One step away from an AD/ND

[S&WM&P40]

I have to admit, I carry a M&P 40 with a round chambered at all times. I have been carrying it this way for over 6 years. Never once had a ND. However seeing some of these stories definitely makes my butt hole pucker and gives me the chills. I sometimes find myself thinking where in the leg would the bullet strike me if it were to go off in the holster. I try and practice firearm safety at all times although I know we are only human and prone to making mistakes. I always try and keep my gun holstered as much as I can and try to avoid removing it from it's holster just for these same reasons. I never really thought about the holster deforming like it did in the first link. I'm gonna have to check out my CB holster now just to make sure.

[Ewussor]

The reason I respectfully disagree with you guys is that mechanical safeties can fail. Thus they are not to be relied upon to mitigate against ND's.

Absolutely, a safety can fail, and should not be relied upon to prevent NDs. In other words, all the usual rules still apply even if the weapon has multiple safeties.

But in the end, I have to ask: Would either of those discharges have occurred if the weapons in question had a separate safety that was engaged at the time?

People are not perfect. If they were, we wouldn't need seatbelts and airbags in cars. These should not be relied upon the prevent injuries either; it's much better to avoid accidents in the first place, but that's not always possible. Even the best trained professional drivers make mistakes at times, and the same is true of people who carry guns.

At the risk of repeating myself, I'm not attempting to influence anyone's choice of carry pistol here, I am only explaining why some might not feel comfortable with certain choices themselves.

[snakeman21]

Absolutely, a safety can fail, and should not be relied upon to prevent NDs. In other words, all the usual rules still apply even if the weapon has multiple safeties.

But in the end, I have to ask: Would either of those discharges have occurred if the weapons in question had a separate safety that was engaged at the time?

People are not perfect. If they were, we wouldn't need seatbelts and airbags in cars. These should not be relied upon the prevent injuries either; it's much better to avoid accidents in the first place, but that's not always possible. Even the best trained professional drivers make mistakes at times, and the same is true of people who carry guns.

At the risk of repeating myself, I'm not attempting to influence anyone's choice of carry pistol here, I am only explaining why some might not feel comfortable with certain choices themselves.

QFT

[TonyF]

But in the end, I have to ask: Would either of those discharges have occurred if the weapons in question had a separate safety that was engaged at the time?

Obviously the discharges would not have occurred .......... in those instances.

But what I am trying to convey is that the dereliction on the part of the gun owner with the worn out holster, and the carelessness of the shooter ND'ing upon holstering his weapon, is that both of these guys exhibited behavior such that a mechanical safety notwithstanding, something bad was going to happen to them eventually.

There are no unsafe firearms, there are only unsafe shooters.

At the risk of repeating myself, I'm not attempting to influence anyone's choice of carry pistol here, I am only explaining why some might not feel comfortable with certain choices themselves.

At no time in this thread did anything you wrote lead me to believe you were advocating against pistols without active, mechanical safeties.

[afdcomposer]

Obviously the discharges would not have occurred .......... in those instances.

But what I am trying to convey is that the dereliction on the part of the gun owner with the worn out holster, and the carelessness of the shooter ND'ing upon holstering his weapon, is that both of these guys exhibited behavior such that a mechanical safety notwithstanding, something bad was going to happen to them eventually.

There are no unsafe firearms, there are only unsafe shooters.



At no time in this thread did anything you wrote lead me to believe you were advocating against pistols without active, mechanical safeties.

Nitpicking here, but the red part is, strictly speaking, not accurate. There are plenty of unsafe firearms. I have personally seen a bunch of them.

I'm only pointing this out because while this discussion has miraculously remained civil, we poofers (a term coined for PAFOA forum members) have a tendency to overstate our case, from time to time...

And for the record I think you both agree that the manual safety would have prevented the AD/NDs noted above, and that the two AD/NDers would probably have suffered an AD/ND of some other type at some point anyway.

Cheers,
afd

ETA: OP, unless you have a habit of either A) playing with the firearm whilst it is holstered or B) placing your finger on or near the trigger whilst unholstering, you weren't really close to an AD/ND, however you have learnt the importance of being aware of the condition of your carry weapon.

[TonyF]

Nitpicking here, but the red part is, strictly speaking, not accurate. There are plenty of unsafe firearms. I have personally seen a bunch of them.

Sure there are firearms that may be unsafe due to a worn or mechanically deficient part, or those that were hacked on by a kitchen table gunsmith but I was referring to firearms in good working order.