Trying to fire your gun with the safety on is also a thing that is completely avoidable and should always perfectly avoided. But it is not either.
I’ve seen a whole lot more of the failure-to-fire on account of a safety than I have of GlockFoot.
Considering equivalent training levels, I’d guess the GlockFoot is much the lower risk, and in a self-defense setting… well, I’ll go with the glock.
And everyone has to make their own choices.
For someone who will only carry if their firearm has a safety, I recommend carrying with a safety and a LOT of practice. Definitely better than not carrying.
When their confidence and familiarity with firearms increases, they may reconsider their options.
Safety is important and I have to remind myself every time that a firearms are dangerous
at all times. I have safeties on some firearms like 1911s’ and all rifles. But I do enjoy all semi automatics like Glocks and Sig Sauer’s that are without manual safeties…………
I prefer not to have a safety on any striker-fired weapon but, I do have a manual safety on my Kimber 1911. I carry daily and I have a round chambered at all times. When I carry the Kimber, it is on safe with the hammer cocked. If I were to need to draw my weapon, I have trained to unsafe the weapon as I draw. No need for that with striker-fired weapons.
A new shooter would need to decide what type of weapon to purchase and train with that weapon to decide if they desire a safety. I recommend to new shooters that ask my opinion to purchase a striker-fired weapon to start with and advance to a 1911 or similar after they become comfortable and competent with weapon safety in general.
For some of us old timers we realize the people interested in weapons of any kind are tied to tradition and lore. Sometimes our equipment changes to modify the perceptions we grew up with. I have friends that are into, “cowboy” guns. To this day some of them carry the guns with a empty hole under the hammer. I have come to accept that the safety bar blocks the hammer till the trigger is pulled back.
All my long guns have a manual safety. Two of my Hand guns have a manual safety. One old pocket gun is a single action striker fired weapon without a safety that I wouldn’t own without a manual safety. I don’t believe they had to pass the mandatory drop test back when it was made. And one in the pipe is how I believe a carry gun should be carried.
All that being said I do have a question for some that don’t use a manual safety. We read in some gun magazines and internet sites about getting a shirt or jacket caught on the trigger while re-holstering a weapon and the gun goes off. I haven’t experienced such an event so is that not a concern and is a wives tale?
I mostly carry an M&P 9 with a round chambered. The weapon is striker fired and does not have an external safety.
I have never had the issue you described and I believe if you have a holster with a fairly rigid top, you should have no issues with re-holstering.
Yes its possible, in theory, but I don’t know anyone it’s happened to, nor does my hubby and he’s been in firearms since forever.
Consider what would have to happen with my Glock… I’d have to get a shirt segment to loop around the trigger inside the trigger guard, which I don’t know how I’d even do, and then it would have to get hold of the trigger safety in a way to engage it, and then I’d have to get the shirt jammed up in a way that inserting my gun in the holster would apply 5.5 lbs of pull through a long takeup and breakover.
I’m not sure I could make that happen if I tried.
That said, even when I “KNOW” my gun is unloaded, I am careful to not point it at anything I don’t want to destroy. So I am careful, in the same attitude, to make sure my holster is clear when I holster.
@Zee
I have had my doubts as well but you do read about guns discharging when a windbreaker toggle gets caught in the trigger guard. I simply don’t have a dog in the fight but it did trouble me when qualifying. The instructor wanted us to re-holster without looking so I removed my windbreaker. Not from experience but from what I had read.
I know this is a blog but it is easier than looking through a stack of gun magazines for a reference.
I do have a friend who shot his foot. When I asked how he just said he was just being dumb.
@Robert5 … yeah, “being dumb” will get you every time. well, maybe not EVERY time, but you know what I mean.
a toggle? sure, it COULD happen. and… bought my first firearm in 1977… and my hubby has been an active competitor since maybe a dozen years before that. Neither of us know anyone who’s had the issue.
Its not something I worry about, but when I am not under pressure, if there’s anything floppy in my clothing, I’m “looking” my gun into the holster.
If I’m in an emergency where I can’t take my eyes away from … whatever… to look at my holster, chances are good I probably shouldn’t be holstering anyway.
@Zee THIS for the win! Too many range trained folks are for some reason in a hurry to get the gun back in the holster.
The only pistol I own without a manual safety is my XD Tactical. I know they make them with manual safeties as I saw them on display at the 08’ & 09’ SHOT Show. Would love to get my hands on one.
I agree - train how you mean to fight. This is why even when I’m shooting competition, my gun remains out and on-target after the last round until the RSO says “clear and holster”. Because that sense of “done and stand down” needs to be very, very deliberate. Lots of folks do the clear as soon as they’re done without waiting for the RSO… that automatic stand-down is a reflex I do not want to cultivate.
I have a mix… I prefer the trigger safety of my Glocks, but I have guns I use for teaching that have both manual safety and no-manual safety. I want students to be able to try and use both before they decide what’s best for them.
At a gun show I bought a P238 on impulse and regret it to this day. Such a small, cute firearm but I would not carry it because of that safety. So it sits in the safe and I roll with my P365 with G19 as HD and G26 as a bug out.
we used to have some safe queens… Mostly because my hubby never sold anything firearm. The last couple of years, the ones we don’t love have gotten new homes so something we do love can take its place. Just saying someone might love that p238…
@Zee
I have MANY more safe queens than I have “shooters”. That said I collect as well as shoot. I have made a concerted effort to utilize the vast majority of my safe queens at least once in the field. There are a few that have never been fired (by me) and will stay that way, simply because if I get to them the world has been in a hand basket for a long time and I am scraping the bottom of the barrel on ammo.
Carried a Beretta 92F for many years on duty. Dept. Policy was to have the safety on when holstered. Flicking the safety off when drawing was pure muscle memory.
I tend to have a type of gun, so I have quite a few .45’s that I have, but I also like unusual so I have quite a few “Safe Queen’s”. But I do have them nicely divided. If “The fecal matter has hit the impellor blade” I have "bags( that have multiple pistols all chambered in the same calibre, multiple rifles again all the same calibre, same with Shotguns).
The rest I bring out to play regularly. Guns are usually a pretty sold investment anyways.
I have an acquaintance who has more guns than many gun stores. Literally. He says they’re his retirement fund because no matter what happens with the economy, guns will always sell. The worse things get, the more they’re worth.
I agree - train how you mean to fight. This is why even when I’m shooting competition, my gun remains out and on-target after the last round until the RSO says “clear and holster”. Because that sense of “done and stand down” needs to be very, very deliberate. Lots of folks do the clear as soon as they’re done without waiting for the RSO… that automatic stand-down is a reflex I do not want to cultivate.