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Comment by mNovak | Hacker News Reader

Just watching this, and he's saying this model has no manual safety. That's an absolutely wild design choice in my mind!

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Sig makes many handguns like that and many of them are standard issue for law enforcement in US municipalities.

Many pistols don't. It does lead to a higher risk of accidental discharges (that's how we got the term "glock leg"). That's also the argument that Sig made - that every unintended discharge was due to user error. The evidence is increasingly clear cut that this isn't the case, and the pistol can go off on its own when jostled while properly holstered, but Sig persists in trying to claim the pistol is safe and blame the users.

"that every unintended discharge was due to user error" -- Sig is doing a fantastic job of making it clear that that's false (as you say).

The real statement is "every unintended discharge on a known-safe gun is due to user error." I would believe that all unintended discharges on, say, a Glock 17 are user error. I no longer can believe that of Sigs.

And it's like brakes on a car. If it fails for even one person one time and causes one accident, that's too much. The stakes are way too high when you're dealing with something that can take lives if it malfunctions.

I’d wager that poorly maintained brakes fail and lead to a collision many hundreds of times per year. I think “unmodified and properly maintained”, neither firing mechanisms nor brakes should fail (and I think that’s what’s in question here).

I carried a Sig in Afghanistan and whilst I was very experienced with firearms, the no manual safety thing gave me major heebie geebies

If you have experience with firearms then you know that very few modern handguns have manual safeties.

While this statement might be true there doesn't seem to be a reason you are making it.

I said I was experienced with firearms, not handguns. At the time I had extensive experience with assault rifles, heavy machine guns, light machine guns, bolt action rifles etc all of which had a safety.

Before the sig the British Army used the browning 9mm which also had a safety

modern consensus is that a manual safety is more of a liability than a feature - correct handling obviates it, and in the worst case a manual safety may prevent you from deliberately firing the weapon.

correct handling requires the use of a holster which completely covers the trigger. a properly-designed firearm is safe in a properly-designed holster.

the handgun that effectively established this concept (the glock) does not contain enough potential in the fire control at rest to discharge a round, but notably, the p320 does.

It may seem wild, but wilder still is having to manipulate small components under extreme duress in a sub-second period of time, while one or more lives suddenly depend on it. This is why almost all individuals who carry professionally or from experience do not use equipment with safety.

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