We’ve extensively covered the hysteria surrounding lawsuits claiming that the SIG SAUER P320 pistol is prone to “uncommanded discharges” (see our posts here and here). When you look into the details of what’s been claimed and what actually happened in a great many of the lawsuits, you quickly reach the conclusion that these are mostly law enforcement officers who negligently discharged their firearms and are trying to save their jobs.
Last week a video circulated on social media showing a holstered P320 discharging while a Montville, Connecticut police officer scuffled with a suspect. Watch the video here . . .
Officer’s gun randomly goes off during arrest in Montville, CT.
It was a Sig and the chief has already ordered 35 new Glocks for the department.
What do you think caused that?
(No sound on the video) pic.twitter.com/ouql74tq3a— Donut Operator 🍩 (@DonutOperator) July 28, 2023
There’s no sound with the video, but it appears that the pistol discharged when the officer carrying the P320 bumped into another officer to his right.
While the Montville, Police Department apparently refused SIG SAUER’s attempts to investigate the incident, SIG has analyzed the available video frame by frame and concluded that the pistol wasn’t fully seated in the officer’s Safariland holster and the protective retention “hood” was not over the gun at the time.
The company has issued the following statement . . .
SIG SAUER has the following statement relative to a reported unintentional discharge from an officer at the Montville, CT Police Department on Monday, July 24, 2023:
“We have seen the news reporting of the incident involving a P320 discharge at the Montville (CT) Police Department. We are confident, as is the case in all instances, that when the factors and evidence are reviewed this will be proven to be an unintentional discharge as a result of inadvertent contact with the trigger, and that the pistol did not fire without a trigger pull.
In reviewing the video footage of this incident currently available, it appears that the involved firearm was not fully seated in its holster and the holster retention hood was not fully closed over the pistol at the time of discharge (images below). This improperly holstered condition would have left the firearm’s trigger exposed and vulnerable to actuation. Even if properly holstered, the features of the involved holster allow for foreign object intrusion and interaction with the trigger, as has been seen in other incidents.
We regret that the involved agency jumped to conclusions regarding the cause of this discharge without first carefully examining the footage of the incident and providing SIG SAUER with an opportunity to assist in the examination of the involved firearm.
The P320 model firearm is used effectively and safely every day, by both civilians and armed professionals. Despite years of litigation and extensive discovery, no one has ever been able to replicate a condition under which the P320 could discharge without a trigger pull, and experts who have attempted to assert such a claim have been repeatedly thrown out of court as unqualified and/or unreliable. Three separate federal courts (in the matters of Frankenberry v. SIG SAUER, Mayes v. SIG SAUER, and Hilton v. SIG SAUER) have concluded that the two experts who have proffered a theory of uncommanded discharge are unfit to testify in court because they are unqualified and/or their opinions are untested and unreliable. In the only case regarding a P320 discharge to proceed to a full trial (Guay v. SIG SAUER), a jury of 12 rejected these experts’ unproven and unscientific theory, and found unanimously in favor of SIG SAUER. SIG SAUER stands behind the proven safety and reliability of the P320.”
