Isn't this already the norm?Originally Posted by joshs
Isn't this already the norm?
Absolutely, I've read the article a few times. It's happened to a few departments. But it's not happened to hundreds. If you read the article again pretending to be a math major or a statistician, toward the end of the article you start to notice a bit of statistical slight of hand or confusion. Read the stats for 2012. Roughly half of agency using the MP, the rest M9. OVER half ND's caused by the old one, not the MP. Hmmmm, in police work we call that a clue....
Second and more importantly, for every agency that has this horror occur there are numerous agencies that had no increase and a few that actually went down. That doesn't get in your news cycle because... well the ability of a training staff to safely and successfully transition to a handgun is what they are supposed to do. It's not news worthy. But when looking at cause and effect if more than half of all agencies report no increase and less than half report an increase(it's actually small) what does that tell you? If you're a stats guy it should tell you easily what is NOT happening. Why it is happening requires more info that will not be given out to some reporter.
So if we gather stats for the few agencies that went down in AD's can we say that the MP or Glock is safer than the M9 or other DA handguns? If you're a stats guy the answer is absolutely not. Stats are very easy to use to disprove a false premise. But when trying to figure out what is going on at that department it will take much more info. The history of the great Glock story might give us a few valid clues.
And lastly, somewhere in the Levant Nassim Taleb is banging his head on a table saying, "Not only does it not work that way but I gave them a FREE book to explain it!"
What you do right before you know you're going to be in a use of force incident, often determines the outcome of that use of force.
"In your experience is" history. You get to look back on it with hindsight. It worked well for you. That's a good thing. But if for a variety of reasons it didn't work out for you, the only person you can blame would be yourself. That's true for all of us. I explained how it worked for some. Some that are a bit slow to learn. Those that are without access to good training. Those that life situations slows their practice. All these combos can really screw up someone using a more difficult pistol.
If striker fired guns were shown to be death traps the negatives of the DA's would just be the price of not shooting ourselves. But if they were Pinto's they would no longer be made and Glock would be out of business or making DA's.
As for Big Army, it will be interesting. They don't have a great reputation for avoiding ND's.
What you do right before you know you're going to be in a use of force incident, often determines the outcome of that use of force.
To be clear, I don't think SFA guns are unsafe. I have one pointed at vital portions of my anatomy as I type this, so I firmly believe that they can be used safely. I do, however, think that a TDA gun is safer with little downside other than cost and potential control interference with some shooters' grips. For me, the easy thought experiment is using your generic shooter who doesn't have the time, money, or drive to train sufficiently. If I were to run into that person in a situation where they were potentially going to point a gun at me, I would prefer they have a gun that takes more conscious effort to make it discharge.
Big numbers and, at least when I was in, lousy training.
When I worked for DynCorp they had a pretty good way of preventing NDs. Have an ND? Pack your shit, get on a plane, you're done. In two years there was exactly one, at the clearing barrel, into the barrel. He packed his shit, got on a plane, and went home. No contract completion bonus. That was the most expensive bullet he ever fired.
Yes. I know things like that work well for special positions in PD's. I was not in the Army but I suspect it is similar to most mil/government operations including police, the idea of a test or requirement that moves over time thus requiring progressive improvement is a foreign idea.
What you do right before you know you're going to be in a use of force incident, often determines the outcome of that use of force.
I was in the Army, am now a Federal LEO and firearms instructor working a lot with .mil folks. The qualification standards for handguns in the Army and Navy are just shy of criminally negligent, and I doubt they'll change. Moreover, in the 12 years I served on Active Duty, I observed precisely NO handgun "training." Qualification once a year (60 rounds) was all. I know folks on active duty in the Navy who's "qualification" with handgun was to fire a magazine at the ocean. If they hit the water, they were "qualified."
Not to say there aren't units in .mil that do a (MUCH MUCH) better job, just that the overwhelming majority of .mil will continue as they have - no training, annual qual, go to war.
There's a reason why the MHS requires a manual safety. There's no doubt in my mind that standard carry of MHS pistols will be empty chamber, safety engaged. And they'll still have a metric shit ton of NDs at clearing barrels...
And I still don't get why folks are so convinced that the DA trigger is such a suckfest. Certainly, if you carry an HK in DA, you're fooked. Likewise any post-2005 Sig "Classic" that hasn't been cleaned up. But most Berettas, CZ, etc DA triggers have been perfectly useable.
I guess I'm just not that picky. But I know I prefer a long, smooth, deliberate DA shot to the Glocks spongy take up, heavyish break, and sensitivity to weak-side push. I still carry a Glock, but only because I haven't found a G19 sized DA/SA yet that tickles my fancy. We'll see if the P07 does the trick...
If you dig deeper into that article about NDs, you'll see it was with the LA Sheriff's Dept after transitioning from Berettas to M&Ps. You will also discover that the LASD had a "On Target, On Trigger" policy
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I had a pair of S&W 4006 handguns that had been worked over until they had a delightful trigger in both double action and single action, without being too light for combat work. I loved shooting them in double action. I loved shooting them in single action. I disliked transitioning between double action and single action however, no matter how many rounds I put through them. This was back on the day when ammo was cheap and reloading on a Dillon press even cheaper and a could afford to shoot a lot. Finally, I gave the pistols to my brother when he went into law enforcement and my father when he retired and became a security guard. If I had it to do over again, I would have had the pistols converted to DAO right at the start and saved myself the frustration
Last edited by MistWolf; 04-05-2017 at 06:41 PM.
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