense to me. Most of my handguns don't have a manual safety, but I will say I have no issues when it comes to intuitively flicking the safety on and off when shooting my AR-15. If you have the safety on your handgun as well, it would be just as easy to train that into muscle memory. Mass points out some fair pros to having one... though I still prefer no manual safety on my own sidearm.
 
Just bought a gun for my daughter who is just beginning to want a handgun to carry. I needed something small, not because she is a girl, but because I know her…she would dismiss out of hand anything large.

I looked at a lot of options. I’m a Glock fan, but for her, I wanted an external safety. I ended up with a Hellcat OSP with external safety.

I’m getting her some training too…and if she doesn’t want to use the safety later on, it’s not a big deal. The gun has a typical striker trigger.

But I agree with most here…it’s a personal preference…

Biggest issue I see is folks who have really light triggers on striker fired guns without a safety. That can be a problem.
 
lysanderxiii said:
Double action revolvers generally did not have safeties . . .

For about 100 years these were the most popular handguns in the US.
Click to expand...

Here we find the answer for why this issue comes up so often and why there’s so much contention around it.

The reason why double action revolvers were and are (largely) considered safe to carry ready to fire in a holster without any kind of safety is because of the particulars of how a revolvers mechanism functions. Specifically, the trigger being pulled all the way to the rear on a double action revolver is resisted not only by the weight of the hammers mainspring and the triggers return spring, but also be it’s linkage to the cylinder. The cylinder is likely to have extra resistance to turning by almost any holster it resides in, or even by being tucked into a sufficiently cinched waistband.

This is why I am comfortable appendix carrying a revolver with an uncovered trigger, while I would never be willing to carry any chambered semi auto in the same fashion.
 
HELL NO

Neither do lever action rifles

Ralph Nader can KMA.

Everything doesn't need to be stupid proof.

Pay attention S&W, Heritage, Marlin, Winchester, et al.
 
I won't tell someone whether they should carry a gun with a safety or not, but if you do carry one with a safety practice with it to where disengaging the safety is intuitive. There's about a dozen of us who volunteer as armed security for our church, and we train together twice a month. During one of these training sessions one of the guys who normally carries a gun without a safety used a 1911 he just purchased as a range gun during a timed drill. He drew it from his holster and pulled the trigger without disengaging the safety. It took him a second or two to realize why the gun didn't go off, obviously not a position you want to be in if you're drawing your gun in a self defense situation.
 
trackskippy said:
One thing thats always amazed me about the safety arguments is, once the gun is in your hand, the safety should be "off" and if possible, secured at off.

If its in a "proper" holster, its safe, safety or not. And from personal experience carrying handguns with safeties in holsters for over 25 years, the safety doesnt always stay on in the holster either.

And with just minor stress or distraction, the safety doesnt always go back on, or the gun decocked, depending on the gun, while reholstering. So basic, good gun handling of a gun "without a safety", should be the base and norm of how you handle "all" guns.

And if you cant safely handle, carry, and shoot a firearm without a safety, then you shoudnt be handling a firearm at all. ;)
Click to expand...

Completely agree on all points.
 
I disagree but I’m glad there are options for what everyone likes. My preference is for striker fired guns with long trigger pulls and a trigger dingus. The presence of a manual safety is a big detraction for me on such a gun. If it has one it needs to be small and unobtrusive enough to be very unlikely to accidentally engage. My only pistols that I carry with a manual safety are a ruger sr9 and sr40. I use the safety to holster the gun and click it off when it’s in the holster and it’s small enough I’ve never had it inadvertently engaged.
 
someguy2800 said:
I disagree but I’m glad there are options for what everyone likes. My preference is for striker fired guns with long trigger pulls and a trigger dingus. The presence of a manual safety is a big detraction for me on such a gun. If it has one it needs to be small and unobtrusive enough to be very unlikely to accidentally engage. My only pistols that I carry with a manual safety are a ruger sr9 and sr40. I use the safety to holster the gun and click it off when it’s in the holster and it’s small enough I’ve never had it inadvertently engaged.
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I’ve certainly had a SR9c safety disengage in the holster, I wouldn’t trust them to stay off. Perhaps you have a better holster.
 
JR24 said:
I’ve certainly had a SR9c safety disengage in the holster, I wouldn’t trust them to stay off. Perhaps you have a better holster.
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It’s a thumb break holster that covers the safety when buckled on both sides. It’s never moved for me but certainly possible depending on holster design.
 
It's all about risk management.
  • What controls can we place on the firearm to lessen the chance it will go off accidentally?
  • What risk do those controls create regarding the ability of the firearm to fire on purpose?
  • Does the presence of the controls placed on the firearm increase our confidence in the configuration to enable us to carry, or do they increase our confidence into arrogance that we ignore other safety rules because "the safety is on"?
I think these are personal choices. In my opinion, you should have four safety groups:
  • Understanding of and respect for the rules of gun safety.
  • "Drop" safeties designed to prevent the hammer from firing without the trigger being pulled (such as with a revolver's transfer bar).
  • A good holster that covers the trigger guard and retains the firearm well. [Note this is specifically for a carry gun, you can use other means to protect the trigger in home defense guns, or leave the chamber empty].
  • One of a) a manual safety, b) a long DA trigger pull, c) a trigger safety, or d) a DA/SA pistol where the DA trigger is used as the safety when in DA mode, and a safety or decocker is used to bring us to options A or B.
That last bullet point is where you can go from "minimum" to whatever your "preferred" level of safety is. We can bicker and argue about what preferred is, and whether the minimum should be more strict, but I doubt there's many folk on here who will argue that the minimum I mention is too strict.
 
I agree with Ayoob about this, at least for police guns. I can understand people who do not practice with a firearm much not wanting a manual safety. But having an on/off switch on a weapon that is cocked or semi-cocked makes sense to me. With DA revolvers, or DAO pistols in general, I think it can be omittted.

But then, I get along pretty well with mechanical devices. Heck, I used to buy cars with a stick shift! :)
 
Skribs said:
It's all about risk management.
  • What controls can we place on the firearm to lessen the chance it will go off accidentally?
  • What risk do those controls create regarding the ability of the firearm to fire on purpose?
  • Does the presence of the controls placed on the firearm increase our confidence in the configuration to enable us to carry, or do they increase our confidence into arrogance that we ignore other safety rules because "the safety is on"?
I think these are personal choices. In my opinion, you should have four safety groups:
  • Understanding of and respect for the rules of gun safety.
  • "Drop" safeties designed to prevent the hammer from firing without the trigger being pulled (such as with a revolver's transfer bar).
  • A good holster that covers the trigger guard and retains the firearm well. [Note this is specifically for a carry gun, you can use other means to protect the trigger in home defense guns, or leave the chamber empty].
  • One of a) a manual safety, b) a long DA trigger pull, c) a trigger safety, or d) a DA/SA pistol where the DA trigger is used as the safety when in DA mode, and a safety or decocker is used to bring us to options A or B.
That last bullet point is where you can go from "minimum" to whatever your "preferred" level of safety is. We can bicker and argue about what preferred is, and whether the minimum should be more strict, but I doubt there's many folk on here who will argue that the minimum I mention is too strict.
Click to expand...

Very well said.
 
Monac said:
I agree with Ayoob about this, at least for police guns. I can understand people who do not practice with a firearm much not wanting a manual safety. But having an on/off switch on a weapon that is cocked or semi-cocked makes sense to me. With DA revolvers, or DAO pistols in general, I think it can be omittted.

But then, I get along pretty well with mechanical devices. Heck, I used to buy cars with a stick shift! :)
Click to expand...

Yeah I don’t think generalizations about police really apply the same to civilians. His argument for why police should have them to avoid getting shot with there own gun doesn’t apply that much to me. While it’s not impossible for someone to try to take my gun and kill me with it, I don’t tackle and handcuff people for a living so my chances of getting in a physical struggle with someone are not the same as the police.
 
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