Glock (almost) Perfection?

Fernando--

The Glocks are very nice guns and have lots of performance features to commend them.

The only thing I disagree with is the lack of a positive mechanical safety.

I know that devotees of the non-safety pistols get defensive when anyone takes exception to this design feature.

But--anyone trained to a level of competent pistol shooter can train to take the safety into account when they do need to deliberately fire the weapon.

And--when they don't need to have the weapon fire, or heaven forbid not have it fire when somebody who should not have their hands on the gun (but somehow got hold of it)--then that is when the manual safety earns its plaudits!

We see too many cases with the non-safety pistols where gun owners (including experts) somehow shoot themselves or others, kids get hold of a gun and shoot themselves or others--where a mechanical safety properly employed would have likely saved people from harm.

I realize that everyone who has not had such an incident happen in their own lives will poo-poo and object to suggestions along these lines, but consider how many tragedies might have been prevented happening to others like themselves who did have things go bad for themselves or their loved ones.

Best wishes,
Larry
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hi Larry,
I cant say I agree with you on this one and I believe I have a good foundations for the point I’ll try to make.
No, I don’t think the Glock needs a safety.
1)Revolvers don’t have safeties, and no one ever thought of bothering putting one in them other than some oddity here and there. Nearly all firearms experts agree revolvers don’t need safeties. Revolvers do have longer and stiffer trigger pulls in double action, but that doesn’t change the fact that they are perfectly ok without a manual safety and the double action only trigger pull in a standard Glock is stiff enough to avoid the kind of accidental discharges that sometimes happen with hair triggers and single action only firearms like the venerable 1911.
2)Talking about the 1911, that was my first handgun. I spent years training with it, so much that when I went to the dark side and got my Glock, I spent years disengaging a safety that wasn’t there anymore whenever I drew the gun. No problem there since its just a reflex thumb flick on the side of the Glock.
3)In terms of legal problems and accidental/negligent discharges due to lack of manual safety, notice that most police departments seem to be ok with Glocks anyway, in spite of the complicated legal situation they often find themselves in.
4)The British army recently adopted the Glock 17, no problem with the lack of safety there. SEAL did so too, as have other special forces around the world. The truth is that as long as the shooter does its part and carries the gun in a holster Glocks are perfectly safe. The accidental/negligent discharges can still happen with guns with safeties, all they have to do is disengage it and pull the trigger. They key part of the problem being pulling the trigger when you don’t really intend to do so. I think there a good reason why firearms instructors, shooting experts and specialists overwhelming favour Glock both for themselves and for arming others.
5) I will concede that in a fight, at night, and after losing control of your weapon, an attack may grab your weapon and fail to disengage a safety while trying to shoot you. Then again I believe that the advantage of having a Glock, the best handgun for combat and defence. Greatly out weights the chances of what has to be admitted as a rare, unlikely scenario compared to much more probable ones. As for kids, I believe that if a child has a loaded gun that’s already a disaster. I believe also that most kids will easily figure out a safety. They are simple enough to figure out for a kid that ever played videogames or even owned a toy gun. If a child has hold of a loaded gun and is playing around with it trying to figure out how to operate it you have messed up bad as a parent already and chances are that with any loaded firearm you’re looking at a tragedy about to happen. If anything, keep your gun in a quick access safe or use a trigger lock. They are cheap enough and much better insurance than praying a child doesn’t figure out the use of the safety which he most likely will.
FerFAL
Fernando “FerFAL” Aguirre is the author of “The Modern Survival Manual: Surviving the Economic Collapse” and “Bugging Out and Relocating: When Staying is not an Option”.