I dont know if you guys have seen this article but it is filled with information that is taken way out of context.

www.detnews.com/2003/specialreport/0312/16/a11-7995.htm

Once again, sorry if this has been posted before, it is over a year old.

Rose Mech

It's the Detroit News...   Garbage no matter how you look at it.  If you look at that authors other work, he really does have his head up his ass when it comes to guns.    

I don't like this article.  

I like my glock.  I guarantee you that the person who wrote this has no experience with glock at ALL.

hmmm wonder what the date is on that article,  because  ive worked at the beaumont police department here in texas since feb 2002 and i dont remember there ever being a terry turner as an officer nor do i remember anyone shooting themselves in the leg with a glock

maybe it was before i worked there, but ive still lived here/near here all my life and i dont remember it being on the news either.

Notice how the writer keeps using the term "accidental discharge"?  If you pull the trigger when you don't mean to, it's not "accidental", it's "negligent".  If people are careless enough to put their finger on the trigger when they do not want to shoot, how is that the fault of the gun, or it's design?

Quoted: I don't  particularly like or dislike Glocks.    I have one,  and it's quite a decent gun within the limits of what it was designed for. But I've never felt entirely comfortable with a firearm that didn't have a positive safety on it. Personally,  I've found the grip safety, as found on 1911s, to be the most effective and simultaneously unobtrusive safety device ever put on a gun.   It's simple, it WORKS, and absolutely not thought is needed in order to operate it. I feel that any handgun designer that doesn't include a grip safety has missed something important that really SHOULD have been included. Thumb safeties are quite nice, too.   Glocks are almost too simple in that they lack either of these safety devices. It's beyond arguing that a Glock so equipped would be safer. CJ

From my knowlege, which isn't extensive granted, it seems that a lot, if not most, accidental or negligent discharges are when holstering the gun and getting the trigger caught on something. At this point, a grip safety isn't any better than no grip safety. Anytime the gun is in hand the grip safety is being pressed and therefore deactivated. I see the grip safety as only baing a good thing when the gun goes flying though the air or dropped or something. Then it would keep the firing pin from striking the primer. A Glock is just as safe in this instance with all the internal safeties that it has.

You may make a case for the thumb safety but I just don't see it for the grip safety.

And remember, the only real safety is the one between your ears.

Okay. That is fine. But do you think that dropping a Glock is any less safe?

Dropping a glock is safe, thats the point of the double trigger, the small center trigger has very little mass to it and therefore wont be depressed without a huge acceleration change.  Meaning it must be dropped from a huge height on a hard surface.  And also I agree fully with GT86, if you pull the trigger it is hardly an Accidental Discharge.  Personally I think the Glock is a masterfully designed weapon for simplicity and reliability.  The police departments around the US shouldn't issue it if they find its simplicity to be a problem.  How can you blame Glock for an AD when the police department chose this gun as their weapon of choice and then proceded to not train its officers in the propper use and handling, sounds to me like the department should be help responsible/liable for its lack of training/instruction.

Just my opinion.

Rose Mech

Quoted: The grip safety makes it almost impossible for the gun to fire if it's dropped, regardless of its orientation on impact. And honestly, who here hasn't dropped a handgun at least once? I know I have. CJ

So does Glock's trigger safety, and its firing pin safety.

3 1/2 # trigger pull?

easy full auto?

copy of the VP70 smg? (which is a PISTOL?)


I smell

If Glocks are that bad then why people still use them?

"Take the case of Jimmy Pope. The former Jackson, Miss., police officer was shot in the face when a Glock being cleaned in another room by his roommate and fellow officer, Von Ware, accidentally discharged. The bullet went through Pope’s bedroom wall and the headboard of his bed before hitting him. "  WHO THE HELL CLEAN THEIR GUN WITH  ONE IN THE PIPE This example shows why the police NEED PROPER TRAINING TO CLEAN FIREARMS

"A full automatic Glock will fire 33 bullets in seconds with one trigger pull. And the gun can be quickly converted to full automatic mode for as little as $10 with homemade parts"  
CAN ANYONE TELL ME WHERE TO GET THIS PART

That's pretty funny, since from what I've heard, a lot of LEO are switching to Glock 22s.  My brother-in-law in NE Oklahoma's dept. made them all trade in their own choice weapons for new G22's about a year ago, he loves it, especially since they gave them a tac light and laser.

Just reading this article makes me want to order a police trade in G22.

A overlooked point to the Glock design and the lack of an external safety sans the trigger safety, is the lack of an external safety.  Sound confusing?

In a high stress situation fine motor skills go out the window and gross motor skills take over.  Now I have only been in a couple of firefights and none with a pistol, but this is a documented fact.  After action reviews of law enforcement shootings (law enforcement is studied due to the pistol being the primary weapon unlike the military where it is a secondary weapon) have found that some officers have repeatedly attempted to fire their weapons with the safety still engaged.  I know muscle memory right?  Remember the fine motor skills?  I personally have failed to place my M-4 back on safe after more than one engagement and that is not due to muscle memory or lack of, but rather due to combat stress.  I did take my finger off the trigger and I did not flag my team members with it, but the mecanical safety was deffinately negated.

A Glock is as simple and safe to operate as a double action revolver.  There only two TRUE safeties:  The trigger finger and the operator behind the weapon.  All of the rest are mechanical and as such should not be relied on.  Do you point your weapon in an unsafe direction with your finger on the trigger just because you have the safety engaged?  God, I hope not!  Do you hear many people claiming that the Double action revolver is unsafe?  I don't.

Twice in that article, it mentioned ADs with guns tucked in a waistband. Carrying Mexican is a HUGE no-no for any gun. The best way to not shoot a gun is to keep shit away from the trigger. Buy an IWB holster, you cheap bastards.

Is that a Jennings that they have in the diagram, displaying different types of safeties? That's one hell of a comparison!

I find it interesting that in all of these examples of ND's, noone takes responsibility for their poor firearms handling. They resort to lame excuses such as "I was tying my shoes" or "I was tightening my belt" and the gun just went off. The term "Glock Leg", that they mention in the article should be called "Moron Leg". That is the problem with our society, noone is responsible for their own actions, everything else gets blamed. Pathetic.

I recently found out here in NH, an attorney, well known for handling cases defending 2nd amendment rights, supposedly an avid shooter and familiar with firearms, recently shot herself in the thigh with a Glock 29 (ouch!). She is blaming the holster. Yeah, riiiight.

I really do believe that the avegage person or cop, should not handle Glocks unless they 1. have half a brain, and 2. Get lots of training.

I'll bet it wont be long before we see all Glocks come equipped with a manual safety thanks to all of the idiots. Possibly a NY3 (24lb) moron trigger might be a good solution.

Quoted: Maybe DPD has all those negligent discharges with their Glocks because for far to long they have worried about the type of people they hired rather than the quality.

By "type" I'm assuming you mean Coleman Young's cronies, friends and family members?  Well, I guess that was a few years ago.  Detroit and Ann Arbor, are to Michigan what NYC is to upstate NY.  A whole different country.  

Funny, I probably holster and draw a Glock more times in a month that most LEO's do in five years.  Yet I have never had a ND, AD and I don't suffer "glock leg."  The most irritating statement in the whole damn article was the comment about Glocks being unsuitable for Civilians...