Thanks. There's a level of doggedness around this "safeties are hard" view that boggles my mind. The premise seems to be that a person will:
This last hardly seems like the weakest link in the chain to me. Meanwhile, the average non-LEO, non-combat-zone person who carries a gun will need to shoot someone, on average, somewhere between zero and one times in their life, with the mean, median, and mode at or near zero. Yet they will holster a loaded weapon countless times, and in most or all of those instances, a discharge would be somewhere in the very-bad to catastrophic range.
- Have sufficient situational awareness to be able to recognize the need for lethal force (i.e., not be taken so unawares as to be defenseless);
- Have sufficient control over their faculties to draw a weapon, including clearing any cover garment or opening the glove box or manipulating any retention devices or storage compartments between their hands and the gun;
- Have sufficient judgment and decision-making faculties to accurately assess the situation and make a sound shoot/no-shoot decision that comports with law (and morality, if you care about that);
- Have sufficient dexterity to get a workable grip on the weapon (including lightweight semi-autos that are known to have malfunctions if not gripped securely); and
- Have sufficient fine motor control to pull the trigger straight to the rear, quickly and perhaps repeatedly, sufficiently well to "place" shots in vital areas; BUT
- Be unable to push/grab a lever during the draw that is positioned to require nothing more than the standard firing grip.
But adults are adults, and get to make their own decisions. That's cool.
Under stress, with adrenaline roaring through the bloodstream, folks make a lot of mistakes, even when trained. Police routinely hit ~10% of fired shots in a officer-involved shootings. Adding a safety doubles the complexity of the mechanical motions required and doubles the probability of an error. That is why I prefer DA/SA hammer down (CZ 75), since there is less to think about, and the first shot is less likely to be inadvertent. Unfortunately, there are no subcompact DA/DA single-stack pistols, so I carry a 9mm Shield and am very careful with the trigger.