GLOCK Safe Action System trigger

Franklin County couple injured after woman’s Glock goes off in purse roanoke.com announces. See? We told you off-body carry was a no-no. That’s doubly true when a GLOCK has jealousy issues. “Lt. Phillip Young said the woman’s Glock went off while the couple sat in a vehicle outside a residence in the 1400 block of Virgil H. Goode Highway in Bassett about 3:30 p.m. The man, who was in the driver’s seat, put a drink can in the woman’s purse before putting his hand on her leg.” Ba-BAM! The bullet got them both . . .

“[The bullet] went through his hand, through one of her legs near the knee area and then hit her other knee,” Young said. “Her pocketbook was full of stuff. It’s hard to say what made it go off.”

I’m thinking something depressed the GLOCK “Safe Action”® System trigger. Unless the report is bogus from start to finish, I’d also bet dollars to Krispy Kremes the gun inside the lady’s purse wasn’t in a holster, enabling the aforementioned trigger movement.

Holster-up, people. Holster-up.

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

75 COMMENTS

  1. Although manual safeties seem unnecessary for on body carry it might be a good idea for off body.
    And as you said always use a holster.

    • Safeties are not enough for purse (or pocket) carry. If the junk in your purse manages to pull a 5 1/2 pound trigger it can certainly bump the safety over to fire. If you don’t have a trigger covering holster, go Israeli.

        • I’ve seen some videos of people who’ve trained extensively on drawing and racking and as long as they don’t get shot in the hand first they won’t miss a beat. But if you train that much you should be capable of carrying a loaded weapon safely. When it comes to purse carry you’re not looking to get in a quick draw contest, so the extra time it takes to rack the slide seems a reasonable safety precaution, although a trigger covering holster would be better.

          On the other hand, IMHO the biggest potential advantage to purse carry is that a woman can walk out to her car in a dark parking lot with one hand in her purse holding the gun. If she’s attacked she won’t even need to pull the weapon out, she can shoot through the bag. Carrying Israeli makes that impossible.

        • she can shoot through the bag

          Sorry, Gov, but I don’t know a single woman who would shoot through her purse. Or a pair of her shoes, even if she wasn’t wearing them.

          Most of the ladies would sooner shoot through their husbands than their purses or shoes.

        • Well Ralph, there is a significant difference between the meaning of the words ‘can’ and ‘would’.

        • Besides, my wife would just use it as an excuse to buy a new purse.

  2. And people made fun of my Taurus millenium pro. I know I”ll get flamed but what the hell is so hard to flick off a safety in half a second??? That being said don’t purse carry…

    • I will never say a properly designed safety is a bad thing, it’s simply an extra step that must be trained. I think Croatia got it right with the grip safety though. Now if they just fix the trigger.

      • You mean croatia got it right when they copied the concept of the grip safety. They certainly weren’t first.

      • Powder river precision or springer precision. Both make fantastic triggers for Croatian Tupperware.

        I have two prp triggers and they are great

        • The XDS trigger still sucks after the PRP kit including the sear…

          Improving it to Glock-bad is the best you can hope for.

      • It seems to me that a device doesn’t qualify as a safety if the same motion to disengage the safety is the same motion to fire the weapon.

        • leading back to the front of the argument that the trigger is the safety. a gun that can’t go off unless the trigger is pulled is safe, the rest is up to us. (*insert deity* help us with that)

        • Your logic is faulty because the trigger is the mechanism for firing the gun. Therefore it cannot be considered a safety. A safety is a device that keeps the gun from firing when you pull the trigger.

      • John Moses Browning originally designed the 1911 with a grip safety only. A 1911 with the thumb safety off is safer than Glock [not]safe action trigger.

      • Xdm and xds have great triggers. Not sure about the new xd2 yet. That said a gun needs a holster. Even a grip safety AND a trigger safety ( glock style) should not be carried loose in a bag. If you can’t have a holster buy a revolver and carry one empty. Then you can just pull the trigger no need to rack slide.

    • or better yet a revolver…….. Water you have to remember 2 to 8.4 terrorists might rappel thru your livingroom window at ANY moment and there’s no time to flick some switch. Get with the tacticool program!

      • Because we all know that guns are magic death rays that stop the attacker on your first shot… [facedesk]

        • I’ve kept up with all local DGUs and it seems one or two bullets has done the trick to stop attackers (long-gun uses thrown out, of course) in the last couple years. Never seen an instance where someone had to reload even a low-cap pistol, small caliber pistol. Sure there’s worst-case-scenario, but from all practical aspects, I’m not going to “need” all 17 rounds in my M&P. As always, evaluate your possible threats and tailor your equipment to suit.

        • Grindstone,

          “As always, evaluate your possible threats and tailor your equipment to suit.” — well said.

          A person who carries a snubnose .38 Special with a 5 round cylinder is over-prepared for about 98% of self-defense situations where they need to use a firearm. Remember, in something like 90% of attacks, criminals will immediately stop the attack and retreat when you merely produce a firearm and point it at them. Of the remaining 10% of attacks, your attacker will stop their attack after you fire at most two shots. (Whether you prevail because the attacker retreats in the face of gunfire or your shots incapacitate your attacker is neither here no there.)

          I only see about 2% of attacks where you would need a lot of ammunition to successfully defend yourself. Those attacks would almost always fall into one of three categories:
          (1) A single attacker is intent on killing you and all too happy to die in the process (e.g. stalkers, domestic violence partners, spree killers, suicide by armed person).
          (2) Multiple armed attackers really want whatever you have.
          (3) A terrorist hit squad which is a combination of (1) and (2) above.

          I have heard about extremely rare cases of attackers who are higher than a kite on drugs and quite literally feel no pain — and it can take a lot of hits to incapacitate such an attacker. Even then, I have to believe that five shots to the chest (158 grain .38 Special bullets) are going to physiologically incapacitate an attacker in very short order, no matter how high they are. Of course you cannot miss in that scenario because you probably will need all five shots. Like anything else in life, there are no guarantees.

      • Taurus 608. 8 rounds of .357 mag and it’s ported for ease of use.
        Its not a Ruger but will do the job.

        • Yeah, I have to think that 8 rounds of .357 Magnum goodness from a 6 inch barrel is a pretty effective self-defense platform. Unless you are taking on a gang, it should do the trick.

          How is the double-action trigger on that beast?

          And I imagine recoil is pretty tame with the 6-inch barreled version weighing 51 ounces and having a ported barrel?

          I keep going back and fourth trying to decide whether that revolver would be a better home defense choice than a full-size 1911 shooting .45 ACP 230 grain hollowpoints. Both platforms give you 8 shots … really big shots as handguns go.

          • Trigger smoothed out after 200 rounds. It will never be my S&W 19 trigger but machine vs. hand there. Mine is 4″ accurate out to 25yds with almost no muzzle climb. It’s more accurate than my Ruger Security 6, keep it strictly for my hog hunting handloads. Put it with a good light @
            4am it will be better than most semi-s. Unless your EDC is a 1911 muscle memory when it jams while you are half asleep will be slow to kick in. Tap, rack is in my DNA after 38 years of shooting semis but, still revolver on ankle & bedside.

    • It’s not the difficulty, it’s the extra step involved which is the last thing you want to add to a high stress situation. It’s the same reason why you carry in condition 1 rather than condition 3.

      • It all comes down to risk management. Most of us (non LEO division) will never have to draw our weapons and many who do will not need to fire a single shot. Counter that with the risk that having a gun on your body or near to you (at home) 24/7 and never once having a brain fart. It’s also a possibility that you will blindsided and the BG will get a hold of your gun. That safety might buy you couple of seconds. It’s possible a child could get a hold of your weapon (another brain fart). You could make the argument that not having a safety is more of a risk than having one.

        Of course, having a safety is a piss poor substitute for safe handling of firearms and if you carry a gun with a safety you need to train with it so flicking it off safe is second nature and you won’t have to think about it in a high stress situation. Personally I preferred autos with safeties but I’ve switched to carrying revolvers so I can see both sides of the issue. But I never worried a lick about fumbling the safety due to stress.

        • Frankly, my beef with manual safeties is that it adds mechanical complexity. It’s just one more thing that could fail, and with proper firearm handling, it’s unnecessary. I have personally witnessed manual safeties failing in both directions. I’ve seen a handgun (a Sig P226 no less) with the safety supposedly engaged discharge, and I’ve also seen a handgun (I don’t remember what it was) where the safety was externally disengaged, but internally still engaged.

          Honestly, I’d argue that it’s actually better to NOT have a manual safety. People are more likely to be careless with a gun that has a safety. If it doesn’t have one, with a round in the chamber, when the trigger is depressed it WILL discharge. In my experience, people are less likely to be stupid with that because they don’t have a manual safety to fall back on in leu of proper safe handling.

        • Rokurota, that might be why it fired.

          Jake, valid points, all of them. I know I carried my Beretta 92 for a while and several times the safety got bumped off. This is why I believe that you shouldn’t just not use the safety. If you draw your weapon thinking it’s on safe, but it isn’t, no harm done. If you draw your weapon thinking the safety is disengaged when it is it could take a few seconds under stress to figure out why your gun isn’t firing. I also don’t like 1911s with ambidextrous safeties since the outside is usually open to getting bumped. Anyway, like I said, safeties are a piss poor substitute to safe handling practices.

    • That is how all safeties work mechanically. Unless the safety is deactivated either the trigger will not release the hammer/striker or remove the firing pin block. Now, if you are just be sarcastic about how failure to deactivate the safety will prevent you from defending yourself then you are just being difficult.

    • > I know I”ll get flamed but what the hell is so hard to flick off a safety in half a second???

      What makes it hard is something called the ‘Fight or flight’ response.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fight-or-flight_response_(in_humans)

      See the section called ‘Reaction’.

      Specifically:

      * Catecholamine hormones, such as adrenaline (epinephrine) or noradrenaline (norepinephrine), facilitate immediate physical reactions associated with a preparation for violent muscular action
      * Constriction of blood vessels in many parts of the body
      * Dilation of blood vessels for muscles
      * Liberation of metabolic energy sources (particularly fat and glycogen) for muscular action
      * Disinhibition of spinal reflexes

      and a few other things.

      All this means that you lose almost all feeling in your hands. The blood drains from your extremities to reduce potential blood lose from physically defending yourself. So you won’t be able to know if you flipped the safety off or not without looking at the gun. You simply can’t feel it.

      Also you lose fine motor control. Which means that you have become very spastic and have accelerated movements. So this makes simple fine motor movements almost impossible to do.. So now the small movements you use to ‘flick off the safety’ is now impossible. Your best bet is probably use the palm of your left hand to disable the safety because your fingers will ‘not work right’.

      It doesn’t matter how many times you train with your safety if you are physically unable to use the fine muscles in your thumb and hands.

      Under acute stress such as being attacked you have 10 million years of evolution fighting against your ability to operate your safety on your pistol.

  4. Open bag, unholstered handgun?, stuff, drink, hand……..
    So much fail, so little space
    Surprised?
    This is one’s brain on stupid……….

    -DOH……

    • Igloo Roulette:

      Take a small travel cooler, fill 1/2 way with mil-surp 7.62x54r.
      Carefully place loaded/chambered glock 20 on top of the ammo
      Top off the cooler with more ammo.
      Pick up and shake vigorously for 5 seconds.
      If you made it this far, you win. Pass to the person on your left.

  6. Some guys just get slapped for putting their hand on a girl’s knee. And then there’s this poor schmuck.

    • I’ve had a few injuries over the years and after a slash to my palm that required surgery (5 hours no less), I would have to say getting shot in the hand has to be one of the most painful thing that could possibly happen. Lots of nerves there. Very lively pain, no dull throbbing.

      • Yeah, I once had a comminuted fracture of my fifth metacarpal. One punch, two guys hit the deck and both of us got booted from Sloppy Joe’s in Key West. And I’m pretty sure that it hurt me me than it did him.

        • open-hand combat–seriously, I hope if it ever happens to me I will remember to use the palm, heel, and edge of my hand.

    • Well she fixed the problem of having a hand on her knee, by blowing her knees off. Problem solved.

      Seriously though she was asking for trouble, much like the woman who’s kid killed her in the Wallyworld. Off-body carry is less than smart.

      • I carry either the new light weight Ruger.45acp 1911 or the SA XDMOD2 9mm. I carry either in the same holster INSIDE the gun compartment of my 511 Tactical PUSH Bag. Yes it’s off body but it works.

  7. Wow. So, she had a condition zero weapon, in a bag with other loose stuff, and nothing covering the trigger. Sounds like a Darwin award waiting to happen. How can people be so stupid…. IF YOU ARE GOING TO CARRY CONDITION ZERO, THE DAMN TRIGGER GUARD NEEDS TO BE COVERED! If you don’t, it’s only a matter of time before you have an ND, or your two-year-old accidentally shoots you in the supermarket….

    • I thought Glocks cannot be in “0”? Anyhow, IMHO, no matter what weapon, if you carry on or off body, with one in the pipe, in and amongst civil society, it MUST be properly holstered at all times, except when purposely drawn, no exceptions.

  8. I don’t live long way from where this happened. I would love to know the rest of the story. I think there was probably alcohol involved and there is a good chance this wasn’t an accident. I doubt that it being a Glock had anything to do with what happened.

    • Clearly there’s more to this tale (I live north of Franklin Co and saw this in the RT, too). There usually is. But if the gun “went off” inside the purse, there will be powder burns and only an exit hole. So at least the location of the Glock won’t be in question.

      • Don’t forget Franklin County’s well earned reputation as the moonshine capital of SW Virginia. . .

  10. I’ve been following the number of negligent discharges (ND’s) from handguns reported here and in other blogs since I bought my Taurus PT 92 (with a safety) and my S&W Shield (also with a safety). The vast majority of the ND’s have been people relying on the trigger safety alone, regardless of their knowledge of and experience with guns. The vast majority of those ND’s would have been prevented if a manual safety had been engaged. And how many, if any, ND’s have occurred in the last few years with double action revolvers with long heavy trigger pulls? How many tenths of a second does it take to switch off the safety, assuming you have trained to do it each time you draw?

    • I’m with you Gary Pope…I feel like Taurus has a pretty good safety. Didn’t seem like any kind of big deal to flick it off my millenium pro…just practice.

    • Gary Pope,

      As others have mentioned, loose objects floating around next to a loose handgun in a purse or other carrier can easily flick off a manual safety. The best answer is to keep the handgun in a properly fitting holster that completely covers the trigger guard. Note that a handgun cannot — for all intents and purposes — work itself out of a properly fitting holster. That is the ultimate “safety”.

  11. Maybe it’s just me but can’t people carry without a round chambered. Does it really take that long to cock and load?

    • If you train at racking on your draw there’s really no extra time required. The down side of condition 3 is that if one of your hands/arms is injured racking can become quite difficult. Also you might not think you need to draw until your rolling around on the ground on the wrong end of ‘whoopass’ (as Treyvon would say) and you might need one hand to hold back your attacker.

      Personally, IMHO if your carrying Mexican go Israeli.

    • Arsh,

      I tried this for a while. Being a responsible person, I practiced drawing and racking the slide in one fluid motion. I liked it until the rear sight of my handgun ripped a nice gash in my hand while practicing.

      I also realized that, under stress, I could fail to completely cycle the slide or my hand could slip off of the slide.

      For those reasons, I always carry one in the chamber and I carry my handgun in a properly fitting holster that covers the entire trigger guard. If for some reason I want to carry my handgun off-body in a bag or something, then I either empty the chamber or put my handgun in a tight fitting holster. (I had a nice hard nylon kydex paddle holster with a plastic paddle and the paddle broke. So I removed the remaining portion of the broken plastic paddle and use the hard nylon kydex shell only for off-body carry.)

      • Thanks for the insight. I haven’t gotten the chance to go through the carry class yet to get my permit (although that will be done soon) and just wasn’t sure on what the exact reasoning was.

  12. Why is it that 99.9% of the time when I read about a negligent discharge it’s with a Glock. Just saying.

  13. A gun with no safety, one in the chamber, and you put it in your purse like its a pack of gum. What could go wrong.

  14. Sorry, I don’t buy the story, it’s either a cover for something else, who knows what ? but I’ll bet it leads to a big law suit that Glock will have to pay up on, as for carrying with a round in the chamber, what’s the big deal? can shit happen? sure, has it? sure, is it a major issue? not at all. Millions of Glocks are carried “loaded” daily and I know shit happens, but this is the strangest tale I’ve heard of, I carry with a round in chamber, have for over 50 years and have yet to have a problem, could I ? sure, But if you go thru life worrying about the might be’s you won’t be living, I guess it’s a personal thing like wearing boxers or jockeys or going commando,

    I have carried what you guys call Cond one all my life and 90 % of it with a 1911, I will keep on doing so as long as I carry.

    This whole story is like the one where the gun was under the pillow and went off hitting the wife in the head, could it happen? sure, did it? who knows.

  15. Another reason for a concealed carry class. Too many gun carriers don’t pay attention to the basics. A few videos of mistakes like this might tend to make more people pay attention and not shoot themselves or an innocent bystander.

  16. When was the last time we saw a woman grab the right thing out of her purse without having to search for it.

    So a woman is being confronted, she feels it’s time to whip out the ol’ off body conceal carry _________(pistol some guy recommended) and use it. Sorry hold on for a second before you hit me I have to find, no that is not it, no, wait one more second, THERE I FOUND IT.

    But if it’s her smartphone would be in her hand in a nanosecond.

    My wife had a bag that had it’s own compartment to carry, drove me nuts. What is the main thing a man wants from a woman if he is robbing her, the very thing that has her pistol in it. Dumb place to carry in mind.

  17. Like some others who have commented, I know that location. Cost of Glock — at least $400. Cost of cheap Uncle Mike’s holster to keep it safe while in the purse — $10 to $15. Cost to Medicaid or Obamacare, which my taxes will pay for, of putting these drunken twits back together again — priceless.

  18. you just can not legislate away stupidity. they have been trying for a long time now but somehow more politicians keep popping up.

  19. There are so many pocket/purse holster options that velcro in place. It is sheer stupidity or arrogance that leads people to ignore all common sense and gun safety.
    My wife has a purse with a conceal pocket. But I told her she should never carry there. Always on her waist in the nice leather holster I bought for her CCP.

Comments are closed.