I’ve said it before. I’ll say it again. I love The Trace. Michael Bloomberg’s anti-gun agitpropmeisters never fail to provide grist for TTAG’s mill, as well as links to stories we may have missed. Today’s lesson in gun control fail: Five Low-Tech Ways Manufacturers Can Make Guns Safer. Surprising not one of their suggestion involves educating gun owners how to safely and responsibly store, clean and shoot their firearms. It’s all about the gun, right? So here they are . . .
1. Chambered round indicators
Some gun activists are skeptical of the devices, claiming they would be redundant if people followed the first of the “four rules of gun safety” — always treat a gun as though it’s loaded. But firearms owners and users do not always heed that advice . . .
. . . it’s clear that these chambered round indicators address a real public health need. A 1991 study by the Government Accountability Office showed that over two years, nearly a quarter of accidental firearms deaths occurred when people mistakenly thought their guns were unloaded.
What’s not clear: whether a loaded chamber indicator would have any effect on negligent discharges. There is no scientific evidence to support that proposition. What is clear: the Second Amendment prohibits local, state and federal governments from infringing on Americans’ right to keep and bear arms. Mandating chambered round indicators is unconstitutional.
2. Magazine release safeties
Semiautomatic handguns, the most popular type of weapon in the U.S., are loaded with ammunition held in a detachable magazine, which feed a round into the chamber after each shot. Typically, if a round is cycled into the chamber, it remains in place ready to be fired even after the magazine has been removed, meaning the gun is still lethal. Magazine-disconnect features block the gun from firing when the magazine has been taken out.
Some firearm manufacturers, like Smith & Wesson, have long incorporated magazine disconnects into almost every model they make, but the 1999 Journal of Public Health study found that only 14 percent of pistol models overall used a magazine release safety.
Again, where’s the evidence to support the idea that magazine release safeties would reduce negligent discharges (assuming that’s The Trace’s beef)? Again, mandating magazine release safeties is unconstitutional.
3. Heavier trigger pulls
One way to prevent some accidental shootings is to make discharging firearms slightly more difficult. Guns with “light” pulls are more likely to fire when dropped, or when they snag on a piece of clothing. The best known Glock pistol, the 9mm Glock 17, requires only a relatively dainty 5.5 pounds of pressure on the trigger in order to fire.
You just knew The Trace was going to parade their ignorance of firearms at some point. We’re there.
As TTAG’s Armed Intelligentsia will tell you, modern guns are drop safe. By the same token, the harder the trigger pull, the more difficult it is to fire a gun accurately. Firing a gun inaccurately is unsafe, as proven by GLOCK’s infamous 11 lbs. “New York” trigger. NYPD officers carrying New York trigger-equipped GLOCKs have a hit rate of just 18 percent.
To their credit, The Trace acknowledges the heavy trigger = diminished accuracy issue. To their discredit, they include their recommendation anyway. Because guns.
4. Grip safeties
John Hopkins’s Stephen Teret, one of the authors of the 1999 Journal of Public Health study, says he likes grip safeties because they are particularly suited to reducing the risk of accidental shootings by children. A 1995 study found that 25 percent of 3- and 4-year-olds, and 90 percent of 7- and 8-year olds, can fire a gun even with a heavy 10-pound trigger pull weight. But even if children that young can pull a trigger, they have a harder time getting their hand firmly around a pistol grip to squeeze the grip safety.
Wait. Small children can pull a 10 lbs. trigger, but can’t grip a gun enough to disengage a grip safety? Oh wait, they have an “unspecified” harder time doing so. They’d have an even harder time doing so if the gun was stored securely. And they’d been even less likely to accomplish the task if they’d learned not to touch a gun.
Anyway, no matter what the argument for or against grip safeties, mandating the type of firearms Americans can use to exercise their gun rights is unconstitutional. Just sayin’ . . .
5. Firing pin blocks
Before a handgun model can be sold by a retailer in California, it first has to pass a test to see if it discharges when dropped. The federal government also imposes a drop-test standard on imported handguns: They were included in the 1968 Gun Control Act, a provision aimed at halting the flow of cheaply made European pistols favored by criminals of that era. Some handguns pass drop tests simply because they’re well constructed, while other revolvers and semiautomatic pistols incorporate features specifically designed to prevent the weapon from firing when dropped. Firing pin blocks — which are found in the 1911-style pistols made by Colt and Kimber — prevent a gun’s hammer from striking the pin unless the trigger is pulled to move the block out of the way.
I’m confused. Modern handguns are drop-safe so the government should mandate how they’re made drop-safe? Not that you were expecting any, but where’s the sense in that?
In any case, there’s no legal basis for forcing gunmakers to make their guns “safer,” any more than there’s a legal basis to force gun control advocates to know what the hell they’re talking about.
Drop safe is how the “Roster” got started in CA. Slippery slope my ass. It’s a vertical ice wall.
And as all of us damn well know, the roster is a scheme to essentially remove all handguns from purchase and the cut off the flow of handguns into the state. Imagine how this could be applied on a national level. It’s not about safety.
Even more so, cops are exempt from the roster. Now tell me: why are we letting police handle and own “unsafe” firearms?
Not only are they exempt but they can buy off roster and then sell it to any private party for a nice profit.
The idea is that LEO have more training to handle these “unsafe” weapons. Now who else promotes training at that level. If only there was a national group or association that promotes and even trains the general public on firearms safety.
“If only…”! Good one!
“Safety rules” proposed by people who know little or nothing about the object they seek to control (or, even worse, actively detest it) can always, always be counted on to militate against it’s actual purpose. So it is that gun-controllers seek to make guns “safe” by taking away their essential usefulness. In their view the ultimate “safe” gun isn’t really a gun at all; it may look like a gun but take away its essential ‘gunness” and it becomes a gun-shaped piece of metal.
“take away its essential ‘gunness” and it becomes a gun-shaped piece of metal.”
And it would still require the 10 day waiting period and registration…….
Firing pin safety blocks the hammer??? Do they even bother to read their own writing?
“… Firing pin blocks — which are found in the 1911-style pistols made by Colt and Kimber — prevent a gun’s hammer from striking the pin unless the trigger is pulled to move the block out of the way.”
I was sort of skimming by the time I hit number 5. I thought “Oh, they just screwed up firing pin blocks / decockers”. So I went back and read carefully.
They really… really… don’t know how these things work.
Prevents the hammer from striking the PIN. The PIN!
Commonsense PIN laws!!
Umm… Isn’t what they describe called a sear?
I have no problem with grip safeties or loaded chamber indicators, in fact I kind of prefer them on my guns (negates the need for press checks). I would also highly prefer my guns are drop safe, although how they get that way is up to the manufacturer. Everything else on that list can piss right up a rope.
I have no issues with any of those features. My issue is with the ignorant members of society telling me what is good for me.
Agreed. No problem with the features, ive also got no problem with smart guns. What I have a problem with is any of these features becoming mandatory. Let the market decide.
I don’t need a loaded chamber indicator. My EDC is always loaded. I do a manual chamber check to assure myself it is. Following that logic, I would disregard the loaded chamber indicator and check for myself.
I don’t think of it as a chamber loaded indicator since to me a gun is always loaded. I am more concerned with thinking that the chamber is loaded when not.
A bump in the night, a finger stroke across the slide of the XD assures me I’m not empty.
In a self defense scenario, an empty chamber is what is dangerous.
A gun is always safe if treated as loaded no matter what is in the tube.
“But even if children that young can pull a trigger, they have a harder time getting their hand firmly around a pistol grip to squeeze the grip safety.”
So my 1911 has a grip safety, I can therefore let the little kiddies play with it? Is that it?
We don’t let kids get to the guns. Hell I don’t let anyone at my guns.
That said, I like both the manual thumb safety and the grip safety. If you don’t want those things, good for you, I don’t care. Diversity, that a good thing.
I fully agree. Most kids who shoot themselves are looking down the barrel and pushing on the trigger with both thumbs. A grip safety, even though I do like them, are irrelevant to the question of child safety.
Only if it’s a Colt or Kimber with a firing pin block that blocks the
firing pinhammer.These people are idiots who really know nothing about gun, but try to make the other ignorant Liberals think they do.
2. Screw you. If I actually find myself fighting for my life, I’d prefer the option to drop a mostly expended mag for a reload and still be able to fire a chambered round should the lull end before I’ve seated the fresh stick.
So if my gun has all those features does that mean I no longer have any responsibility to handle it safely. Cool I just hate acting like an adult all the time, Thanks Bloomie now we can all act like assholes.
LCIs are basically innocuous. The don’t effect the operation of the gun, as all they do is ride on the rim of a cartridge; and the guys who hate them so much they file them off aren’t disabling them at all. Further, as Springfield used to advertise, their indicator (as well as the pop-up ones) can be used to verify loaded status in the dark and without a press check. So these are no big deal, and we’ve had them for years in California with no one really complaining about them.
Mag locks are a different story, since they are a more complex mechanical system, and it the mag button is inadvertently bumped, they have immediate adverse consequences. I have read that they are easily removed, so again, no big deal for those who can’t stand them. They are there for all of the idiots who seem to think that dropping the mag means the gun is unloaded–and then find out it is not. In other words, this device is for people who already don’t follow the four rules (and may have never learned them in the first place), an unfortunately large group.
Grip safeties are great for guns with single action or light triggers, and no manual safety, and are a 100 rear-old invention that seems to have no adverse history of failure. My first pistol was an xd-9 because it had one (and no manual safety), rather than a Glock (which I didn’t much like anyway). No, they do not stop kids form shooting themselves; that issue has to be dealt with with safe handling practices and preventing access.
Drop safety is another nonstarter. Manufacturers build their guns like this already because it is better than getting sued when someone, as is inevitable, drops one. So government intervention is unnecessary. Plus there is o way to go back and retrofit millions of old firearms with such devices 9which would destroy the value of the firearm to boot.
Heavy triggers are a nonstarter; kids with two thumbs can fire almost any firearm, no matter how heavy the trigger is. Requiring them would be stupid.
A disagreement over the LCI has prevented Glock from selling new guns in Massachusetts since 1998, so they are not necessarily innocuous.
They’re just another way for gungrabbers to grab them before we can get them.
So Mass residents are forced to buy Springfields. This is one regulation that benefits the consumer. They get a superior product.
Nope, Springfield XDs cannot be sold by dealers in Mass either. Nor can 90% of other handguns. See here for some examples:
http://fsguns.com/fsg_information.html
Because they are SA?
@tdiinva, a lot of SA pistols (like M1911s) are legal in MA, as are SA/DA pistols like SIGs (but not DAKs, because their DA trigger is less than ten pounds). I don’t know why Springfields cannot be sold here.
MA has a Big List of Approved Firearms, and Springfield isn’t on it. Probably, Springfield refused to submit a bunch of pistols to destructive testing and pay a fee of thousands per test.
Glocks are on the Big List, but the MA AG has his own list. Glock was told by the MA AG to redesign its loaded chamber witness hole. Glock politely and justifiably told the MA AG to take his regulation and upstick asswards. And I don’t blame Glock.
MA is an asylum run by the inmates. Fortunately, my town in MA is a bastion of sanity, which is why I live here.
You forgot the “in my opinion” part
“LCIs are basically innocuous.”
Just wait until they insist on LCIs for *revolvers*.
(Yeah, yeah, I know. I KNOW. That’s the point, put more off the ‘Roster’).
This is actually a smart move by them. Previously, they were a “common-sense gun safety organization” that only proposed gun control. These are real gun safety proposals that some PotGs also advocate for. This provides legitimacy to what they are really after and serves to troll us gun people.
YEs.
But no.
If any of these features are good then people will by the firearms with those features, the market will filter out the good ideas from bad. The problem is not the features, the problem is them becoming mandated. When the Government tells us we can only buy the firearms with these features, that is a serious problem.
Don’t 3 and 5 contradict each other? Modern guns are drop safe, but light triggers make them more likely to shot when dropped?
I remove the magazine disconnect from SR Ruger pistols.
If I could find a replacement for the turkey timer indicator I would replace it.
I had an LC9 that had a pin back into the LCI and keep it from moving. This prevented the slide from going into battery. I got rid of it after it was fixed.
This things take pressure to work and if they get stuck, impair function of the pistol.
Ruger should offer a PRO model without all the do-dads required by leftist states.
Yeah, it would be nice if Ruger offered an LC9S Pro. Oh, wait …
Maybe I’m being pedantic, but I don’t think most of these would be considered unconstitutional. For comparison, I’m thinking about the general ban on ownership of automatic weapons. Such a ban could be written as “guns for purchase must have a trigger mechanism that only allows a single round to be fired per trigger pull.” How is that different from a law that says “guns for purchase must have a loaded-chamber indicator or a grip safety or a drop safety?”
I disagree with the general ban on automatic weapons, but such bans have been upheld as constitutional to the best of my knowledge. I would expect other laws that dictate other such “safety” features to also be upheld.
If the government tried to mandate how many words could be included in a news article, or what days people were allowed to attend a church/mosque/synagogue/temple/sweat lodge/skeptic society lecture, it would be obvious that by restricting the mechanisms by which people exercise their First Amendment rights the government was infringing on those rights.
The ban on automatic firearms has never been upheld as constitutional. Nor has it been really challenged until recently via Hollis v Lynch and Watson v Lynch. The Miller decision upheld (dubiously at best) the government’s ability to regulate said tax said weapons, not ban them (as it did not, nor are they currently banned *if* you have a boatload of cash and want one at least 30 years old). Watson v Lynch just came back from the 3rd COA with an ass-backwards decision that automatics can be banned. The logic behind it is horrifying for anyone with a brain and portends what people in .gov will use to justify doing *anything* they want to and forcing you to pay for it.
In the decision, the court basically stated that automatics are made uncommon by said law, so therefore said law is okay because it only affects uncommon things. This kind of circular logic is dangerous at best, and down-right damning for our future as free people at worst.
I like chambered round indicators as a simple, silent alternative to a press-check, but I still always check for empty the old fashioned way.
Grip and magazine safeties, in my opinion, encourage unsafe gun handling because people start to rely on them. Its ok to keep your finger on the trigger while topping up a magazine because the gosh darn gun “can’t” fire without a magazine!
Firing pin blocks: let the lawyers solve this one. You don’t make drop safe guns? You won’t be in business very long, and the products liability judgment creditors will be repossessing your cars.
You’d think that an org named “The Trace” would have a trace of sanity, or a trace of intelligence. But no. It only has the type of trace that people wash out of their underwear with Tide and Clorox.
Clorox won’t do it. Chipoltaway, maybe.
So the Trace is run by 1911 fanboys. Who knew?
The trace wants us all to buy Springfield XDs.
What if I beat ’em to it? I guess I have to buy another?
+1
Idk…..drop mag……clear weapon…..lock action open…..disassemble…clean……put it back together and if you rack one……..don’t shoot yourself or anyone you don’t want to shoot.
Lock it up when you need to and wear it when you need to?
What’s that great saying?
Keep your booger hook off the bang switch.
The trace staff needs to go shooting once or twice.
1) If you’re dumb enough to “mistakenly think a gun is unloaded” and not bother to check it a chamber indicator isn’t going to help you. On top of that, if it’s dirty it can get stuck and indicate a loaded chamber when there is no round in the chamber, so some idiot assumes it’s read to roll and gets a click when he/she needs a bang.
2)I understand the concept of a mag disconnect but I don’t like them. One of my pistols, a Star BM has this and it’s obnoxious. I can’t decock the gun without inserting a mag and the damn thing doesn’t work perfectly. It’s just one more thing to break and shut down your gun when you need it IMHO.
3) Oh great, let’s make trigger pulls heaver and see how many MORE errant rounds the cops can send toward innocent bystanders.
4) I have nothing against a grip safety, but these idiots don’t seem to understand that it can be deactivated by any thing that presses it. No a kid can’t “grip” the gun properly, but they can look down the barrel with their fingers around the backstrap and thumb on the trigger can’t they? Pretty sure they can.
5) WTAF are these people talking about? Were the 60+ people shot in Chiraq last week all victims of dropped guns that went off? Were any? How many people each year are struck by a bullet that was fired from a dropped gun? (Not a drop gun btw, a dropped gun.) A solution in want of a problem.
This is just internet jackassery by uninformed people who happen to have an agenda against something they don’t understand and don’t care to learn about.
Were the 60+ people shot in Chiraq last week all victims of dropped guns that went off? Were any?
I’m sure that the gangbangers would say that they were simply driving along when — BOOM! — the gun just went off. Seventeen times.
The govt should mandate “the trace” be less stupid. Or perhaps people in general? Certainly should be a minimum standard to reproduce.
For what it’s worth I like grip safeties, never had an issue with any of my xdm’s. And two of them see much 3 gun. I wouldn’t want them mandated though. Because pro-choice 😉
Way #1. Take guns away from all people everywhere except the from the criminals they can’t get them from.
1. Safe gun handling indoctrinated from a young age.
2. Regular firearms practice and maintenance.
3. Better over-all education.
4. More training available for skilled professions, leading to increased productivity, wealth, and happiness.
5. More individual freedom. Less oligarchy and propaganda.
Bogus list. As u stated didn’t even offer up the golden rules of firearm safety and also did not include safety number 1, the index finger.
Safety #1 is the brain.
The loaded chamber indicator on my Ruger 22/45 lite (gold) caused feed errors on every mag. Removal made the pistol a dream to shoot. According to “the trace”, it’s not a bug it’s a feature.
Also, if you remove the Mk 3 hammer and replace it with a Mk2, it will fire without a mag inserted, and the mag will drop without being pried out.
“Guns with “light” pulls are more likely to fire when dropped,”
These guys (or gals) are maroons.
I have no problems with any of these safety devices, except for the magazine disconnect. I appreciate the grip safety on my SA-XD as it encourages me to use a proper grip when shooting. Even with the loaded chamber indicator I generally do a press check to ensure that my gun is loaded/unloaded, just to be sure. Ultimately, I feel that it is me that is responsible for the safety of my guns, these devices are just tools that help me to do that.
Where this article (from The Trace) runs into issues with me is the idea of a mandate. creating laws that require them is not about safety, it is about making guns more expensive and less attractive to purchase. It is just another step in the effort to limit the Second Amendment without actually limiting the Second Amendment.
“John Hopkins’s Stephen Teret, one of the authors of the 1999 Journal of Public Health study, says he likes grip safeties because they are particularly suited to reducing the risk of accidental shootings by children.”
Right.
“During the 1880s, Daniel Baird Wesson, head of the Smith & Wesson gun company, ordered his engineers to produce a child-proof gun, after he read a newspaper account of a child killed in a gun accident. The new gun, with a safety lever in the grip, and a very hard trigger pull, was brought to market as the New Departure Model Safety Hammerless. It is said that one evening Mr. Wesson was entertaining guests in his mansion, and seeking to demonstrate his safety innovation, handed a boy a loaded Safety Hammerless and told him ‘Go ahead and pull the trigger.’ The boy did, and a bullet instantly tore through an expensive Persian carpet, lodging itself in the floor underneath Mr. Wesson’s feet.” (https://www.firearmsandliberty.com/children.guns.html)
More “common sense gun safety” from people who use the term “common sense” as a shorthand for “didn’t do the homework, just pulled an idea out of my butt.”
5.5 lbs is a “dainty” trigger pull? They’d soil their pants if they saw some of the triggers on competition long-range rifles.
Number 1 & 2 are a Ruger SR9, number 3 is a NYPD trigger,
number 4 is a Springfield Armory XD/XDm and number 5 is a CZ P-09.
Now, add all that up, what would it look like?
The first one would probably be most effective. Now, why don’t they propose a $100 rebate for the purchase of a gun with such a feature?
Mandating 1 and 2 on new firearms would not violate any part of the constitution (I note that I am still against them being required). You would still be able to obtain a firearm and all previously owned firearms would be grandfathered in and not require the changes because it would be almost impossible to configure with their current setup.
Magazine safeties are a PITA. I disabled mine.
Never had one with that feature and never will.
1. it’s clear that these chambered round indicators address a real public health need.
Well, lets look at the wording of this one before we even get into the self responsibility aspect, because it’s very specific. Now I personally like my chamber indicator, but a loaded chamber indicator isn’t going to lower my cholesterol or help me work out last I checked. The public health tie-in tries to take this in the direction that many anti-gun advocates now see as a path to victory– Tying guns to health issues. That aside, a loaded chamber indicator is little more than that message on your McDonald’s coffee lid– Warning, contents hot.
2. Magazine release safeties
Actually, not having a mag safety release is a feature. One of the prereqs in my carry pistol was to not have one of these.
3. The best known Glock pistol, the 9mm Glock 17, requires only a relatively dainty 5.5 pounds of pressure on the trigger in order to fire.
Wow… Dainty? I was pretty sure that was the upper limit for what one would consider for accuracy applications and certainly safe enough for most uses. But we prefaced it with the word ‘relatively’ so we could compare it to something less practical, I guess. That makes it okay.
4 and 5 are already industry standard depending on the make and model, yet accidental firearm injuries still occur with them regardless. How many people have accidentally been shot or shot somebody else with a 1911, a fortress of handgun safety? A series 80 incorporates both prescribed technologies– A grip safety and firing pin block… And people still shoot themselves with them. I have an XD with a grip safety, firing pin block and loaded chamber indicator (sorry, no 10lb trigger). What do you want to bet somebody has still shot themselves with one?
Such a train wreck article…
There is one that is not on that list that my new CA approved guns have, a stupid little key that you can turn to disable the gun.
Key is still in box, never been used.
The real facts are the more you handle a gun the more careless a person gets. Its human nature. Cops have more discharges than any other group of people I have personally ever met. Not that they are any more stupid than many of the Morons I have met at my club of almost 1,000 members but again Cops handle guns everyday and just like the lottery if you play it every day sooner or later you win, maybe not big money just as maybe you don’t kill yourself accidentally either when you get your first accidental discharge.
Massad Ayoob’s study on Police Departments found that the most accidents were with Glock or Glock type pistols that had no manual or grip safety and had a single action type of pull (read that the popular pre-loaded striker fired systems that are so popular with the average Moron crowd, not of course realizing how dangerous these guns are just to handle. On the other hand Police departments that went to the double action heavy pull long strong traditional type of weapon aka Beretta 92 double action only the accident rate dropped dramatically.
The average Conservative mentality is pure Moron through and through as they have fought every common sense safety device on every consumer product. They screamed about the first safety glass installed in automobiles, screamed against seat belts , screamed against mandatory wearing of Motor Cycle helmets when every study ever done proved it saved lives, screamed against backup safety devices on lawn mowers which cut way down on Adults running over their own children. The list goes on ad nauseam. The Conservative is clueless and brainless when it comes to safety with anything. He will tell you with a completely straight face he never made a mistake in his life and never will. No wonder they identify with Morons like Trump.
Over the years since the Glock has come out along with its copy cat competitors its “the pistol” that has the most accidents and it does not take a rocket scientist to figure out why. The gun for all practical purposes is really the same as carrying a Colt Model “P” single action at full cock, something that was not even done in the old days as even they had sense enough to carry the Colt hammer down and chamber empty. How may genius Glock owners do the same, un-cocked and striker not cocked. Answer none, their not that intelligent. Its the gun of choice for Morons. The picture of the Chimpanzee holding a Glock really says it all as that typifies the average Glock owner totally oblivious as to how the gun works and how dangerous it is to carry one every day. Its a shame too because other foreign countries with far more intelligence than the U.S. have mandated Glock only ship in guns that had manual safeties and some demanded heavier trigger pulls as well. I was astonished when researching this on how many countries made Glock do this. Of course Glock realizes the average American Gun owner is not that intelligent and would probably refuse to buy their guns if all came with a manual safety and too few would buy one if given the choice. Pure stupidity but that’s the average level of intelligence of the average Glock lover.
I have had many people tell me over the years after having accidental discharges with the Glock that they either got rid of the gun or sent it in and had a 1911 style manual safety put one their guns. One fellow told me after having this safety put on it was the first time in his life he could handle a loaded Glock without breaking out into a cold sweat. He only wished he had had his gun modified sooner and Glock officially sanctioned the after market safety as not voiding the warranty. Now what does that tell you, huh?
I like a gun with a manual safety, a grip safety and even though I hate magazine safeties they have saved countless lives in both adults when they were trying to un-chamber a round or when children got ahold of a gun and tried to load it without a clip or pull the trigger without a clip in it and could not make it fire. One Cop I know even left his magazine partially out of the gun, not enough to notice at a glance but enough to disable the gun. Why? Because once when a criminal got ahold of his gun it stopped him from figuring out immediately as to why it would not fire, just long enough for the Cop to brain the guy and get the gun back.
The Conservative wants no common sense restrictions whatsoever on himself. He wants the right to leave loaded guns out where his own children or visiting children can get ahold of them and shoot themselves with them. He will tell you it will never happen. He wants no safety devices on any gun and will tell you the 1911 series of safeties invented in 1911 was a Communist conspiracy (too ignorant to know Communism was still in its embryonic stage then). He will tell you he is perfect in every way and would never make a human mistake such as being distracted at the wrong moment, forget the chamber was loaded, forget the gun was cocked, be unknowingly slightly impaired from taking ordinary cold medicine or even worse prescription pain pills which these days half the population seems to be popping by the minute. I am sure Prince in his arrogance never thought he would overdose either. The list and examples go on and on making the case for passive firing pin safeties, grip safeties, magazine safeties, loaded chamber indicators and manual safeties. Except for magazine safeties I want all that on my pistol but will admit even the magazine safety was a great comfort when handling some guns when I was tired and trying to get a round out of the chamber after removing the magazine when I was fatigued late at night after a long hard day. I am sure it probably saved my life at one time or another but I was too tired to remember whether it did or not proving yes indeed as much as I hated the damn magazine safety it worked as intended and was a worthwhile addition to that particular handgun which was by the way a Baby Browning .25 acp and you know how easy it is to accidentally shoot yourself with a gun that small while trying to unload it just too much can go wrong in a split second when you are not your normal alert self.
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