Like many of our readers, we’ve been watching the slow drip, drip, drip of lawsuits accumulate over the past couple of years against SIG Sauer. These suits allege that their ultra-popular P320 pistol can fire without the trigger being pulled. Some of the plaintiffs claim the pistol can fire without the trigger even being touched.
The latest of these suits was filed last week in US District Court in Massachusetts. It alleges that Walter Collette, Jr., a police officer with the Somerville (Mass.) Police Department, was wounded when his P320 duty gun discharged “without a trigger pull” while he was carrying it in a gym bag “wrapped carefully with a cloth.” Officer Collette was wounded in his left leg.
The modular SIG P320 is among the most widely-owned handguns on the planet. Not only is it now the designated sidearm of all branches of the U.S. military, there are over a million of them in civilian hands. They’ve also been adopted as duty guns by law enforcement agencies across the country.
People of the Gun are probably familiar with the early problems the P320 had regarding drop safety. Back in 2017, SIG instituted a voluntary upgrade program to replace the original production triggers with new “enhanced” triggers designed to fix the issue that we and others observed when the pistols were dropped onto hard surfaces.
None of the current lawsuits appear to be in any way related to the now-fixed drop safety issue and most, if not all of the allegations seem to involve upgraded pistols or those produced after the drop safety problem was identified by SIG.
The current allegations, then, are different, claiming that the P320 is prone to “un-commanded discharges.”
We’re not the only ones who have noticed the lawsuits. They’ve now come to the attention of the legacy media. ABC News ran two reports on the topic last week, highlighting one particular cop in Bridge City, Texas who is suing SIG for $15 million. She claims that her holstered P320 pistol “went off” while she was carrying it in her purse.
ABC ran their story on the P320 twice, but with some significant differences between the two reports. Here’s the version that ran Tuesday morning during the network’s Good Morning America program . . .
In this version, Bridge City Officer Brittany Hilton tells her story of what she says happened when her P320 discharged as she was carrying it in her purse in what appears to be a SERPA holster (which has had its own problems, but that’s another story).
Carrying a handgun in a purse, particularly one that isn’t designed specifically to carry a firearm, is problematic at best. There’s just too much other paraphernalia bouncing around in there. But as Officer Hilton says, “There is no way anything could have gotten into my purse…into the trigger guard and pulled that trigger.”
This ABC report includes an interview with Joshua Harrison, a firearms expert hired by the network to examine the P320’s design and give his opinion of its safety. Harrison stated that, “I have not seen enough to convince me that the upgraded version is dangerous.”
When ABC’s David Scott asked Harrison if it’s a mystery “what’s going wrong with the updated version” — though Harrison had just stated the upgraded pistol isn’t dangerous — Harrison said, “I do not have an explanation for why the updated version should have complaints from trained individuals. If it’s not legal momentum, it would have to be some other mechanism of failure.”
Keep the phrase “legal momentum” in mind.
Here’s the version of the report that ran later that night, during ABC’s Nightline program . . .
Note the addition of ominous background music in the second seven-minutes-longer version (there was no music in the Good Morning America version). The Nightline segment includes an interview with Major Peter Villani, an expert (paid) witness for Hilton.
When Villani was asked for his opinion of SIG Sauer, he said, “I carry SIGs, I own SIGs, I just don’t own a 320…nor would I ever.” When Scott asked Villani what he found when he took a P320 apart, he said, “I thought ‘Wow, they need to do their homework, they need to fix this gun.”
Asked if the guns in these cases could have been mishandled, Villani responds, “When I see videos of police officers getting out of their car and their weapon discharges in their holsters, nah, there’s a problem with the gun.” ABC then ran bodycam footage of a pre-upgrade P320 firing as a Michigan state trooper exited his patrol car in 2016 with no mention of the results of any subsequent investigation.
The second, longer version of the ABC story again included comments from Joshua Harrison, the consultant ABC hired to independently assess the P320. But this time, the sound bites used were different. The second version emphasized the upgrade to fix the drop safety issue and notes that Harrison believes that problem has been fixed.
“There were a lot of changes. It was expensive. And they would not have done that for no reason at all. In my opinion, the only reason SIG would have done that is if they knew there was a safety problem with the original gun, otherwise they would not have done it.”
Scott says Harrison reviewed the claims in Officer Hilton’s lawsuit and said, “…it’s unclear to (Harrison) what could now be causing misfires in the upgraded guns.”
Scott then asked Harrison if he believes the P320 should be removed from the marketplace. Harrison responded, “No, I don’t think the upgraded version should be recalled, in fact I think the previous version should be recalled so that everyone has the upgraded version.”
Note that Harrison’s comment about these claims possibly being the result of “legal momentum” were edited out of the longer Nightline version of the report. What exactly did Harrison mean by “legal momentum?” That isn’t clear, but it’s easy to make an educated guess.
He’s talking about trial lawyers recruiting clients who’ve experienced negligent discharges with P320s and suing the gun manufacturer. Clients such as law enforcement officers whose negligent discharges could result in their being disciplined or fired unless it can be proven that the gun was at fault.
Both versions of the ABC report included comments from Officer Hilton’s attorney, Jeffrey Bagnell, who said, “It’s not credible to claim that people with this amount of training, this amount of skill are all shooting themselves. You would have to conclude there’s a problem with the product, not with the people.”
In the Nightline version, Bagnell says, “Firearms are not subject to federal regulation. They’re the only product that is not. If this were a car, a phone, a refrigerator, it would have been recalled long ago. So I think it is unconscionable, given the number of incidents of this gun defectively discharging without a trigger pull, would necessitate that someone order it to be recalled and only SIG can do that.”
TTAG talked to Bagnell, who told us that he wants it to be known that he is not anti-gun and doesn’t want to see more gun control laws in this country. He said he’s a gun owner and a concealed carry permit holder. He wanted TTAG to convey that he’s pro-Second Amendment.
Bagnell is representing a number of the police officers who have filed suits against SIG for “un-commanded discharges,” but wouldn’t disclose the exact number. He is acting as a consultant in the Collette suit that was filed last week.
Bagnell also represented Virginia Sheriff’s Deputy Marcie Vadnais who sued SIG when she said her P320 “went off on its own when she was removing the weapon from her belt.” Vadnais was featured in the Nightline version of ABC’s report. SIG ultimately settled that lawsuit.
Bagnell told TTAG that he believes the problem with the striker-fired P320 is an “inadequate sear/striker connection” (he has images he says illustrate this on his website). Bagnell said he thinks the discharges are due to both design and manufacturing flaws on SIG’s part.
Bagnell’s and other lawsuits — ABC claims at least 54 discharges and 10 suits against SIG — describe instances of P320s “going off” dating back to 2016, prior to the upgrade. The Collette suit, for example, lists 39 such discharges, all but five of which involved law enforcement officers.
Not much detail is provided in any of those other claimed incidents, but a few stand out. For instance there’s Lieutenant Thomas Ahern who was was “performing a routine function (test) of his P320 when it fired at him without any force towards the trigger, resulting in the bullet impacting his left thigh.”
Who function tests their firearm 1) with a round in the chamber, and 2) when it’s pointed at an extremity?
And then there’s Gunter Walker, a civilian, who says his P320 fired on its own “when he placed the weapon down on his nightstand, shooting him through the palm of his left hand.”
Have you ever put a handgun down with your palm in front of the muzzle? Would you?
There’s also an un-named Texas gun shop manager who says a P320 fired “as he cleared the weapon, blowing off one of his fingers. The weapon was out of battery when it fired.”
First, clearing a loaded firearm with a finger over the muzzle doesn’t exhibit even cursory adherence to the Four Rules. Second, pardon us if we’re more than a little skeptical that the P320 in question — or any other handgun — fired when it was out of battery.
Again, these are examples the plaintiff in this case is using to support his claim that the P320 is prone to “un-commanded discharges.”
What to make of all of this, then?
First, keep in mind that allegations made in lawsuits are not statements of fact. They are plaintiffs’ versions of what they say happened. Remember also that with a handful of notable exceptions, modern firearms do not just “go off,” no matter what is later claimed by those who may be held responsible.
ABC’s own hired consultant, who appears to have no dog in these fights, asserted that he could find no reasonable explanation for these claims and that he considers the upgraded P320 pistols safe for sale to law enforcement and the public. It’s interesting that ABC chose to leave that point out of one of their reports.
Then there’s the fact that the branches of the military have put the P320 design through their own batteries of testing and found it duty worthy. They have hundreds of thousands of P320s in regular service now and, despite a search, we couldn’t find a rash of reports of soldiers claiming their pistols are firing on their own.
While we don’t have the actual numbers of similar lawsuits filed against other gun makers — actually no one individual or organization seems to keep track of these things and gun makers don’t want to talk about it — it seems highly likely that every major firearm manufacturer gets its share of a regular flow of lawsuits filed by both civilians and LEOs who claim SHAZAM! My gun just went off! I didn’t even touch it!
TTAG talked to SIG Sauer about the P320 suits and the ABC reports. The company didn’t want to comment on any specific pending litigation for obvious reasons. They did, however, note that when they were contacted by ABC, the company pointed out specific circumstances that were subsequently uncovered in the investigations of a number of these incidents. Circumstances that explained those “un-commanded discharges.”
SIG says ABC had intended to include some of those other claims in their reports, but after SIG informed the network of the additional information that was uncovered, those cases weren’t included in either of the segments.
Note also that ABC didn’t provide any context for the number of suits filed against SIG. The network’s report didn’t mention lawsuits filed by LEOs (or anyone else) against other gun makers claiming similar alleged design defects.
It seems safe to assume that while SIG is coming up fast on the outside, GLOCK is still most likely the reigning champ in terms of the firearms most often carried by law enforcement and other government agencies. And it doesn’t take too much Googling to find plenty of reports of LEOs suing the Georgia company as well (see here, here, here, and here for just a few).
We’re not saying that the suits against GLOCK are any more (or less) substantiated than those against SIG. It’s just that with hundreds of millions of firearms in the hands of more than one-third of the country’s population — including a lot of cops — some number of negligent discharges will inevitably happen. And people have a way of looking for ways to deflect blame for those discharges, especially when they stand to lose their job as a result.
It’s also interesting that there’s apparently no corresponding flood of civilian lawsuits against SIG with similar claims of guns “going off,” even though the public owns far more P320s than do law enforcement agencies.
So does any of this mean there’s something wrong with the P320? No, it doesn’t. What it likely means is that cops and other law enforcement officers carry and handle their guns far more often than the average Joe or Jane.
The more someone touches, loads, clears, cleans, holsters, un-holsters, or otherwise deals with their firearm, the higher the statistical likelihood that complacence kicks in. That focus drifts. That a shirt tail or jacket cinch cord slips into a holster. That a pistol will be carried in a way it shouldn’t (say, in a gym bag or a purse).
Attorney Bagnell held up the law enforcement officers he represents as examples of people who are highly trained in carrying and using firearms. People who know how to handle guns prudently and safely. He said there has to be something wrong with the gun if this is happening to individuals “with this amount of training, this amount of skill.”
While good firearms training and practices among law enforcement officers is certainly the case much of the time, we’ve seen far too many instances over the years of un-safe or downright dangerous practices by allegedly highly trained individuals to apply that kind of blanket endorsement to all cops or alphabet agency employees.
And those are exactly the kinds of plaintiffs who happen to make up the vast majority of the lawsuits filed against SIG. It’s difficult to believe that’s a coincidence.
UPDATE: We were just made aware of YouTuber BoomStick Tactical who produced this video the day before our post published. It nicely describes what has to happen in a striker-fired P320 for an “un-commanded discharge” to happen as the plaintiffs have claimed.
Police officers do NOT get a lot of training unless they’re doing it on their own time at their own expense. (unless they’re SWAT or something).
Police officers (maybe) do an annual qualification and that’s it.
Had a buddy, years ago, that was a deputy for Orange County in California. His annual qualification consisted of shooting 32 rounds.
I used to laugh at his bragging about how skilled he was with a weapon…..
“It’s not credible to claim that people with this amount of training, this amount of skill are all shooting themselves.”
Riiigghhhttt….
I went to an outdoor public range with a local SWAT entry team leader. He had to be reprimanded by the range officer twice for unsafe handling of his pistol. He would have been booted after the first time, but being a cop comes with some special privileges.
Oh, I was out shooting him, easy.
I’ve seen similar situations at our Municipal range. Quite frankly, a sizable number of the LEO’s that go there, would benefit from a Gun Safety 101 class.
And yes, if I pulled some of those stunts, I’d have my membership revoked.
My elderly aunt drove her Volvo into a parked car, and the yard behind it, and the house behind that, while she was pressing the brake “as hard as she could.” Strangely the car kept accelerating, almost as if she were flooring the gas pedal. Weird how that might happen. Cars have so many electronics these days, who knows what could have gone wrong! It sure wasn’t her fault though, because she was flooring the. . . brakes, remember?
She didn’t sue, but swore she would never own another Volvo again. (The defect couldn’t be duplicated after the crash.)
Thinking it’s okay to wrap a loaded gun in a towel and toss it into a gym bag is what we get when departments refuse to hire candidates who score too high on IQ tests.
Effectively: you must be this dumb to get this job.
If they recruit smart cops, they won’t have cops who will act against their political opponents outside of the constitution.
saw the video, doesn’t explain how it bypasses striker pin safety. The trigger bar has to push up on it, for it to release.
There’s a couple of possibilities. One, the energy necessary to lift the striker-securing safety plunger may be insufficient due to a too-weak spring, or a too-light plunger, or some other design flaw, to reliably engage the plunger where it belongs.
Two, the plunger may have a propensity to remain partially raised, or ‘staged,’ instead of returning fully to its secure position, lessening the energy necessary to move it and thus allowing less effort to do so.
An ‘x-ray’ (fluoroscope) of the mechanism in operation could show what, if anything, is happening inside the gun that might prove, or disprove, the contention that the gun is flawed.
And on the flip side of the coin is the decades of denial by Remington on the 700 which I’ve seen firsthand.
It’s hard to say yet but with anything follow the basic safety rules.
I wish nothing bad on anyone carrying regardless of brand
I have been purchasing and using Sig firearms exclusively for over 40 years. I still own them all. I carry one in my front pocket routinely. I have never had to have one serviced or replaced. They function as commanded every time.
Ever since the internet went mainstream I have read about the Sig’s decline. I continue to bet my life on them.
I wouldn’t be surprised if she did it intentionally, she clearly suffers from a serious case of media whoring. There are several stories about her in the news for various no reasons, she must be throwing them out by a dozen. I guess none got her the attention she wanted and a national coverage so she went in for the bang. 🙂
54 people all shooting themselves. One hell of a ‘conspiracy’
All chasing that pot of gold at the end of litigation…..
Not that big of a stretch when considering the lawyers beating the bushs for clients to add to the lawsuits, and the fact many of them will lose their jobs if it’s proven to NOT be the gun, but instead negligence on their part.
The real tell is that of all the cases, most are cops of some kind.
If it were the guns, there would be thousands of cases involving citizens…but there aren’t. Yes, conspiracy to defraud is a thing when one’s @ss is on the line.
Everyone remember the video of the DEA agent shooting himself while explaining that he was highly qualified to carry a gun? Sounds like these officers and others are attempting to cover their posteriors.
https://apis.mail.yahoo.com/ws/v3/mailboxes/@.id==VjN-iN4Wr8P_P2lGU6m2M5Rd8F6tVxyeeWdzleA_0eUoKjB0wER5wbVU_ouLj3uKCvLmUWhjIv2uHVC2R0Wv8Q9VgQ/messages/@.id==AMxkWSMoHX4bYSzMKA0AINojDH4/content/parts/@.id==2/refresh?appid=YMailNorrinLaunch&ymreqid=ae6c4f7d-acdd-ffa3-1c80-d70000011c00
?
Hello perpetrators, Lee Paige is clearly the gift that keeps on giving though our buddy Hunter Biden is a close second!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-ZZ6pynGLM
https://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/dea-agent-lee-paige-still-wont-go-away/
never got into the P320 It is to me a Range gun not a carry gun.
A lot like carrying a cocked and locked 1911 but with the safety off.
Trigger is lighter than the Glock, it took years of aggressive training to reach the point of acceptable discharges with the Glock. Finger on the trigger and muzzle discipline are sometimes unheralded.
But just the same- a gun going off from momentum? A too light 1911 as some use in competition or God Forbid for carry- could jump the sear if dropped.
I think making guns easy to shoot has gone too far. Whether or not the suits have merit.
My bet would be that someone had a fully loaded gun in a gym bag and a cloth or rag snagged the trigger. That could happen easily. Once investigated a shot fired into a roll top desk. A fellow kept his DA revolver in the desk. It somehow moved to the hinges of the desk. When he opened the drawer the hinges pulled the Charter’s trigger. BAM. A shame but then no one was hurt.
Holding the striker fully cocked with nothing to block it if the sear fails is questionable at best. Hammer guns have a half cock notch for a reason.
1) The p320 doesn’t hold the striker fully to the rear. The sear cams it back a teeny bit. At rest, cocked, it may very well have enough oomph to set some primers off.
2) The p320 does have a half cocked notch. He points to it in the video. It did not originally have this. The design was incorporated from Bruce Gray’s trigger kit around the time of the original drop safety fix.
3) If the sear fails, there is the drop safety in the way of the striker. That is the point of most of the video at the end of the article. So even if, as the ambulance chaser claims, the striker leg could vibrate off of the sear face, it could not discharge unless the drop safety was also disengaged because the drop safety prevents movement of the striker sufficient to make the firing pin protrude from the breech face.
If you can make the trigger move backwards, all bets are off. With the redesign, you would have to implement a LOT of force to move the trigger backwards. It’s not happening on your person without some catastrophic event. To make the striker leg pull off of the sear, you would have to impart a lot of rearward momentum and stop it suddenly. Or you would have to have enough slide play for the slide movement to physically disengage the sear and striker leg mating surfaces. If the latter were to occur, the drop safety would prevent discharge because it would not be pushed up by anything. In the former case, you would need upward movement coming to a sudden stop to bump up the drop safety at the same time you imparted rearward momentum to the gun to try and move the striker. The thing is, you’d probably need to generate many Gs of force in both directions simultaneously.
Fundamentally, the bits that the ambulance chaser claims are flawed function exactly the same way as a S&W M&P. The linkage isn’t, but the way the striker leg and sear face mate up, the two materials being MIM castings, the small camming action, etc. That’s the same. They have similar vertical sear engagement, but the M&P has more engagement width wise. But it also has much worse quality control on the parts in my experience owning and working on both. It SHOULD have more engagement width wise, but often doesn’t due to things being rounded or out of square. The main difference is that the M&P never had the problem the p320 did with trigger mass. So it never had a history of a potential valid claim for ambulance chasers to work off of.
So far I have only heard of one instance (post fix) where there was an ND and the post mortem on the gun demonstrating a mechanical failure. The claimed mode of failure was that the tab on the drop safety that interferes with the striker movement had been sheered off and stopped being a drop safety. The claim basically boils down to the notion that in normal, unconcerning operation, a foreign body entered the striker body. Then without any extra effort, the normal trigger pull caused the tab on the drop safety to sheer off. Then either the gun somehow managed to magically clear both the broken tab and foreign body to continue to operate.
OR… some gorilla with more brawn than brains ignored the 40lb trigger pull they suddenly had to break the tab. Then when the gun still wouldn’t operate right, field stripped it and cleared the debris, but didn’t understand the gun enough to realize it was now super broken.
This is the only post fix tale of p320 failure I have heard that is not some form of “but it just went off, I didn’t do nutthin!!” while being accompanied by some form of obvious stupidity like putting an unholstered gun in a gym bag with other stuff.
Golly didn’t Sig catch he!! selling the 365 with striker’s breaking? And have the dropping 320 “go off”? I dunno if it’s a case of lowest bidders blues or what. I know off body carry is a recipe for disaster. So are dumb(or arrogant) cops.
RKC, the first time someone presented me with a 1911 whose trigger rivaled my Python’s single action, I started wondering about that. You need to deliberately thumb the Python’s hammer back to get that trigger pull, each and every time. Having it as the ONLY trigger pull the weapon has seems (to me) clearly dangerous.
Being “highly trained” doesn’t eliminate stupidity. Remember the “highly trained” FBI officer whose gun “went off” in a nightclub? This “highly trained” Fibbie was doing flips while dancing (breakdancing?), and the gun fell out of his pocket. He quickly — too quickly — tried to pick up the gun from the floor before anyone could see it, and in his haste, he picked it up with his finger on the trigger and accidentally fired the gun.
His haste to avoid the embarrassment of his gun being seen on the floor turned the incident from a wardrobe malfunction (accidental exposure of a concealed weapon, probably just a reprimand from the OPR) into a negligent discharge (the gun being fired led to him personally getting fired!)
My trust for Sig stopped after they produced the beloved Sig556xi Russian. Then after just three years without telling anyone they stopped all production including extra parts. All those customers who paid $1600 now had a limited function paper weight. Not too long after they sold a pistol to the public and United States military that’s not even DROP SAFE?!? I don’t care about the “upgrade” that should never happen. There’s still the P938 extractors snapping they refuse to acknowledge. Infact you have to pay shipping cost to get that fixed even though it’s their screw up. Sig can burn for all I care.
It doesn’t matter whether SIG is at fault or not. The fact is that the plaintiffs will get paid regardless of who did what. That’s the American system at work in all its corrupt majesty. The cost of settlements will be passed on to us.
Without a “loser pays” tort system, such abuse will go on and on.
“The more someone touches, loads, clears, cleans, holsters, un-holsters, or otherwise deals with their firearm, the higher the statistical likelihood that complacence kicks in.” This is the goal of those who would disarm us at the Post Office, as we take little Yevgeniy or little Shaquina to school, as we fulfill our civic responsibilities as jurors to judge our peers, as we travel to and through less free jurisdictions. They mandate more discharges, with more property damage, more injuries, and more deaths.
Each incident gives them more blood for their macabre dance, and another tic-mark for their context-free “gun violence” tally. The incidents occur outside the forbidden zone, as we disarm before we enter so we stay in assiduous compliance with their nonsensical requirement. So the tally goes against the surrounding area, not against the “gun free” zone. It provides another example of how the “gun free” zone purportedly keeps people safe – by not only keeping guns away, but by requiring more discharges nearby.
Even if it was an issue with the sear interface, there is still a firing pin safety that will not move unless the trigger is held firmly to the rear. I call b-s on all these “my gun magically went off.” That said, I own multiple P320’s, but all of them have the manual safety due to personal preference.
is the manual safety a kit you add? how do I get one for my P320? who sells them?
abprototype.com can add the manual safety as well as add the notches in the grip frame. Excellent work
Seems kind of like a Sig apologist article. If it were a lowered tier manufacturer like a Taurus having allegations made against them, people would run with it without thinking twice. In the case of the 320, lightning is striking the same place an awful lot. It’s also beyond debate that current production Sig quality is drastically inferior to what it once was, particularly the German made pieces. Instead we see a Sig that is ran by Mr. Cohen of Kimber fame have repeated quality and product development failures. They habitually use their customers as the product testers by selling what are essentially prototypes while quietly implementing rolling revisions. This is this same company that couldn’t build their own freaking rifles after multiple attempts (Sig SG550 series) when that rifle had been made in Switzerland for years without issue. Sig fanboys are almost as bad as Glock fanboys.
Where is this lightning striking twice? Either the gun is defective or it’s not. There used to be a problem, which is why Sig fixed it. Where is that defect now? I’m reading about a moron who wraps a loaded firearm in a cloth and stuff it in a gym bag, and other dumb behavior that tells me the weapon isn’t the problem but the user.
These cops seem pretty dang stupid if they put loaded guns in gym bags and purses with other stuff and carry them around, especially a gun that lacks manual safeties. I’m not even sure I would do that with my 92 or something else that can be both decocked and locked. You should always use a real holster, or carry it condition 3 or 4 if it’s off-body. If you did the same with a Glock or an M&P without the thumb safeties, you’d get the same result.
Seems a bit apologetic to me. Don’t quote the four rules of safety in your article when all the hotness in the gun world is appendix carry “pointing something at an extremity” and the photos you use showing front slide serrations…putting your hands “fingers” near the business end of the barrel, because press checks from the front is the way all the cool operator guys do it. Maybe it’s a technical issue, maybe it’s a training issue. Who knows. What I can say is that article reads like a hit piece on the individuals who may or may not of made mistakes with their firearms from someone who worships at the alter of sig. And that’s just my opinion. So I will just continue to carry Mexican style with my striker fired polymer wonder nine from a company that may or may not be SIG. I can say one thing for sure, the “X” on the side of the my is about is welcoming to me as “grip zone” was.
Got a 40 SW P320 SC on my hip now, got one in 9mm within reach, so far neither has decided to trip the sear without my help. Stinking Lawyers and quota cops.
Pity that some of the most common reactions fall into two over simplistic categories:
1. “Cops are crap with guns, unlike me, a REAL pistolero! They suck and I’m awesome!”
2. “Sigs are crap! Everyone knows Glocks are the absolute pinnacle of perfection and have never had one single defect ever! Sigs suck and my Glock is awesome!”
Neither argument is relevant or very intelligent and certainly not useful. Yes, a lot of police officers only shoot when they have to for qual. These officers are not gunfighters. But breaking news here, skippy. There are tens of millions of gun owners, far more than there are cops, and the VAST majority of those folks buy their guns and drop them a nightstand drawer or up on a closet shelf and leave it until they’re needed. Period. They can’t even make claim to doing a twice a year qual. So park the “Cops suck ’cause they ain’t gunfighters!” bull**it. You aren’t a gunfighter, either. Just because someone shoots hyper-unrealistic 3 gun competition, subscribes to ‘Recoil’ magazine and routinely watches their fave rave YouTube cult of personality channel shill for the latest company that paid him off doesn’t make them a bad@$$.
Second, every gun maker has made lemons in the past. ALL OF THEM. But we’re way past the days of major league, internationally known gunmakers turning out complete crap, selling it and the public living with it. In 1974 if you bought a Colt 1911, you left the gun store and then immediately took it to your favorite gunsmith and said “Make it work it with Super-Vel’s, please.” You can’t get away with that today. Sig makes a damn fine weapon and there’s nothing wrong with it.
I’ll go so far as to say the first batch of Sig P320’s did nothing wrong. They passed every state and national drop test requirement out there. The drop-bang thing only happened at a very narrow event window, it was only once the Internet doom-preachers figured out that narrow window and did it over and over online did it appear to be ‘a thing.’ Sig adapted and changed the pistol sufficiently to prevent even that issue. Bravo. They didn’t have to, but did. I don’t consider the drop-bang issue a failure and Sig’s response was actually above any real need, except to perhaps deflect any easy wins for slime ambulance chasers… I get that. Fine. But it hardly indicts the P320 as a ‘badly engineered weapon’ or that it’s ‘worse’ than another brand. That’s just myopic brand lust on parade.
Trying to categorically say ‘Brand X is better than Brand Y!!’ only reveals one’s immature emotional attachment to an inanimate object, which reveals a pretty childish worldview. It sounds the same as arguing whether Captain Marvel could beat Superman up in a fist fight… it’s pretty absurd and laughable.
The truth is the absolute WORST semi-autos that Sig, H&K, Walther, Beretta or Glock makes today are more reliable than the best semi-autos made 40 years ago, by far. You simply may not PREFER one make to another, or may simply dislike another make, but we’re to the point in semi-auto pistol production history where amongst the big brands, the only real distinctions are preference…. there is no ‘better’.
There are a few examples, I admit…S&W’s M&P from around 2014 were near junk and I wouldn’t have bothered to own one as a trotline weight, but apparently S&W had righted that ship since then.
The best take on this subject is by the author himself: this is about slime lawyers looking to build a national narrative and get a few ‘wins’ in, so they can more easily get the next win and the next one, the next one and so on. This is just blind greed using some careless doofus’ to sell a lie and cash in because a civil jury, like the average American voter, can be manipulated easily though emotion, tears and stories of anguish, pain and suffering at the foot of some super-rich evil corporation’s cold-blooded behest. It’s just dumb enough to sound like the plot to a damned Disney film. It’s pathetic how often these legal stunts work.
But I hope Sig fights it until the bitterest of ends. Because it’s flat out bull**it.
Ain’t been nothing but problems since the military dropped the 1911, what was it 85 year of trusted service? three changes to the original design. Then ” We’ve got to go 9mm Nato.” And hasn’t been nothing but looking for the holy grail since.
I dont know nothing about Sigs, I do know any gunm that goes off when I lay it on a table gets sold with a warning and I never touch that brand or model again.
Upgrades are for things that didnt work right in the first place.
Hey, I’m sitting here staring at my P320, waiting for it to go bang! Still waiting.
If the gangster greed monger criminal Capitalvanians in the gun industry had their products under the jurisdiction of the consumer safety administration all the newer striker fired guns would never have been allowed on the market unless they had manual safeties and a safe take down system. The Glock fails on both counts.
Let us look at the history of other consumer products. When a consumer product is likely to be operated in such a way that it causes accidents because it is way too easy to make a serious mistake because of human error when operating it the manufactures are told that the machine must be made safer. This is why we now have back up safeties on garden tractors and riding lawn mowers.
To give you an example of early self-propelled lawn mowers if you lost your grip on the handles the mower would not shut off and it would take off on its own right down the street all by itself. My dad owned one and that is exactly what happened one time when he was using it. Was it his fault? Yes, but that did not mean the machine would be able to go on being marketed like that. The Government mandated it to be made more safe to use and was. Now when you lose your grip on lawn mowers or snow blowers they will not keep travelling foreword all by themselves.
The same should hold true for the insane marketing of pistols like the totally unsafe Glock. It has an unsafe takedown procedure that requires you to pull the trigger to get the slide off. The Moron engineer who decided to put that on the Glock should have been hung by his dirty balls.
The Glock’s lack of a manual safety has caused untold thousands of needless crippling’s and death. Glocks have gone off when people attempted to holster them and after they have holstered them, some times way later after holstering them like the fellow that got into his pickup truck. The Glocks trigger had caught on a fold in the leather holster and it pushed the trigger part way back. Later when he was driving he shifted his weight and this caused the trigger to be pushed back further and it went off and shot him and the bullet then also blew a big hole in the floor board of this truck. The pictures on the internet were enough to scare the shit out of you especially his wound in the thigh.
Manual safeties on pistols, hammer and striker fired systems were found necessary as far back as 1900. The 1911 had one added, the FN 1905 had one added in 1906. The list is long proving gun manufactures were well aware of this problem now for 121 years yet they abandoned this when the Glock infested the gun market.
For the moron Neanderthals of the Far Right who will scream its the operators fault and we do not give a shit about marketing more safer designed weapons, if such idiotic polices were followed for other consumer goods today we would not have safety glass, anti-lock breaks, back up safeties, child proof medicine caps and chemical bottles, back up camera’s, kick back muzzles on chain saws and the list goes on and on.
Remember the stupidity of the far right is infinite and the blind greed of the gun makers prove they could not care less about human life and suffering. That is exactly why all civilized countries have Government Agencies that monitor companies that have a callus disregard for human life and are only interested in the quick buck. If you want to find the lowest form of life on the planet interview any C.E.O. I would trust a hungry lion on the Serengeti plains of Africa more than I would a C.E.O. in Capitalvania. At least the Lion roars when he is hungry, the C.E.O smiles at you and when you turn your back he puts a knife right into it.
I think in the end even if there is no mechanical defect (don’t hold your breath) it will be found that the Sig is causing accidental discharges for the same reason the Glock does, because if you snag the trigger on the Sig model that does not have a manual safety (some do) the gun will accidentally fire.
But hey, in ruthless, lawless, Capitalvania were life is considered cheap and expendable “no one gives a shit”, especially the Far Right that screams about abortions and then kills off the children that were not aborted with loaded guns laying around the house. Again the Far Right Stupidity and hypocrisy is infinite. I would trust the intelligence of a Gorilla in a zoo before any one in the Far Right. At least the Gorilla is still evolving while the Far Right proved to be an evolutionary dead end, one of natures mistakes.
hate to tell you this but most lawnmowers with the handle bar stop get tied down. Anyway around here they do.
Have you ever noticed that big trouble usually comes in groups of 3. At the risk of sounding superstitious lets review Sigs latest turd pistol.
1.A rush to market, and as usual the blind greed of the gun companies who no longer test pistols before marketing them think it is cheaper (so the idiots think) to let the public test them. Result: Sig P320 goes off when dropped and shoots people.
2. Big public relations disaster and Sig tries a second time to get the piece of shit to work and not go off when dropped.
3. Mechanical engagement of sear to striker not deep enough (wanted lighter, smoother trigger pull without giving it any hand workmanship required with the deep notch much safer classic systems made since 1900) Result another big fail.
Time will tell if no. 3 disaster is true and if it is Sig will go all out to cover it up if it was.
I was tempted to buy one at one time but no more. I would rather play handball with the Devil himself because if you deal with the Devil he will tell you that you agreed to lose your soul for a big box full of millions in cash. I am still waiting for the UPS man (not from the devil but from Sig) I will not hold my breath.
Well I jumped in bed with ma and pa , told them that the devil was in Arkansas.
No the devil went down to Georgia to learn how to play a fiddle
The P320 should be scrapped and SIG Sauer USA should redesign a new pistol around the striker firing mechanism instead of just retrofitting a hammer fired pistol (P250).
So if, say, a person was to accidentally get shot through no fault of their own and need to sue, which specific cartridge/appendage combo would yield the most favorable least pain/permanent-damage : highest-payout ratio? Asking for a friend.
This reminds me of when Gretchen Carlson sued Fox News for sexual harassment and she got 20 million dollars. Once word of that got out there was an avalanche of sexual harassment lawsuits against Fox news. Funny how that works.
This subject has two prongs; One is the negligence of those who have shot themselves with 320s through violations of Rule 2, the other the possible mechanical design failing of the gun.
Using an example from the first prong, we legitimately fault the user who shot himself in the palm, rightfully asking why in the WORLD his palm was in front of the muzzle when he set the gun down. On the other hand, would we also condemn him for violating Rule 2 if the bullet had travelled through his outside wall, entered the adjacent house, and killed a resident thereof, or would we maybe, just maybe, place some blame on the manufacturer who created the pistol? After all, there are limits on complying with Rule 2 and even Rule 3, because a gun muzzle is ALWAYS covering something, somewhere, and ALWAYS knowing what lies beyond–perhaps FAR beyond–a possible ‘target’ is an impossibility.
As to prong 2, there is a considerable difference between the mechanism of a 320 and, say, one’s basic Glock, in that a 320 is fully cocked, whereas a Glock is ‘half-cocked’ until the trigger is fully depressed, with the striker remaining locked by the striker safety plunger until that is released by a cam on the trigger bar. With the 320, the striker is in full-cock position, and held there through the operation of the trigger sear and the positive striker-blocking safety. That being the case, the 320 is a ‘cocked and locked’ striker-fired gun; However, it only has two safeties, unlike, say, a 1911, which has four: An inertial firing pin, a positive firing-pin locking safety, a manual sear-locking/blocking safety, and a trigger-bar-blocking grip safety.
Such being the case, there very well may BE in inherent design flaw in the gun; We shouldn’t just cast the thought aside as being beyond consideration and insist on blaming the problem on ‘operator error.’
Not just police in US had issues with sig p320.
Canadian soldier wounded by accidental discharge used wrong holster: SIG Sauer
The American manufacturer of the new pistols belonging to Canada’s special forces claims the soldier wounded in an accidental discharge last fall was using the wrong holster for the weapon.
SIG Sauer, a German weapons maker with its U.S. headquarters in Newington, N.H., issued a statement Friday in response to a CBC News report earlier this week that revealed the Nov. 5, 2020, incident and the fact the weapon, the SIG P320, had been withdrawn from service while the military conducts an investigation.
Canadian Special Forces Command has not said what caused the gun to go off unexpectedly, but the company said a conclusion has been reached.
“The investigation revealed the use of an incorrect holster not designed for a [SIG] P320,” said the statement, which was released Friday and posted to a U.S. online pro-industry publication, Soldier Systems.
“The use of a modified [SIG] P226 holster created an unsafe condition by allowing a foreign object to enter the holster, causing the unintended discharge.”
Contacted late Friday, a spokeswoman for special forces said the investigation is still ongoing and would not confirm the company’s findings.
“I can say we are aware of the statement released by SIG SAUER,” said Maj. Amber Bineau.
“DND/CAF is not in a position at this stage in its investigation to offer insight into the potential causes because our investigation scope is broader than the technical aspect pertaining to the unintended discharge of the pistol.”
Companies stay silent
Canada’s highly-trained counterterrorism force, JTF-2, is the only military unit with the SIG P320 in its inventory right now.
The weapons are currently on the shelf and the soldiers have returned to using their older model SIG P226s.
Bineau added the review is looking at so-called “ancillary equipment” (meaning the holster and other items) as one element of that broader investigation.
“We will respect the ongoing investigation and will not offer further comment at this time,” Bineau said.
CBC News reached out to Sig Sauer and its Canadian distributor, M.D. Charlton, headquartered in Victoria, B.C., for comment on its original story, but neither responded.
Both companies, instead, took to pro-gun industry forums to offer a rebuttal, giving no opportunity to answer questions.
On Thursday, M.D. Charlton posted to the online commercial forum Canadian Gun Nutz, describing the CBC News piece as “inaccurate” and promising SIG Sauer would release a statement.
U.S. lawsuits
The U.S. manufacturer went a step further in its statement Friday, stating without evidence or attribution, that the timing of the article was intended to undercut its chances in the federal government’s upcoming bid to replace all of the handguns in both the military and RCMP.
“While this incident occurred months ago, this erroneous media report is driven by multiple sources, including our competitors, and coincides with the imminent release of other Canadian military and law enforcement tenders, indicating the timing of its release is an attempt to improperly influence the procurements,” the statement said.
The federal government intends to order up to 20,000 pistols for the military to replace its Second World War-era Browning Hi-Power handguns in a project that could be worth up to $50 million.
The SIG P320 has been the subject of numerous lawsuits, including one class action case, in the U.S. over injuries sustained because of accidental discharges.
The weapon had a history of going off unexpectedly when it was dropped at a certain angle.
But SIG Sauer said it has rectified the issue with upgrades, including one made for the U.S. military which court documents, filed as part of one of the lawsuits, show resulted in substantial changes to the weapon’s internal design.
The pistol is popular with commercial gun owners and law enforcement south of the border.
Jeff Bagnell, a lawyer in Westport, Conn., who has litigated 10 cases, mostly by commercial gun owners, related to SIG P320 misfires across several U.S. states, took note of the accident involving the Canadian special forces soldier.
He wasn’t aware of it until contacted earlier this week by CBC News and suggested it was relevant in ongoing litigation in the U.S.
“We look forward to reviewing the incident in discovery in the United States,” he said Friday.
Right up front, the use of an ill-fitting/improper-for-the-gun holster instantly negates any idea of an unintended discharge being the fault of the design.
Likewise, having a finger in the trigger-guard, or a clothing draw-string, or a retention strap, or some other object, when holstering the gun exonerates the maker, as the gun is firing with a trigger press of sufficient energy and stroke as designed.
SIG P320s were just the start and the P365 isn’t far behind.
I bought a P320 and went through the “voluntary upgrade”.
That’s SIGs term for a recall. I sold that pistol when I got it back.
SIG just cannot seem to make a striker fired pistol that doesn’t have issues.
Slowly people are realizing they aren’t the only ones having issues.
“Stupid marine, cop, citizen, it’s their fault”.
NO, SIG has a problem that they would rather fight in court.
I don’t own a Glock or a SIG and am not a fanboy of either.
The SIG will be the shortest military contract for guns in history.
To put it simply, they are expensive cheaply made junk.
How many times does a pistol have to malfunction before you blame it?
Quit blaming cops or the military, these guns have a serious problem.
Google “Keith Slatowski”, is he lying also?
Training and experience are not a talisman that magically prevents accidents. It isn’t the beginner woodworker who loses fingers. It’s the expert who gets caught up in the routine and stops paying attention.
Sounds like most of these cases were off-body carry.
Which in and of itself is user error / misuse.
LOL! Watching all these Glock fan boys drool over these lawsuits in their tribal brand-lust is like watching the talking heads on CNN announcing Trump lost the 2020 election. “Yaaay! The thing I hate is getting kicked around! Wheee!!”
Their visceral hatred for that which they see as competition to their little golden calf god and their blind, myopic, childish self-identification with an external dynamic is hilarious! Guess it hasn’t dawned on them that:
1. No you haters are not smarter than the US military, who tested the P320 far more than your favorite YouTuber ever did. The military is much smarter and no, the gun is not ‘junk’. They wouldn’t have adopted it if was. And the idea some random comment section P320 hater thinks they’re smarter & more knowledgeable than the Army, Navy, Airforce, Coast Guard and Marine Corp combined regarding military pistol selection is just freaking laughable! Grow up, you ain’t all that!
2. Glock is being sued too, because once loaded and a round is chambered, it also has a much lighter trigger than a DA/SA. That’s why NY demanded the ‘NY Trigger’ be installed on Glocks before they’d buy them. It may be a rotten trigger, but it does highlight the fact it has a much lighter trigger compared to classic semi-autos and revolvers.
3. By hoping Sig gets ‘taken down’ for the P320, they’re actually setting up their own pet brand to be the next on the chopping block. These lawsuits aren’t about Sig making a defective weapon, they’re about lawyers building a nationwide consensus in civil trial that makes it easier (and more lucrative) to soak gunmakers. They’re cheering for a noose around their own precious Glock’s throat.
Look a fanboy.
It has nothing to do with Glock.
That’s deflecting from the real issue.
I can’t stand Glocks but SIG P320s are junk.
The military is already shopping for a new sidearm.
This is what happens when you go with the lowest bidder.
At this point I would have to say that Taurus is a better handgun.
They admitted their problem and fixed it.
SIG is choosing to litigate their problems away.
PDs are dropping them from contracts.
Before the madness SIGS were expensive.
Too expensive to use their customers as beta testers.
These lawsuits ARE about SIG making defective weapons.
Trust a P365 with your life. Get a dead trigger when the striker breaks.
In 2021 you would think a company would understand MIM metallurgy.
Especially since they farm it out to the lowest bidder.
SIG doesn’t so you get killed by a punk with a Hi Point.
He takes your wallet and car and leaves the SIG.
Too much MIM in that crap SIG, the old ones were great.
Ron Cohen ruined Kimber and now he’s doing the same to SIG.
Profits over reliability and you end up with junk.
LOL! What a wonderful parody of a MAC cultist! Great job, this threat needed some levity! Good thing you weren’t serious, that’d be terr…..uh….oops.
Face it, you paid far too much for a plastic gun. A plastic gun that has a tendency to go off by itself. Post again when you buy a real gun that you can defend yourself with. The military has found that the pistol has a tendency to “eject live rounds” among other issues.
Sometimes you don’t get what you pay for but now SIG has bragging rights.
That wont last for long, the P320 (M17 AND M18) are already failing in the field. https://sofrep.com/news/dod-evaluation-says-armys-new-sig-sauer-p320-service-pistol-riddled-issues/
If the military was going to go cheap then they should have thrown Taurus into the mix. The new Tauruses have a good rep, far better then the P320 or P365. Personally they should have gone with the Glock, it’s not for me but is a proven gun.
With Biden spending outrageous amounts of money, whats 100 million here or there? If the P320 was so great then why did special forces go to the Glock 19?
Ron,
Not sure why it won’t let me reply to you, but I’ll reply to myself in the hope you’ll get it.
First off, no joke on me. I don’t own a P320. In fact, I don’t own ANY striker fired polymer pistol. Don’t care for them, not my jam. So your ‘fanboy’ perjorative falls not only flat but false.
Second, your claim that the military is dumping because they’re problematic? Dude, your story is THREE years old. The problems associate with those pistols (and the P365) have long since been ironed out. You clanging a bell that went silent years ago.
Third, Glock has had problems, too. It takes time for any new platform to work the kinks out. Everyone remembers the problems the Beretta M9 had, but it got sorted and they went on to serve over 30 years.
Fourth, no one takes Taurus seriously. They simply have never been seen in the upper echelon of handgun makers, their entire business model is to offer cheaper guns at cheaper prices. Is there any major military anywhere that ever issued one of their guns? Maybe in South America a poor military did, but that’d be about it.
And as far as Special Forces go, SF going to Glock has been documented as a bean counter’s solution to save money. Fact is most SF carry what they want and the Marine Recon I know very well who has friends in that community told me many in the Navy NSW program still carry the Mk 25, they don’ want a striker fired pistol that can hydrolock in water.
Folks disagree on brands. That’s fine. But the reality is that the military has been using the Sig P320 for almost 5 years and they show no signs of changing.
If it was so bad, why did the US Marines, who had the Glock, drop it in favor of the carry sized P320, the M18? In a straight up Glock vs. Sig battle, the United States Marines chose Sig, and that was AFTER watching the P320 perform for four years. They didn’t see a problem at all and in fact, saw it as an upgrade over Glock.
Glock’s biggest problem is they haven’t innovated since 1985. They’ve gotten tons of contracts because the gun is cheap, cheap, cheap to make. Yes, it’s reliable, but no more so than most other major brands’ well known models. They’re just on a 30 year nap hoping what they did will carry them forever. Sig started out rough, but a lot of agencies have decided that their modular chassis system is the way of the future.
I won’t argue they’re wrong, I don’t own one, don’t want to. Happy with my old S&W revolvers, 3rd Gen S&W pistols,1911’s and a slew of P226’s.
But I’m observant enough to see the same voices that said in 1985 that “This new fangled Glock is a just a plastic toy! It’s a novelty, it’s got issues! The guide rod is cheap and breaks, it has rotten front sights!” converted to the Glock denomination, but are now screaming that the P320 is “Too new, not worked out! Plastic crap! Won’t last!”
Ironic that the ‘trendsetters’ of yesteryear are trying to tear down the ‘innovator’ of today because it’s “Not perfected yet!” and the “Design isn’t worked out!”. If these same folks were around in the 80’s and got their way, no one today would know what a Glock was.
This website has been messed up all week so that might be the problem in replying.
First I have no problem with the Mk 25 or any other Sig that’s metal. I agree that Glock is sitting on their laurels and has been for decades. Wow new finger grooves, crazy innovation.
The problem with Sig is with their polymer pistols. Going on Sigs reputation I bought a P320. It was one of the first ones and was sent back as a voluntary upgrade. I lost $150 dumping that gun and Sig instead of acknowledging that it had a problem and calling it a recall, denied all and everything and called it a “voluntary upgrade.”
At my LGS a P320 just went off when one of the guys put it the counter when he set up a target. It was at that point that I knew the gun had a design flaw.
There was no holster involved. This guy had been working at the LGS for over a decade and never had an AD or ND, he was the strictest when it came to safety. This gun had been “voluntary upgraded”. The round went downrange so nobody was hurt. He wanted to see how accurate the gun was, especially after the customer got it back after the voluntary upgrade.
(It wasn’t my gun)
After watching a friend get killed by a Remington 700 by another friend and the ensuing fallout 31 years ago I decided that I didn’t care if the P320 was “fixed”, it was getting sold. I lost $200 on a gun that had less then 1000 rounds through it but I could care.
The hype leading up to the P365 was pretty intense and the LGS sold a bunch of those. The problem was strikers. MIM strikers made in India and put into Sigs. People who had problems have been replacing them with Lightning Strike SS ones.
The moral of all of this is the reason Sig got the military contract was because they were selling guns at close to cost, they underbid Glock by a significant margin. I could care but that came at the expense of reliability and safety. I have almost a hatred for Glocks but the one thing that they are is reliable. Sigs bid was low because they were still pissed after being beat by Beretta in cost. They both underwent full testing but while the Sig was the cheaper handgun ($1.50), it also quoted higher costs for magazines and spare parts, boosting the overall cost of the acquisition.
The guys at the LGS saw only one broken striker but it confirmed what the manager who had the P320 go off and my thoughts. The P320s and P365s were junk, plain and simple.
All polymer guns are cheap, cheap, cheap to make, that’s why I threw the Taurus name into the mix. What’s the difference between a $600 Sig and a $300 Taurus? About $300. Either one could have been a gun or a Barbie.
As for Seals they have their own contract with Glock but can carry anything they want. Depending on who you talk to you will get many different answers.
BTW it was HK that made the first polymer gun, Glock actually stole the idea for the G17 from them. The HK VP70 was made in 1970 when Gaston Glock was making curtain rods. In 1982 the G17 hit the market and in 1983 they gave 30,000 pistols to the Austrian military at cost. Sound familiar?
Withe the P320 Sigs contract was $169.5 million, $103 million cheaper then Glock. The heads up testing was immediately finished the Sig was the winner. That’s why the US Marines have Sigs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0LUbLu6TqA
Simply put, the P320 is not safe and the lawsuits aren’t frivolous.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jsu6WsSQ2_g
Why you and I are arguing over a gun that neither owns or will own,
I have no idea.
Fair enough. How about something more relevant.
Kirk or Picard?
Picard if I’m limited to NCC-1701.
I’m more of a DS9 guy.
The Defiant regardless of who is the captain.
LOL! Of course!
I’m a Kirk guy, a ‘Shatner’ Kirk guy. The new guy sucks.
I am also very much a DS9 fan, best series overall.
Lastly, ship-wise I have to go with the TMP-era refit Enterprise, regardless of Captain.
Hey, I’m glad there’s somethings we agree on!
As they should. I mean hey, yelling about firearms preferences online is no more productive than discussing nerdy Star Trek stuff, is it? Really? Is it? Nope.
But Shatner? He’s like the arrogant star QB on your favorite football team…yeah, you would never want to spend a weekend with him at the lake cabin, but your franchise would be little to nothing without him. I just separate Shatner the man from Kirk the character, which he plays with Shakespearian operatic perfection. Over the top, hammy and with incredible choleric energy, but as he once said, when you trying to seriously sell a scene that has space ship with obvious carboard walls, christmas lights and a guy in a rubber gorilla suit with a plastic horn on its head, if you play it lowkey you’re dead… the audience is gonna focus on how cheesy it all is. You need a lead that can be the lightening rod and not be afraid to make an ass of themselves…it give the watcher permission to take it seriously. I agree.
Much has been made of Nimoy’s Spock being the most popular character in TOS, but I’d argue that without Shatner’s over-the-top swagger and brash manner, the balance would be lost. That show with no Shatner-Kirk and only a Nimoy-Spock wouldn’t have gotten past the first season…. to docile, too subtle, to contextual. So I give a ton of credit to Shatner for reading the reality of what it was and in essence, saving it.
As far as ships go, I’m drawn to the original movie vessels because they look the most, to me, like something you’d really see humans build in space in 300 years. I’d read that for TMP, they got NASA to help in the design of the refit Enterprise. Frankly, I think that ship is the best looking sci-fi ship design ever, with the Excelsior a very close second. And the fact they used real models, and big ones, gives the ships a real sense of heft, mass, movement and solidity that the garbage CGI ships of the new movies just cannot remotely compete with. Really, that JJA ship looks like something the folks at PlaySkool built, it’s terrible.
Oh, if you another thread reader asking “Where’s the Sig/Glock bashing? What’s this silly BS?” and you’ve gotten this far reading our thread…. congrats. That took a lot.
The “new” Kirk does suck.
The fact that Shatner was doing Wrath of Kahn meet and greets at 90 years old kind of soured me.
The VIP “screening” with the meet and greet was like $600. No autographs, No self taken pictures.
The cheap seats were $100-$200 and you got to watch “Wrath of Khan” with Shatner.
You couldn’t ask questions. Here is a movie that he filmed 40 years ago and he was still raking it in.
https://millsentertainment.smugmug.com/William-Shatner-The-Wrath-of-Khan
To me it was unreal, $600 to ask a question about WOK and a picture.
You did get to sit and watch it with him, which leads to a serious question.
How many times did Shatner actually watch it? He probably had a double until it was over.
Covid ruined that gravy train for him but he’s still doing the conventions.
Anyway my question for $600 would be: Did you have your 3rd wife killed?
No picture for me.
Anyway there was one good thing to come from those movies, The USS Vengeance.
While it seems that I have a preference for “battle” ships, The Romulans had “Warbirds.”
No Warp core, just a quantum singularity, The engine was basically a dorm fridge.
A few Warbirds decloaking would make me very nervous if it wasn’t sci-fi fantasy.
Someone is going to read this thread and be bewildered.
I know there are those who will vehemently disagree with me, and even disparage me but I have been following this issue from early on, BUT… I recall CLEARLY that there have been dozens and dozens of discharges that could not be attributed to ‘operator error’ and people experiencing these “uncommanded discharges” both before AND after getting the trigger upgrade.
The clearest memory I have about the many people experiencing post-upgrade discharges is a cop who set his P320 on a table, and several seconds after letting go, IT DISCHARGED ON ITS OWN!
So, unlike the Serpa holster debate, I’m a believer that there is more going on than meets the eye with the P320 and is exactly why I refrained from buying one, why I still won’t own one, and why I steer people away from it.
As for the Serpa holster, this is a bunch of internet echo chamber BS that originated with Obama-era federal agencies putting a bad light on a good product in order to sway public opinion and thus damage the manufacturer’s bottom line. I own Serpa holsters in multiple configurations (1911, Beretta 96, H&K, Springfield, etc) for most of the time they’ve been around and I NEVER had an ND. But then I’m not a federal LE flunky who can’t keep my booger hook off the bang switch, either. To be sure, I’ve informally asked every other owner of a Serpa holster when I meet them, whether they have ever had an ND because of the holster. Zero in the affirmative. This leads me to conclude that the problem is not the gear but the moron using it.
But when you set a gun down on a table, and the damn thing goes off seconds after you let go, that sounds like a defective gun.
I love when people call law enforcement officers “highly trained.” Most don’t get more training than what they had in the academy unless they are getting paid time to train, or are going for something speciality such as S.W.A.T. Unless they have to fire their weapon in an on-duty incident most officers only fire their weapons just before and/or at qualifications, which depending on the department are annual or semi-annual. And many departments across the country have had to lower their standards for passing qualifications just to be able to hire on and keep officers.
Combine this with the complacency that comes with handling a firearm over-and-over again as you holster and unholster a firearm throughout the day, it’s not surprising that many of these officers are saying “it just went off” as a negligent discharge can cost them their job if it lead to serious injury or property damage.
One of the officers a few years ago was carrying his P320 in a P226 holster that he took a Dremel to make the P320 fit. The one officer in the ABC story had it wrapped in a rag in his gym bag? And they think hey have an actual legit lawsuit on their hands? Give me a break.
The Milwaukee police department has had 3 incidents of the Sig discharging while being in a holster sitting in a patrol car in 2023. They are being replaced with Glocks.
Your SIG propaganda is noted. Good thing no one with two brain cells thinks theres any actual “Truth” about guns here.
Anyone else think Zimmerman guy who wrote this complete bullshit post is related to the Zimmerman lawyer who is behind the class action suit against Sig? Any chance this author has a financial incentive to push these lies?
I have mixed feelings on this issue with the P320, and specifically I mean the gun allegedly “going off” on its own, quite apart from the drop safety issues which were well documented. In 2023, we now have video footage from security cameras of the P320 discharging, in holster, with the officer’s hands nowhere near the gun. I can disregard accounts of the P320 going off while wrapped in a towel or carried in a purse, but not when carried in a Safariland duty rig and not being touched. And don’t tell me that the pistol must have been bumped by some external force to make it discharge. As a 30 year cop, I can say that on uniformed patrol, your sidearm bumps into things all the time. That should not make it discharge.
I find it odd that the Somerville, Massachusetts PD has has had two woundings with the P320 in-holster. One was Ashley Catatao, who is caught on security camera simply walking to her car when her gun discharged in her properly worn duty holster, wounding her. Her hands are nowhere near her pistol since she is carrying her gear in both hands to begin her shift. We have the same situation with a Tampa reserve officer working a youth baseball game and not handling his P320 whose leg was shattered when the gun discharged,
I’m sure that just like when the Glock ws introduced to law enforcement, a number of the claims of “uncommanded discharge’ are actually negligent handling. But the fact that we now have video of the problem as it happens leads to the inescapable conclusion that something is wrong. I’m not qualified to critique the design of the P320, but I’m of the opinion that there definitely is an issue. If I were still working and in uniform, I would not at this time carry nor recommend a P320, which is a shame because it looks like a decent handgun that many people are happy with. Perhaps if SIG spent less time stonewalling and claiming a problem does not exist, which seems to be their default with issues with their striker fired guns, and more time trying to fix the problem, I’d change my mind. But we now have video evidence that there is an issue.
I understand what OldCop876 is saying but, seeing as how the {320 is now the official side arm if the us military where are all the uncommanded discharge reports from the military. I’m not seeing them.
I have no doubt that some of them are due to operator error. That maybe the P320 has a lighter trigger than previous firearms. Or just a lack of training.
Firing in the holster? Was the gun properly cleaned and re-assembled properly? You see, that is what a soldier is taught! Over and over and over, until it is second mature. Are LEOs taught the same? I don’t think so.
A tube of lipstick rattling around in a purse could work its way into the trigger guard. Even if the gun has a “glock-rocker trigger pivot, anything that gets into the trigger guard can set it off.
It would be nice if the “EXPERTS!!!” reporting on alleged accidental discharges/lawsuits etc would quit calling them “Misfires.” Every ten year old who has ever wanted a BB gun knows that the term means “failure to fire.”
“A tube of lipstick” Do They still use that stuff??
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