Glock Accidental/Negligent Discharge Record

[gumshoe4]

SgtGunner-Hey Gunny, I think you misread me. I am in agreement with your basic philosophy. To reiterate, I am saying that gun safety is a state of mind, not a mechanical device. I also did not make excuses for the officer and explained that he had a lot of remedial training to do afterwards. As far as your perfect record regarding gun handling goes-good, I'm glad you're always safe and never make a mistake. The intent behind that comment was not to point an accusatory finger at everyone-it was, rather, a warning NOT to get complacent or cocky-just like you stated.

There's one other difference here, Gunny and that's this-you get to pick the gun you want to carry based upon your level of comfort with it. This officer did not get that choice. He would have been fine with a revolver, but was forced to use a pistol with which he was not comfortable, which has an idiotic method of field stripping which requires the trigger to be pulled and which is way outside his scope of experience or understanding.

Was the officer negligent in not learning the gun better? Probably.

Was the training officer negligent in not providing extra training to the officer or helping him transition better? Definitely, in my opinion.

Was it absolutely necessary for this officer to carry a full-sized 15-shot semi-auto handgun carried concealed plainclothes when his revolver would have served him at least equally well and probably much better? No. Not in my opinion. The agency shares some responsibility here because of its lack of flexibility.

If somebody issued me a BAR, I would have no idea what the manual of arms is for that weapon and someone would have to teach me and give me an opportunity to learn it properly. Learning how a gun functions is a mechanical skill. It's not intuitive.

Again-I'm not making excuses for this officer, but I am cautioning others who may not be as skilled at arms as you appear to be not to get cocky or, as you say, complacent. That is when poor gun handling develops and accidents happen.

Bob

Semper Fi from a former amphib squid

[MasterBlaster]

That said, designing any handgun on which you need to pull the trigger to disassemble is a bad idea. That feature is equivalent to a moron seeker.

"Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight....how DARE anyone expect a gun owner to *GASP* UNLOAD their gun before cleaning it!!!"


I stand by my original statement. All gun manufacturers should take into account that a moron will one day handle/mishandle their weapon and design the gun accordingly.

Manufacturers who fail to do this keep an entire trade industry in business in this country.

They're called trial lawyers.

[Kilrain]

I stand by my original statement. All gun manufacturers should take into account that a moron will one day handle/mishandle their weapon and design the gun accordingly.

This is a really interesting thread with the above comment taking the cake. Not trying to be argumentative........well, maybe a little ...........but this statement is kinda dumb.

The only type of gun that would meet the requirements set forth in the above quote would be a non-firing replica .

[tomkatz]

Handy....I successfully defended myself against an armed robber, no shots were fired though, I don't feel any more qualified to comment here because of that. I'm glad I had a gun that didn't need any manipulation of the controls to use it, I was so focused on his gun I really think I might have forgotten to flip the safety down....tom

[Jimmy Mac]

gumshoe

If you were issued a BAR you may not be able to understand its manaul of arms but you would know better than dry fire it without checking the chamber.

Anyone that knows anything at all about firearms should know this.

Cops should be trained on other weapons besides what they carry.

[Baron Holbach]

Despite intensive training, there may still be LEOs or private CCWs who do not feel warranted in carrying a Glock. It may be a personal preference or an inability to master a Glock's trigger or simple incompetence. If I were a police chief, I would not mandate one gun for all personnel. It is better to issue handguns according to personal preference or ability.

[SgtGunner]

I have a classic example of cops not knowing anything about guns. Granted this statement is not meant to mean all cops, or LEO's just seems like the vast majority these days.

I was stopped while parked at a gas station because I looked "suspicious to a State Trooper "suspicious meaning I had the nerve to make eye contact with him and say hello."
Was asked my name, and if I had any weapons or drugs on me. I love how they lump the two together one being illegal the other not. Anyway I say yes sir I do. He takes a step back, hand hovering above holster and asks what I meant. I calmly and rationally explained that I have a legal firearm concealed on my left hip.
He asks me to remove said weapon and lay it on the hood of my car, I respond with a statement along the lines of well sir I would be hapy to lay it on the seat as I do not want a steel gun scraping across the hood of my car that is 2 months old and has 1000 miles on it.
I remove my 1911 from my hip and this fool stood there looking at it with a blank stare, wondering why on earth my hammer is back, he picks it up and in trying to figure out how to make it safe crosses my chest with a locked and loaded .45 at least 3 times. Finally I tell him I will make it safe for him before he "accidentally" shoots me. After all was said and done, I got a lecture about carrying with the hammer back. So I felt it was appropriate to explain to him why it is not good practice to point a loaded firearm at someones chest. This is a classic example at the extremely low level of training these guys are getting.
Yeah its ok that he was unfamiliar with the manual of arms for a 1911, but the basic rules of firearm safety??? My 6 year old son knows not to point any gun at anything you are not ready and willing to see destroyed.

Really is quite sad.

[Baron Holbach]

Sgt Gunner said:

I remove my 1911 from my hip and this fool stood there looking at it with a blank stare, wondering why on earth my hammer is back, he picks it up and in trying to figure out how to make it safe crosses my chest with a locked and loaded .45 at least 3 times. Finally I tell him I will make it safe for him before he "accidentally" shoots me. After all was said and done, I got a lecture about carrying with the hammer back. So I felt it was appropriate to explain to him why it is not good practice to point a loaded firearm at someones chest. This is a classic example at the extremely low level of training these guys are getting.

[the blind lefty]

NOOOOOOOOOO! not again?!!
-if anyone's keeping track,i'm with the"you gotta pull the trigger"crowd.-
maybe we should subject handguns to be used as hockey pucks for a whole playoff game before they can be considered safe. anyone for handgun plinko? that would certainly add excitement to Price Is Right!-i can just hear"the failure music".-

[Edward429451]

I stand by my original statement. All gun manufacturers should take into account that a moron will one day handle/mishandle their weapon and design the gun accordingly.

A foolproof gun? A childproof gun? Bwahahaha! Good one.

Shouldn't it read: All potential gun owners should take into account how inantimate and unforgiving weapons are and learn/train with their weapons accordingly so that they don't handle it foolishly and hurt someone. (?)

"There is no proof against fools" (Heinlein, I think).

[Baron Holbach]

I stand by my original statement. All gun manufacturers should take into account that a moron will one day handle/mishandle their weapon and design the gun accordingly.

I make no claim as to whether Glock pistols used within law enforcement agencies across the United States incur a higher rate of lawsuits due to negligent discharges than other issue pistols. Nevertheless, one is tempted to speculate on the rate of lawsuits incurred where the issue handgun was a double-action revolver or any other non-Glock issued pistol compared with a Glock. Would any of you know any links to statistics having a bearing on this issue?

[Edward429451]

Why not speculate about how many negligent PEOPLE there are in the world?

Sorry if this is offensive to you but I gotta say it...

You sound like a trial lawyer gearing up for a lawsuit.

[Baron Holbach]

I will reiterate: all Glock negligent discharges are due to operator error. Training is essential in the safe handling of a Glock.

http://www.syracuse.com/news/poststa...2038119601.xml

[gumshoe4]

Jimmy-good point. You're right-I wouldn't be pulling the trigger, whether I knew how the gun operated or not. Now change that scenario a bit so that I am being told by the trainer to pull that trigger to field strip the weapon, despite my lack of familiarity with the operation of the pistol and you begin to see the potential problem here.

Gunny-There's simply no excuse for what the trooper did to you. The fact that he passed the muzzle across your chest three times is inexcusable. I've had a similar experience when a drunken deer hunter went to pull his rifle out of the rack in his truck and, before my partner could stop him, passed the muzzle across my chest. When we got the gun away from him, we discovered a live round in the chamber and the safety was off. The point is that neither of those cases involve a failure to understand the manual of arms for the particular firearm in question. They involve, instead, a failure to follow RULE #1-Don't point a gun at anything you do not intend to destroy. Has little or nothing to do with the function of the weapon itself.

As a sidenote, I see that we've sort of gotten off track regarding the original question of whether Glocks are more susceptible to NDs by the nature of their operation, but I think that the mental v. mechanical device debate is very interesting and I think it can be said that we ALL agree that gun safety starts in the mind and works its way outward from there.

Carry on.

Bob

[Baron Holbach]

You sound like a trial lawyer gearing up for a lawsuit.

I will rephrase the question in a nutshell: do statistics bear out that there is a higher rate of negligent discharges from Glock operators compared with operators of double-action revolvers or non-Glock pistols? The intent of the question is to comb for facts. Again, I will reiterate: ALL Glock negligent discharges are due to operator error.

[Edward429451]

Maybe they are in untrained hands. In the early years, my wife thought I was some kind of psycho for carrying around the house doing hundreds or thousands of draws and presentations, and told me to put it away and give it a rest...I did not. Result? no ND's ever.

Maybe the nd'ers shouldn't listen to their wives so much?

Same thing with high performance autos. Some people just shouldn't get behind the wheel of a race car, even if they can drive a Pinto. Maybe the race car industry should design a racecar that is safe to be driven by 16 yr old new drivers with no training...

People. Its the PEOPLE. Jeez...

[Edward429451]

Allright Baron. Sorry. The coffe hadn't kicked in yet so I didn't get that the first time around.

[Baron Holbach]

People. Its the PEOPLE. Jeez...

Right. It is never the gun's fault. Responsibility rests with the person handling the gun when there is a negligent discharge. Glock has never lost a lawsuit, which goes to show it was never the gun's fault but always the operator's.

[Handy]

The one ND I know of (Glock) was by a trained and careful IDPA shooter.

Did he have the wrong training? Was he, despite all appearences, really lax in his habits?

Or did he just make a momentary mistake?



Would that mistake have resulted in a round fired in another design?

You can point fingers all you want until it happens to you. Then you just find out that you are a fallible human, like the rest of us.

[Jimmy Mac]

No one is perfect. Some are just a little smarter than others.

As far as ADs with a Glock it is almost impossible.

NDs are possible with the Glock and any other gun.

Anyone too stupid to check the chamber of a gun before they pull the trigger cop or not IS an idiot.

[MasterBlaster]

All gun manufacturers should take into account that a moron will one day handle/mishandle their weapon and design the gun accordingly.

I knew I'd have to clarify this. Obviously, no gun is moron-proof. All mechanical safeties can be defeated through mishandling. That's a given.

The question at hand is whether or not Glock has been negligent in designing a handgun that requires the user to pull the trigger to disassemble it. Obviously, such a design requirement is not necessary or all handguns would demand such.

Since it isn't necessary, there is no valid reason to design a gun that way. However, there is a very good reason not to. Someday, somewhere, someone will attempt to disassemble his Glock with a round in the chamber. It is a statistical certainty. It has happened, and it will happen again!

That's the very definition of a design flaw. Even if Glock hasn't lost a lawsuit yet, that doesn't make it a safe design.

And the whole "blame-the-user" crowd doesn't seem to realize its own selfish interest in having manufacturers design handguns as safe as they can be. That crowd should want to see ND's decrease so that they can continue to have the right to own firearms. Keep in mind there are many people who want to take them away from you. Endlessly quoting rules on how to handle guns alone doesn't get the job done. People do break those rules nomatter how often you repeat them. So what's the point unless you just like to hear yourself talk?

I'm not afraid to call a spade what it is. Glock's disassembly procedure is a design flaw. They should fix it. Any common sense change that makes the products safer helps to guarantee the continuation of our 2nd Amendment rights.

[Blackhawk]

I'm curious about something.

We talk about ADs and NDs, external safeties, and all kinds of other things related to inadvertent firing of ready to fire guns.

Granted they almost all involve pulling the trigger so not doing that would avert the problem.

There's not really any way to be assured that a finger won't end up on the trigger before it should no matter what training and experience level the shooter has.

All the incidents where the trigger was pulled in the normal manner, i.e., with the trigger finger involved that we're calling ADs or NDs include "cleaning loaded", improper handling, etc., stoke the cry for more locks, external safeties, etc. I'm not interested in them.

I'm curious about "hard" versus "easy" trigger pulls relative to NDs. For example, heavy triggers versus light ones. Specifically, doing a "trigger draw" on a Glock will usually fire it because it's easy to get a 6# differential on the trigger against the weight of the gun. Not so easy with an uncocked PPK that has a DA pull of about 20# or almost any other DA or DAO handgun.

Glocks also have short trigger pulls, so it's relatively easy to fire them if some protrusion other than a finger engages the trigger when holstering or putting them in their old style cases. Typical DA condition or DAO handguns also have long trigger pulls accompanying their heavy force requirement.

I've never heard of or read a first hand account of an AD or ND that did not involve deliberately pulling the trigger of a heavy, long trigger handgun, and I'm curioius if anybody else has.

Glocks are easy to fire, and that's a great advantage of the design, but I'm suspicious that they're victims of their own success. Promoting their "Safe Action System" may end up causing shooters to think of them more as DAO guns instead of cocked SA guns. If you consider the characteristics of a typical cocked SA trigger, it's short and light just like the Glock.

I know that if I've got a cocked, chambered, safety off M1911 in my hip holster, my pucker factor is going to be way higher than if a DAO is there. Just like Grenade Handling 101 -- the pucker factor goes way up when there's no pin inserted....

[Handy]

Blackhawk,

You take the same POV as I do. Safety is a progressive thing that is affected by trigger/safety design. A Glock (or whatever) isn't UNSAFE, but it is quite likely LESS safe than other designs.

The personal accountability crowd seems to be preaching that it doesn't matter if a gun is more likely to go off in certain circumstances. They're fine with the ND as long as the person is held responsible, not the weapon.

I'd rather have weapons out there that shoot well AND offer the shooter an extra margin for error in case they are having a bad day. DA/SA, squeeze cocking, external safeties and NY triggers increase the shooters odds.

A DA trigger is much less likely to fire IF your finger ends up where it shouldn't be. The argument that you could forget to decock is fine, but requires TWO handling errors, while a Glock ND only invovles one.

As a military pilot I know all about fallibility. When people insist that training alone will prevent dangerous mistakes, I know better. American aviators are some of the best trained professionals in the world, and we all make mistakes-the same kind of mistakes as putting your finger inside the trigger guard at the wrong time.

[Blackhawk]

Handy,

You take the same POV as I do....

As a military pilot I know all about fallibility.

Maybe that's why. Ex-military pilot here....

The number of "fatal" mistakes I made flying in Vietnam are more than I know, but they taught me to adjust my proclivities to my personality. For example, my bird's Vne was taught, stressed, and reviewed, but only casually addressed was the fact that it was in TAS. One bright, hot, steamy, summer day I was diving out of the sun on an active Ho Chi Minh Trail river crossing beginning to level out for the photo pass when I realized that the stick felt like a yardstick in a bucket. My Vne margin was 40 knots, and I really didn't get it! With the power off, I could get just the slightest feedback from slight aft stick, which began to raise the nose. Zooming over the target, I finally had full elevator control, but I was really spooked. The photo overlap showed that I was considerably above Vne over the target.

Turned out that the DA was so high that day in that area that IAS wasn't even close to TAS, and there was no way to know what TAS was without knowing the DA (impossible there) to calculate it. This was BC (Before Computers).

I came very close to making a smokin' hole because of relying on misinformation internalized in much cooler training areas, and that anologizes easily to the Glock trigger for me. My thinking is that the Glock should be considered as a cocked, unlocked, chambered, SA that won't go off if you drop it. Accuracy of description doesn't matter if it makes me have a safe attitude toward it.

[Baron Holbach]

The question should not be whether Glocks are more susceptible to negligent discharges. The question should be phrased whether operators are more prone to committing a negligent discharge when handling a Glock.

Concerning whether Glocks have a disassembly design flaw due to the trigger having to be pulled as part of the take down procedure, it should be asked, since this is the case, why have so many law enforcement agencies chosen the Glock as their official issue pistol? If we all concur that Glock's take down procedure -- which involves pulling the trigger -- is a design flaw, perhaps we should take note of the hundreds of police chiefs and their reviewing committees who chose to overlook the disassembly design flaw and adopted the Glock as their official pistol. Perhaps the flaw exists with the judgement exercised by the police chiefs who adopted the Glock pistol.