Recently, another “SIG P320 BAD” story was released, this regarding the Washington State law enforcement academy banning the pistols at their facility. Recruits issued the P320 must now use other guns (loaner guns from academy stock?) to go through firearms training in basic.
The only way you might be unaware of issues relating to the SIG P320 is if you lived in a cave or have willfully ignored the lawsuit stories. As the P320 is now the sidearm of choice of the military and the second most popular handgun sold in America, if it wasn’t broadly attacked it would be an anomaly.
The GLOCK line of pistols was similarly railed against for many years (and still is in some quarters). For that matter, people still talk trash on a pistol design that was approved by the government in 1911.
Seattle’s KING-5 news did a deep dive on a case in which an “emotionally disturbed person” had to be taken into custody in a retail establishment. A struggle occurred during which a round was fired from a holstered handgun. The agency determined it was somehow the fault of “loose handcuffs” on the front of the deputy’s belt, which caused an arm of the cuffs to get into the holster-mouth and interact with the trigger.
I can’t see how the cuffs – worn in front of the gun – could make it back that far. A screenshot from the news station’s video showed how they thought it could have happened. Here’s the image. You tell me.
No injuries were reported.
This case is less about the gun, the maker, the gun’s design or general type and more about how any modern striker-fired gun can be fired “uncommanded” in its holster.
The officer had a light mounted on her pistol. That means the holster had to be wide enough to accommodate the light, making it overly wide for the gun. That leaves a gap in the holster mouth which allows a finger of, say, a struggling suspect, or a zipper tab, or just about anything else to get inside the holster and close to the trigger.
Look at the holster opening above. See how much space there is open between gun and holster? For me, this is less a ‘defective pistol design story’ than it is a ‘Do we have too much junk on our guns?’ story.
When my department first went to guns with accessories rails, I’d asked, “Why not issue gun lights to everyone?” I was told that someone would use the weapon-mounted light to look around inside a car on nightshift traffic stop. Then they’d use the gun light to try to read the violator’s license while it’s held in the officer’s other hand.
No, I replied. No one’s that stupid. I was wrong. We found out that it had already been done.
Do you need a light on your pistol? I used to hang a light on my G19 after I got home from work. I didn’t use it at work and if someone came in the house at zero-dark-thirty, it wasn’t going to be anyone who belonged there. Still, I practiced using bounce lighting to keep the muzzle off of the “intruder.”
I find hand-held lights – especially the small, much more powerful lights of today – more useful than a pistol-mounted light.
As for long guns, you need two hands to wield them and a light can be very handy for target ID. Even then, remember that it’s not just a light – it’s a weapon. Don’t allow it to cover anything you aren’t willing to destroy.
I wasn’t the first on this bandwagon, but I could be close to the last. If the duty rig you’re using allows access to the trigger – by an item of clothing, a suspect’s digits, or anything else – you need to reconsider what you’re carrying. As for the SIG P320 and all the press about it…wow would I know?
$400,000 / 200 = $2000 per officer for a new gun? Are you kidding me? The tax-payers should be livid.
Having worked in the public sector I can say without exaggeration that the moment a vendor realizes you’re paying with taxpayer dollars the prices of everything triple. At least.
It’s blatant theft of your tax dollars and very, very, very few people involved care. Most everyone involved just blindly cuts checks.
The people jacking up the prices to bilk the taxpayers and the government employees unquestioningly cutting the checks all need to go to prison.
First not a holster. It does not protect the trigger not could it secure the firearm. It may be cop super taticool, but lets not call it a holster. Second, is it just me or does every SIG incident involve a cop.
The P320 discharges are because it doesn’t have a trigger safety. Full stop.
Neither do 1911s, hi-powers, and a whole list of other semi-autos. They have external safeties, but it’s not uncommon for them to be bumped to off by fingers and other things while holstering and drawing, or in the course of daily activities while on the hip. 99% of these NDs are just that. Negligence
Thanks for proving my point. Yes, 1911s and the rest don’t have trigger safeties, but they do have manual safeties, and the 1911 at least has a grip safety. Every case I’ve seen where the P320 has fired, would have been prevented by a grip safety. Even then, nobody carries a 1911 “cocked and unlocked”, because that would be stupid. But the P320 is exactly that — it’s cocked and unlocked. And it doesn’t even have a grip safety, so any trigger movement at all causes a bang. Glocks don’t fire under those same scenarios because they have a trigger safety. XDs have grip safeties. M&Ps have trigger safeties. Every manufacturer has at least a trigger or grip safety, except one… the Sig P320.
Returning to the more specific case: every cop gun out there has a trigger safety, except one: the P320. And the wave of accidental/negligent discharges are all about the P320. Coincidence? Or blindingly obvious? I vote the latter.
As for raw negligence, cops didn’t suddenly become negligent with the P320. Those same cops have carried M&Ps, XDs, Glocks, all sorts of things, and they haven’t been plagued with the rate of self-fired discharges like they have with the P320. Negligence level is almost unquestionably the same, but now cops are getting shot when their hands are nowhere near the gun. What changed? The P320 changed. It did away with an industry-wide standard practice of having the trigger safety. And now, all of a sudden, cops are getting shot left and right. It’s obvious.
That’s why departments are getting rid of them. They can train their officers, but they can’t control their officers, and the absolute fact of the matter is that a P320 will fire in circumstances where a Glock won’t, an XD won’t, an M&P won’t, and on and on and on.
SIG blew it. And they will never own up to it. When TTAG showed a P320 firing when it was dropped, SIG’s response was “our pistols are drop safe.” They’re as bad as Gavin Newsome. They won’t recall them, they won’t address the issue, the only thing users can hope for is that SIG will issue another “voluntary upgrade” program and start installing trigger safeties.
As per the cuffs being the cause, it seems that if the cuffs are properly closed and stored that there should be no way for them to be the cause.
The strange part is that it seems to be happening to multiple Sig P320s. Plus, a proper holster would go far in eliminating these phenomenons.
“The strange part is that it seems to be happening to multiple Sig P320s. ”
Nothing strange about that at all. The P320 design is fundamentally to blame. They deviated from the industry standard by eliminating the trigger safety. Notice you never see this kind of thing happening with their own P365, right?
Here’s perhaps the most powerful example:
h ttps://www.reddit.com/r/SigSauer/comments/1j3ozj4/is_the_p320_actually_something_to_be_worried_about/
(If that link doesn’t work, just search the tweet from John Spears about the Orion Training Group not allowing P320s anymore.) The situation was a lifetime LEO and head firearms instructor. He pulled his holster out from its appendix position, and the UNTOUCHED P320 inside it fired and shot him in the femoral artery.
The gun was still in its holster and it fired! He never touched the P320 itself, he was removing the holster with the gun still in it. Has absolutely nothing to do with cops carrying too much junk, because if it did we’d see an equal number of reports from Glock, M&P, and XD cops shooting themselves, and they don’t. It’s only ever the P320. And that makes perfect sense when you consider that they deviated from the industry standard and did away with the trigger safety.
This isn’t a SIG problem, it’s not a negligence problem, it’s not a cop problem. It’s a P320 problem, full stop.
Indeed, that was my point in the comment you quoted. I.e., it is odd that it seems to be or has been 80 +( according to the link) P320 ND or unintentional discharges. A comment in the link raises an interesting question:
“If you were an LEO who just had a desk pop with your P320, would you:
A) Report yourself for a Negligent Discharge,
B) Look for the guy in the grassy knoll, or
C) Blame that notorious Sig P320?”
Perhaps “C” is the correct answer when one considers the number of (80+) unintentional discharges with the P320 which intuitively leads one to think about the common thread.
I mentioned common thread in which there are 2: Sig P320s and LEOs.
I am not casting blame on either, merely pointing out the obvious.