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Thread: And Yet Another 320 Lawsuit?

  1. #111
    Quote Originally Posted by TCinVA View Post
    The problem is that all these guns will be handled ultimately by human beings and some design decisions have less room for error than others when it comes to human beings acting as human beings do.

    If you fail to properly clear a Beretta 92 when you attempt to disassemble the pistol you find out when a live round falls out of the chamber when the slide and barrel are removed.

    If you fail to properly clear a Glock 17, when you attempt to disassemble the pistol you get a gunshot.

    That is most definitely a stupid engineering choice for a handgun.

    Engineering that doesn't take the human factor into account is bad engineering.
    All tools are handled by humans but no manufacturer/designer can account for every human or how the tool is used/abused by the end user. The fact that Glock require the trigger to be pulled for field stripping and some other designs don't is a choice that allows for less error but is in no way unsafe. It can be done repeatedly safely and is described in the manual how to do so and is done so probably millions of times now by hundred of thousands of users across a broad spectrum of ability without issue.

    If the gun industry or any tool maker was to take subjective idea of the lowest common denominator and safest tool use into account we probably would not have power tools,automobiles or guns beyond DA revolvers, you know just to be safe. If you want a safe semi auto then a true double action only hammer fired design with the longest heaviest trigger pull would fit the bill. However the vast majority of military s, police agencies, and individuals choose and chose to balance safety with the gun's intended purpose (to shoot and hit targets/threats). This is a significant reason why Glock is the most common handgun worldwide and striker fired guns are so commonly used.

    My comments here and before are in no way intended to attack or denigrate your position or any individual's or agency's choice and concern about designs that offer a smaller safety margin. I comment to keep separate personal subjective concerns from objective reasonableness as it relates to design. I fear the day when a manufacturer of any product is required to meet standards of a person is unable to harm themselves with their product regardless of how careless they use it. The recent Gorilla Glue hair fiasco is just such an example.

  2. #112
    Murder Machine, Harmless Fuzzball TCinVA's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by willie View Post
    I screw up as do others but have a good record with guns: one negligent discharge in 59 years. I put a .45 bullet in my truck door. Not long ago I discovered I had not unloaded my shotgun before leaving the field after dove hunting.
    The more you handle guns, the more likely you are to experience those kinds of issues.

    Safety with a firearm has nothing to do with your background, education, training resume, status in society, or intellect.

    Safety with a firearm is a process.

    At any given moment someone is either demonstrating disciplined adherence to the primary rules of firearms safety, or they are not. At any given moment someone is either doing the safest, sanest thing possible with a deadly weapon, or they are not.

    The instant someone strays from disciplined adherence to the principles of safely handling a firearm, that person is dangerous. That person is fractions of a second away from experiencing an unintentional discharge of a firearm and the potential consequences that go with it.

    It doesn't matter what they were doing even three seconds ago. It doesn't matter what their job is, what level of training they have, how much money they make, what their IQ is, how big their youtube channel is, how many followers they have on Instagram, how many years service they have in an elite unit, how many championships they've won...the instant they stop obeying the process of safe handling practices they become a lethal menace to themselves and others.

    Every single person who handles a firearm will, at some point, handle one negligently. The more you handle firearms the higher your risk of a bad outcome becomes.

    Take reholstering as an example. In a typical year I will reholster a loaded handgun thousands of times. I can guarantee that in at least some of those instances I will make a mistake or experience something unexpected like a foreign object ending up in my holster. That's why I refuse to carry a handgun that doesn't give me some last ditch mechanical method of neutralizing the firing mechanism when I put the gun back in the holster.

    There is actually an entire field of academic study centered on the propensity for error among human beings. Human beings commit far more errors than they can possibly keep account of in their daily activities. In some fields the consequences of human error are so severe that mitigation strategies must be used. Take surgery as an example. If you go in to have surgery on a limb, odds are that prior to your surgery a highly educated medical professional with years of experience is going to hand you a marker and ask you to mark the limb that is to be operated on. They will likely ask you for your name, your identifying information, and for what you are there to have done even though all of that is on a chart right in front of them.

    This practice resulted from numerous instances where highly trained, highly experienced medical professionals performed the wrong procedures on the wrong limbs and even on the wrong patients.

    In aviation, surgery, nuclear power, critical incident response in IT, and practically any other human endeavor you can name where an error brings a high likelihood of expensive and/or dangerous consequences, processes have been developed to attempt to minimize the occurrences of error and mitigate their ability to produce a negative outcome.

    The point of training is to breed disciplined adherence to those processes even under extreme stress. Commercial and military aviators spend time every year in simulators where highly experienced aviators throw problems at them that they must resolve to keep their ratings to fly. Nuclear reactor operators go through the same process every year as well. All of this is designed to habituate disciplined adherence to a process of problem solving and safety even under extreme stress.

    Safety with a firearm, like safety with a nuclear reactor or an aircraft, is not a passive process. Properly done, it is an active process where the person holding the firearm is making the safest, sanest decision they can under the circumstances they are facing at that moment. And when the circumstances change they change their behavior accordingly. A muzzle direction that is safe right now might not be safe in a second and a half...and the person holding the firearm needs to be sufficiently aware of what is happening to recognize that and do something about where their muzzle is oriented.

    No human being will do that perfectly at all times. This is why we layer safety practices. The four primary rules of firearms safety layer on top of one another to create as much distance between human frailties and bad outcomes.

    Sane engineering can add more layers between a mistake and a bad outcome because as effective as observance of the four primary rules of firearms safety is, no human being alive observes all of them all the time.

    Clearing a Glock before taking it apart once isn't difficult. Ensuring that you have properly performed the steps necessary to safely clear the gun ten thousand times is another thing altogether. Ensuring that a police force of 40,000 people properly observes that process at least twice a year...well, you can see how the odds start to stack up on that.

    Everyone understands how a moment or two of looking at a text while on the interstate piloting a minimum of 1.5 tons of steel going 75 MPH can result in someone being maimed or killed...and yet I'd wager you would have a dickens of a time finding a person who has a cell phone that never looked at a text under those circumstances. You might find picking winning lotto numbers or the next stock to jump 3,000% easier to do. Everyone also understands that the more miles you drive, the more likely you are to experience an accident.

    Lethal mistakes with firearms are faster and easier than with vehicles. A small movement of the upper body while holding a handgun can sweep an entire line of people and if a bullet leaves that muzzle nobody can see it and get out of the way in time.

    If we have a proper understanding of the risks, we can take measures to mitigate them. But that doesn't happen if we don't honestly assess ourselves, our equipment, and our circumstances.
    3/15/2016

  3. #113
    Member GearFondler's Avatar
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    The neat thing about the SCD is how well it works in actual practice. I'm sure it's a function of leverage or mechanical advantage, but the fact is the SCD seems to stop striker movement with much less pressure than the trigger needs to override that blocking pressure. I feel very confident that I could drive the Glock trigger through a wall and my thumb on the SCD could still prevent a trigger pull.
    Plus there is a decent amount of "room for error" as well. In the picture below you can see that I have deliberately flubbed the blocking position of my thumb to simulate a user error. You can see that the SCD is almost fully lifted and is only stopped by my thumb tendon. I am actively squeezing the trigger hard but I still can't pull hard enough to overcome the pressure from my thumb's tenuous positioning (Yes, my thumb is also squeezing hard as well). The striker is very close to releasing but it still isn't quite there yet... That in my opinion is a pretty impressive margin for error.



    To further test this out I tried what some might consider an uncomfortable experiment, from a safety standpoint, but I decided it was worth it if it helped anyone else. I started by checking 5 different times that my Glock was indeed chamber empty and unloaded and then I used a pencil to simulate a trigger blockage as I holstered AIWB. The pencil was pushed through the trigger guard and across the holster mouth, making sure it was positioned on the bottom of the trigger so as to engage the safety tab. I then tried to fully seat the pistol while using the SCD both correctly and sloppily. I banged it in there pretty hard each time and while there were times where a sloppy thumb placement allowed the SCD to start moving, it never did end with a striker release.




    Here's the pencil just for reference, showing where the trigger was impacting against it.



    In summary, even with an SCD a person could easily find a way to screw things up, but in my opinion it adds a seriously hefty extra layer of security and peace of mind if used correctly.

  4. #114
    Site Supporter farscott's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Tokarev View Post
    Yes. I understand the theory. In practice how well has it worked? Has anyone here using the SCD actually had an instance where they attempted to holster and would have had an AD that was prevented?

    Sent from my SM-G970U using Tapatalk
    Yes, one time. My cover garment, a brand new polo with longer tails, was not fully clear of the holster and put pressure on the trigger. My thumb felt the SCD starting to move, and I stopped holstering, looked down, backed the pistol out of the holster, and saw part of the polo in the holster. It was a mistake. It was my fault. But that is why I have SCDs for Glock pistols I have not yet bought. It is one more layer of safety.

  5. #115
    Murder Machine, Harmless Fuzzball TCinVA's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by octagon View Post
    The fact that Glock require the trigger to be pulled for field stripping and some other designs don't is a choice that allows for less error but is in no way unsafe.
    That would mean that the Glock's design choices make it less safe than, say, a Beretta 92 in one of the primary vectors for unintentional discharge of a firearm. It is less safe because an error guarantees an event. Events are errors with consequences.

    There are degrees, here. There is differentiation. Some design features increase the distance between human error and gunshot, and some design decisions guarantee them.

    It can be done repeatedly safely and is described in the manual how to do so and is done so probably millions of times now by hundred of thousands of users across a broad spectrum of ability without issue.
    "Without issue" is a curious way to describe something we know for a fact results in unintentional discharges of the weapon in question every year.

    Once again, there are degrees here.

    Any firearm we can name will have some instances of unintentional discharge when attempting to disassemble the weapon for cleaning.

    Some weapons, by nature of their design, will have more of them than others. To mitigate the risk it first has to be realistically acknowledged.

    If the gun industry or any tool maker was to take subjective idea of the lowest common denominator and safest tool use into account we probably would not have power tools,automobiles
    We have plenty of both of those. And inherent in their design are a number of safety features that have resulted from lessons learned about how people use the tools in question. Seat belts, air bags, anti-lock brakes, crumple zones, ground fault interruptors, temperature sensors, fuses, and all manner of safety mechanisms have been integrated into those products to reduce the instances of injury or death from their use. The risk cannot be entirely eliminated, but it can be effectively mitigated IF one grasps the risks involved and makes a serious effort at incorporating design changes that can help mitigate them.

    Firearms are a little bit different because they are a lethal weapon. Their intended purpose is to destroy flesh. When their trigger is pulled we don't have a good way of having the machine ensure that the pink monkey creature pressing the trigger means to be doing it, or even that there is actually a person pressing the trigger before the gun obeys its mechanical programming and discharges.

    We can, however, design the gun so that FIRING THE WEAPON IS THE ONLY FUNCTION THE TRIGGER HAS.

    Designing a firearm in such a way that a trigger press becomes part of a disassembly process increases the chances that the gun will be fired unintentionally because now that trigger does something benign AND something fucking lethal.

    However the vast majority of military s, police agencies, and individuals choose and chose to balance safety with the gun's intended purpose (to shoot and hit targets/threats).
    Most people and most agencies buying firearms have absolutely dogshit risk analysis and mitigation skills.

    A significant part of that is failing to understand the practical consequences of design features of the weapons they are buying.

    A cogent risk analysis didn't promote the widespread adoption of Glocks...pricepoint did. Police departments that would have never allowed carrying a cocked and locked 1911 because a cocked hammer is dangerous bought handguns with short travel triggers with no safety because they were cheap.

    This is a significant reason why Glock is the most common handgun worldwide and striker fired guns are so commonly used.
    The most significant reason why Glocks are common is because they are cheap and they work most of the time.

    ...well, the 9mm ones, anyway.

    The significant reason why many police departments and a large chunk of the military uses Serpa holsters, a spectacularly fucktarded design for a holster, especially when used in conjunction with light, short travel triggers that have no manual safety, is because they are cheap and they check the box for having "retention"...albeit in the most ass way possible.

    I comment to keep separate personal subjective concerns from objective reasonableness as it relates to design.
    It's objectively reasonable to point out that some design features are safer than others. It's what we do here at PF.

    Objectively, some decisions in design will result in more unintentional gunshots than others.

    I fear the day when a manufacturer of any product is required to meet standards of a person is unable to harm themselves with their product regardless of how careless they use it. The recent Gorilla Glue hair fiasco is just such an example.
    That's not my argument.

    It is impossible to make a lethal weapon into something incapable of being misused.

    But there are still degrees of risk in the design, use, and handling of firearms. Without recognizing those risks it's impossible to effectively mitigate them.

    All firearms training carries with it risk. But some types of training are riskier than others. Force on Force is extremely risky, and every year people are maimed and killed when involved in it. Effectively preventing those tragic outcomes requires an honest assessment of why those events happened and performing a comprehensive risk analysis to govern how the training should be conducted and whether or not it is appropriate to even conduct that training in the first place.

    Equipment choices are no different. Some equipment is riskier than other pieces of equipment that serve the same function. The risk has to be understood before it can be effectively mitigated.
    3/15/2016

  6. #116
    Murder Machine, Harmless Fuzzball TCinVA's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by GearFondler View Post
    The neat thing about the SCD is how well it works in actual practice. I'm sure it's a function of leverage or mechanical advantage, but the fact is the SCD seems to stop striker movement with much less pressure than the trigger needs to override that blocking pressure. I feel very confident that I could drive the Glock trigger through a wall and my thumb on the SCD could still prevent a trigger pull.
    Alpha and beta testers found that they could put enough force on the trigger to bend trigger bars and break trigger shoes without the striker being released when thumb pressure was applied to the SCD prototypes.
    3/15/2016

  7. #117
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    Excellent posts! BTW, if folks are interested in ergonomics of design leading to errors, the classic is:

    The Design of Everyday Things: Revised and Expanded Edition Paperback – Illustrated, November 5, 2013
    by Don Norman (Author)

    Specifically for firearms:

    Human Factors Issues in Handgun Safety and Forensics
    by Hal W. Hendrick , Paul Paradis, et al. | Nov 26, 2007

  8. #118
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    Quote Originally Posted by Glenn E. Meyer View Post
    Excellent posts! BTW, if folks are interested in ergonomics of design leading to errors, the classic is:

    The Design of Everyday Things: Revised and Expanded Edition Paperback – Illustrated, November 5, 2013
    by Don Norman (Author)

    Specifically for firearms:

    Human Factors Issues in Handgun Safety and Forensics
    by Hal W. Hendrick , Paul Paradis, et al. | Nov 26, 2007
    You’ve mentioned this before - Affordance, yes ?

    https://medium.com/@danewesolko/the-...s-cb51fd138b3e

  9. #119
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    Yes, the other book has a nice analysis of negligent discharge factors, safeties, etc.

  10. #120
    Quote Originally Posted by Glenn E. Meyer View Post
    Excellent posts! BTW, if folks are interested in ergonomics of design leading to errors, the classic is:

    The Design of Everyday Things: Revised and Expanded Edition Paperback – Illustrated, November 5, 2013
    by Don Norman (Author)

    Specifically for firearms:

    Human Factors Issues in Handgun Safety and Forensics
    by Hal W. Hendrick , Paul Paradis, et al. | Nov 26, 2007

    Thanks for the research sources. I'll check them out for added perspective on an interesting topic. Not that either are looking to consider it but I wonder if there has been a properly done study of the ultimate safe carry method: Empty chamber. A study would need to consider the risk of handling the gun to chamber a round and it being done under stress as well as risk of being too slow or difficult( maybe forgotten) when under fired and thus injured or killed. It would be interesting to see such a study. Maybe Israeli organization has done something similar in the earlier days.

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