A new strategy in the attack on guns?

[T.O.M.]

Read this over the weekend...

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-owens-glock-accidents-20150508-story.html

Premise is that the Glock and similar "short, light trigger" designs are too dangerous for general use in law enforcement, because officers don't always follow their training and put their finger on the trigger.  It also attacks Glocks for the design feature of having to pull the trigger during the take-down process.  More or less it says that the design would be fine if humans were perfect and did what they were trained to do, but humans aren't perfect, and people are getting hurt and dying because of the Glock design.

Now, I know it's crap, as do all of you.  But, reading this piece made me wonder.  First, it's setting the stage for a lot of lawsuits against the manufacturers of striker fired handguns.  Ambulance chasers will argue that negligent discharges aren't operator error, they are the fault of the design.  I imagine that some lawyers will allege that intentional shootings were unintentional results of the bad design as well, just looking for cash. 

Second, if there are enough lawsuits, and we'll see agencies drop the Glock, not for tactical reasons but for risk management reasons. City attorneys will convince the administration that Glock style pistols are lawsuits waiting to happen.  If you can reduce this risk by just buying a traditional DA/SA design, that will be what they do. Smith & Wesson might see a surge in interest in their manual safety version of the M&P, as that would imply that the city took action to reduce the risk.  It's crap, but it's foreseeable.

And I'm sure some do-gooder legislator will try to institute legislation about minimum trigger pull weight, or a manual safety requirement.  After all, studies have shown that the Glock type pistols are too dangerous in the hands of highly trained law enforcement officers, so they are obviously too dangerous to be allowed in the hands of untrained civilians.

Thoughts?

[Ben]

They already did the Glock trigger thing in NYC some years back, yes? Is it still active?

I would be curious regarding LE accident stats in European countries that use the Glock. Or Walther for that matter. The PPQ has a very light trigger and short reset, designed in part for military and LE applications in Europe from what I have read. I don't, in general, ever see stats on LE firearm accidents in the EU. It would be interesting to compare as part of a discussion of Glocks being "inherently dangerous" for LE use.

[MechAg94]

Sounds like they are taking the "hair trigger" fear and trying to pull in some Glock criticisms from the pro-gun side of things. 

[seeker_two]

Maybe S&W will start making the 3rd Gen guns again?.....

.....otherwise, this will be silly.

[HankB]

Yep - if you pull the trigger and the gun actually fires, it's unsafe and should be banned.   

[brimic]

Akai Gurley died in another New York housing project stairwell last fall. A rookie officer with his finger on the trigger of his pistol tensed as he pushed open a stuck door; the added pressure on the trigger caused his weapon to fire a shot down the stairwell.

This isn't a gun problem. No attention to safety plus sympathetic muscle response= tragedy.

[Perd Hapley]

This isn't a gun problem. No attention to safety plus sympathetic muscle response= tragedy.

No, no, that was purely racism.

[roo_ster]

Maybe S&W will start making the 3rd Gen guns again?.....

.....otherwise, this will be silly.

Couldn't find 4006 .40S&W mags on the S&W website.  How sad, since there are a LOT of S&W 3rd gen semi-autos out there that are perfectly serviceable.  I wouldn't mind a DAO in 9mm.

[BlueStarLizzard]

meh.

It seems to me that every few years, someone on the anti gun side of the equation tries to make waves with this particular bit of non logic and it always fizzles.

I think it is because it's too technical for the target audience and doesn't come with good sound bites. "The shoulder thing that goes up", bayonets and "high capacity" magazines are obviously scary, easy to see and easy for the anti gunner to point at and rant about. For an anti gunners to try to explain the nuances of various types of actions and triggers (which the anti gunner is completely ignorant of in the first place) to someone on the fence and actually make it sound scary enough without screwing up the few "details" they actually do have to get sort of right is just not going to happen, especially when they have easier to lie about, more obvious things to rant about.

[brimic]

meh.

It seems to me that every few years, someone on the anti gun side of the equation tries to make waves with this particular bit of non logic and it always fizzles.

I think it is because it's too technical for the target audience and doesn't come with good sound bites. "The shoulder thing that goes up", bayonets and "high capacity" magazines are obviously scary, easy to see and easy for the anti gunner to point at and rant about. For an anti gunners to try to explain the nuances of various types of actions and triggers (which the anti gunner is completely ignorant of in the first place) to someone on the fence and actually make it sound scary enough without screwing up the few "details" they actually do have to get sort of right is just not going to happen, especially when they have easier to lie about, more obvious things to rant about.

My favorites are when antis extol the virtues of a gun they supposedly own in order to try to build their credibility before talking about gun bans- this seems to be a common ploy these days.
Locally, a newspaper columnist says he's pro 2A and even owns a 'colt double barrel shotgun' that was handed down from his grandfather, then went on to say we need to ban anything that holds more than 5 rounds, etc. I googled 'colt double barrel shotgun' because I wasn't even sure if they existed- yep they do, they were made in the 1880s, and would be considered an unfireable relic these days due to the damascus construction of the barrel.

[T.O.M.]

http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2015/05/robert-farago/bob-owens-cops-shouldnt-bear-glocks/

Apparently, the author of the OpEd piece is Bob Owens,  a 2A advocate from bearingarms.com.  Makes me wonder what the hell he's doing...

[Regolith]

http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2015/05/robert-farago/bob-owens-cops-shouldnt-bear-glocks/

Apparently, the author of the OpEd piece is Bob Owens,  a 2A advocate from bearingarms.com.  Makes me wonder what the hell he's doing...

Trying to find out how fast he can get Zumbo'd, apparently...

[Angel Eyes]

A similar narrative is being disseminated about the S&W M&P line:

http://www.armedpolitesociety.com/index.php?topic=50380.0

[MikeB]

I'm not particularly a Glock fan even though I own a couple. I don't see how they are really any different from a Revolver though when it comes to the whole "no-safety" and just pull the trigger though. Never mind all the other guns like Kahr's that have no safety other than not pulling the trigger. Sounds like training issue to me.

[MechAg94]

There are lots of guns with SA triggers.  Even DA only guns could be argued to the have the same safety issue if the shooters are careless enough. 

[MechAg94]

The truth about guns article alluded to a point I agree with.  If the trigger is heavy or long, you will just have untrained officers riding the trigger more often which is just as dangerous. 

[BlueStarLizzard]

*shrug* it's not a question of trigger or any other firearm feature. They could have any trigger out there and still have ND issues.

8 hours of training on top of minimal firearms training to begin with and almost no practice (except what they needed to pass one dinky yearly qualifier) is an accident waiting to happen. Especially when you add in the ego issues that come from giving some people a badge.