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Comment by Doxin | Hacker News Reader

> It's built into the trigger mechanism.

What, so pressing the trigger automatically disengages the safety? As a non-gun-person that seems like an insane design decision.

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It is probably better to say that Glocks have no safety. This is actually quite safe in practice because pistols are holstered in common use -- this makes them very different from rifles, shotguns, &c. With a pistol safety, there is an intermediate, "unholstered-but-on-safe" state that doesn't exist with rifles. This turns out to be dangerous in practice because people can think the pistol is on safe when it isn't; or think it is ready to fire when they need it to and, lo and behold, it's not. It turns out to be safer in practice to just assume the gun is shootable when it's out of the holster -- and if that's not safe enough for the situation you're in, put it back in the holster!

Glocks have a system that is systems called "safe action" where there is a system of internal locks that prevents the weapon from firing in situations where the gun is dropped, hit by a car, struck from the side, &c -- this is not really what most people are thinking of when they think of a safety. It turns out to be very important in practice, though. If a police car gets hit by another car and the guns go off that's going to be a bad day for everyone.

There were some cases of officers shooting through the floor of their cruiser because the seatbelt tang somehow could get inside one brand of holster and pull the trigger.

It does seem like the right balance hasn't been found yet.

Which brand? What is the "tang" of a seatbelt? It us hard for me to imagine a seatbelt buckle actually getting into a holster, but I would like to learn more about this.

When I read about it, I couldn't understand it either. They didn't explain precisely, but IIRC, it was a pistol with a tactical light, which explains why there might be more space that usual. I couldn't find the particular incident, however.

This sort of thing is unfortunately somewhat common:

https://www.thetrace.org/2023/04/sig-sauer-p320-upgrade-safe...

https://safariland.com/pages/service-bulletins

The sig p320 thing isn't about safeties at all but a mechanical design flaw that the company has remedied with a recall. And that safariland link just seems like safariland is a terrible manufacturer of holsters.

If this is the one I’m thinking of it was pretty clear that there was a police department that was incompetent and blaming negligent discharges on the firearm instead of on true officers.

Maybe, but all those police departments were there before...and the Glocks didn't ND.

>This turns out to be dangerous in practice because people can think the pistol is on safe when it isn't

One of the golden rules of gun safety is to not point a gun at something you do not intend to kill (the rule usually uses "destroy" because gun culture loves playing down the danger of guns) so if this is actually an issue then responsible gun owners are not as common as they should be.

What do you think "actually an issue" means in this context?

For the most part, the development of striker fired pistols and duty holsters was driven by police and military use; these are contexts where a person draws a pistol several times a day (on some days) and hundreds or thousands of times a year. General process safety concerns -- like reducing the number of "safe" states that people have to think about -- do matter in that context.

>What, so [pulling] the trigger automatically disengages the safety?

Correct. There's a few other internal safeties to help ensure it doesn't go off unless someone is pulling the trigger and (hopefully) intending to fire.

It's still drop safe and not going to go off by itself, but if you fire it (and there's a round in the chamber), it's going off.

>As a non-gun-person that seems like an insane design decision

There's certainly tradeoffs. It's simpler and you're not going to accidentally forget to disengage a safety at the worst possible time (when you actually need to be using a gun), but it does increase the risk when improperly handling the firearm which is a risk not everyone is cool with for obvious reasons (and even experienced operators (incl. Law Enforcement being generous, which largely carry Glocks) are human and can make mistakes).

> you're not going to accidentally forget to disengage a safety at the worst possible time

That's much better than the opposite problem: forgetting to engage the safety and accidentally discharging.

> it does increase the risk when improperly handling the firearm

I just feel like having to toggle a switch before killing a man is the least you can do to avoid accidents.

>That's much better than the opposite problem: forgetting to engage the safety and accidentally discharging.

If you're following the firearm safety rules you're not pointed at anything/anybody you don't wish to destroy so it's a moot point. (yourself included, though at least in that case nobody else was harmed needlessly)

A safety lockout (or lacktherof) shouldn't be a factor in your pointing of a gun at someone and pulling the trigger.

>I just feel like having to toggle a switch before killing a man is the least you can do to avoid accidents.

It's extremely rare for someone who isn't being extremely negligent to be in a position where they could "accidently" kill someone.

Could a safety prevent such an occurrence? It's very well possible and that might be a reason to prefer a firearm with sufficient safeties that increases your comfort.

On the other hand some people decided that they're cautious enough and by in large most people avoid accidents and practice good safety practices to avoid harm should one happen.

There's trade offs either way, but ultimately it's preference.

I'm aware of firearm safety rules and all that. That's not my problem with this. My problem is that the safety on a firearm is part of a defense-in-depth type situation. Removing the safety switch removes a layer of that defense. I hope I don't need to explain why that's a bad thing on this forum.

There’s also the “if you ever pull the trigger in a situation where the safety keeps it from firing, you are doing something horribly wrong”. People often treat the safety as a “gun off” switch when it should never be considered that. I understand the Glock philosophy - no gun is “safe” until you’ve personally verified that there is no ammunition in it at all, and even then it should be treated as if it is loaded.

Relying on a safety to keep it “safe” is usually the first step in ventilation of the floor or ceiling.

I invite you to re-read my previous comment and meditate some on what "defense in depth" means. Of course you're not supposed to rely on the safety, but that doesn't mean it should be removed. The entire point of defense in depth is to construct things in such a manner where a single mistake is not enough to cause trouble.

It depends on what the purpose of the firearm is for.

Play-guns for the shooting range? Sure, add fifty safeties if you want.

But guns are used for other purposes, and there is a failure mode where the person holding the weapon intended to fire and end someone's life and the gun fails to do so because the safety was still engaged.

Many things are purposely designed "fail-safe" but some things are designed to "fail deadly" for very good reasons.

And I wouldn't be surprised if the negligent discharges that can be categorized as "I thought the safety was on and was pulling the trigger like a moron" is much higher than "I knew the gun only had a grip/trigger safety and was pulling the trigger like a moron".

>On the other hand some people decided that they're cautious enough and by in large most people avoid accidents and practice good safety practices to avoid harm should one happen.

ok, so the group "most people using firearms" and the group "most people using websites" do not significantly overlap is what I'm hearing?

The glock mechanism of safeties is (statistically) rather safe though being simple enough:

https://crimefictionbook.com/2016/02/04/do-glocks-have-safet...

But (as I learned only recently) there are guns around with actually no "proper" safety and one model at least is particularly prone to fire accidentally:

https://www.thetrace.org/2023/04/sig-sauer-p320-upgrade-safe...

Yeah that one has been rather concerning. In theory you follow all the firearm safety rules (especially watching where you're pointing) and if something goes haywire things turn out relatively fine, but I certainly wouldn't be comfortable using one personally.

A lot of the issues in general seem to come about around holstering which is one of the situations where you're most likely to be "breaking" the rules pointing towards yourself, certainly not ideal.

Reholstering is one of the stronger objective arguments for a safety, but that still assumes the safeties themselves are properly designed.

It isn't that simple. Most handguns actually have lots of "safeties" meant to ensure that it only goes off when held/pointed and the trigger is pulled. Triggers are also not like controller buttons. They generally require significant force to actually pull. No modern handgun should fire if shaken or dropped. Even guns from 100+ year ago (Colt 1911) have redundant safety features to protect against mishandling.

The 1911A1 is a marvel of engineering and anyone remotely interested in technology at all should study the design and its implications.

With a modern holster there is no need for an additional safety. Keep gun in holster, holster protects trigger. If you really need a gun and be ready to fire and only then: get gun out of holster.

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