Trigger safeties: Can we stop pretending yet?

This is the trigger safety on a Glock pistol. It is the only external safety on the gun, and it is an automatic safety, meaning that if you operate the gun normally it will fire without manual deactivation of the safety.

Basically, if you pick up the gun and pull the trigger, it's going to shoot.

If this makes the safety sound decidedly unsafe, do not be alarmed. This is a feature, not a bug.

There is some argument about this, but the thought is that Glock needed another safety to meet the requirements of the most law enforcement organizations (their target market). So by adding this safety, they could say it had three, count 'em, three safeties, and is therefore sooper safe and totally fine for cops to use safely.

The problem isn't that they designed with their audience in mind, but that the idea somehow managed to catch on.

Now we've got guns of all kinds that have trigger safeties on them (with a wink and a nudge when I say the word "safeties"), and they are absolutely pointless.

Well, not absolutely pointless, the only lipstick on that pig is in situations where something brushes against the side of the trigger without actually pushing on the middle of the trigger, the trigger will be locked in place, and the negligent discharge will have been averted.

But on the Smith and Wesson M&P pistol series, we've got trigger safeties that are built into the entire body of the trigger!



If you push on this trigger, anywhere but at the top, it will deactivate the safety. (Of course, if something is pushing on the top of the trigger, that nice little curve guarantees whatever is pushing will slide down to the trigger safety portion and deactivate the safety anyway!)

Next is the Bersa BP9CC (which is an EXCELLENT gun, by the way), which builds the entire safety into the rocking motion of the trigger!



If you push on the trigger anywhere, it's going to shoot.

Can we please stop this?

Trigger safeties are NOT safeties, and that's OK!

We're big boys and girls, and we realize that our safety is between our ears, not attached to our triggers.

Can we just skip the formality, and make guns that don't have any external safeties?

"Oh, but the extra safety there just gives me piece of mind!" Does it really? Because if so, simply remove the trigger safety from the gun, and put it under your pillow, because it'll do about as much good there, as it would on your trigger.

I don't have a problem with safeties, some people really want a manual safety on their gun. What I DO have a problem with is a bang switch masquerading as a safety.

Lets skip the pretense and skip trigger safeties.

Thanked for Open Carrying

Yesterday I was open carrying to Sam's Club with my wife. We went to the food court first so we could grab lunch before we shopped.

My elite tactical situational awareness skills (casually looking around and smiling pleasantly at anyone with whom I catch eyes) revealed no one of note. A couple families and two groups of friends.

We ordered our food and sat in one of the tables against the wall. About half way through our meal, one of the family men walked up and said, "Excuse me?"

"Hmm?"
"I just wanted to thank you for carrying."
"Th-thanks."
"It's just that not a lot of people do it."
"That's why I do it."

If I had to guess I would have figured him either military or cop, so I wasn't sure how that was going to go. Since he didn't tell me how wrong what I'm doing is, I'm guessing military.

The Avalanches - Frontier Psychiatrist

Quote of the precipice of monumental stupidity

"Are we prepared to say that such
violence visited on our children year after year after year is
somehow the price of our freedom?"
~Barack Obama, 12/16/2012

There was a time when an American leader that suggested that freedom was the root cause of evil committed against innocent children would have booed off the stage, and possibly ridden out of town on a rail.

You know, there are very constructive things that could be done, that meaningfully address the issues and are consistent with a society that is both formidably armed and free, which is what I would expect of a true leader.
But we all know that's not where he's going with this. He's going to do something else, driven primarily by ideological agenda, because this crisis presents far too good an opportunity to waste.

Obama hears the blood lust of his increasingly grief unhinged base screaming for the heads of the NRA and their members, and senses his time has come, which for a man of hubris like him it is a time of great peril with respect to his decisions. Pride goeth before a fall, and pride is never more manifest than in a man who deems himself imbued with epic destiny having arrived at his moment in history.

Have no doubt: Had Lanza driven his mother's stolen car in bloody zig zags through the school yard, no one would be screaming for the head of the chairman of the  AAA, no one would be accosting car owners at lunch or on their facebook walls demanding that they justify their car ownership in the face such tragedy.

$DEITY bless this wretched nation, for it stands with thunderous applause at the precipice of a monumental stupidity.
~GeekWithA.45

What it if went the other way?

I know it's probably WAY too soon to speculate on this, but the tagline under my blog name reminds me that I am a serial optimist.

What if the result of this horrible tragedy went the other way?

I've suggested that we've reached a tipping point where a majority of the voting (or just polling) population recognizes that private ownership of guns has value in a civilized society.

With that in mind, I've been thinking about Obama's beautiful flowing gun control coat that everyone keeps talking about, but all I see is a naked man.

Think about it; his plan is to name a head of a committee to select individuals to lead a discussion to find common ground to finalize an idea for proposed legislation to go through the various committees and sub-committees of the senate and the house in order to bring a vote that will fail the first time, sending it back to those committees and sub-committees, until finally... It either reaches some sort of gun control nirvana and is approved and signed by Obama, OR... it finds no agreement, and allows Obama to blame a do-nothing congress for his failings (past performance indicates future failure).

These things lead me to believe Obama's polling shows the gun control argument is still a losing one, and give me a sliver of optimism that maybe, just maybe, the American people saw this tragedy and instead of knee jerking:

This is absolutely horrifying. We need to ban guns NOW.

...thought about it a bit more, and said:

This is absolutely horrifying, there are no safe places, and no safe people. Maybe we really should all carry guns.

Like I said; waaayy too early to call, but just think about it.

Barack Obama: Sower of dragon's teeth, Architect of his own destruction, Unintender of consequences

My experience working in a fun shop is quite limited, but Tam's is not, and she sees a marked difference between this frenzy and the frenzies in recent memory.

It's different this time.

What's more, it's helping OUR side.

Quote of the Open Carry

Coworker: [referring to the idea that I can change peoples' minds regarding guns by open carrying] You know, you're not going to change anyone's mind.
Me: That's not important, what's important is that I'm trying.

FXhummel1 - The Open Carry Song

Friggin' hilarious!

Yes, I open carry everywhere, and yes, my G34 is even bigger than a G17 (lol'd), but no, I'm not one of these guys.

I open carry for different reasons.

Big tip of the hat to ENDO Gun Blog, which should be a daily read.

$16 Non-Tacticool Gun Belt

Faded Glory Men's Cordura Work Belt Available at your local wally world.

This is the belt I've been wearing while open carrying for the past 5 months, and I've been very impressed with it.

The best thing about it is it still friggin' works. It has some kinks where the holster loops run, but there has been no tearing, fraying, stretching, or crushing. It's very stiff, and keeps your holster supported at the top and bottom of the loops.

This means your holster will not be flipping or flopping around over time, which means your gun will be comfortable, which means you're going to carry more.


Sorry, we can't all wear BLACKHAWK! TACTICAL! BELTS!

Open Carried to Buy Buy Baby, Barnes & Noble, Kid 2 Kid, Taco Bell, Donato's Pizza, Jet's Pizza, Gas Stations, and Church

With the addition of Church, I no longer carry almost everywhere. It's just everywhere.

Had one commenter at B&N, he asked what my job was;
"I work at a gun shop."
"Oh, I figured you'd be a cop, 'cause you don't see people carrying like that."
"Nope, just a private citizen."
"I bet you get this a lot."
"Actually, almost never."
"Really?"
"Yeah, it's just as surprising to me."

Read more about my experiences open carrying here!

They're flying off the shelves

After the second presidential debate where Obama said he'd support a (guns that look like) Assault Weapons Ban, and Romney said, "I won't, but I did before because it was totally bipartisan, so that's cool, right? ... Right???" I was prepared for a run on those evil black rifles. Didn't happen.

After Obama was reelected, there was a line opening the shop and people came in and cleaned us our of our... 223 ammo. Hmm...

But after the shooting? We sold half of our black rifles just yesterday.

Everyone is saying the fix is in, but I mostly expect a ham-handed attempt at limiting access that will fail utterly in execution. Strangely, I'm still seeing a lot of the same weasel words from the administration.

Could it be his ego is so huge that he wouldn't force his personal political goals if they were unpopular EVEN facing NO reelection???

Even if it were the case, polls can swing, so it's little consolation, but I'm reminded of something I said before;

if you ever question what this president is doing, just put yourself in his position and thin your skin so much you could suntan your liver. Then this move makes sense.

Caravan Palace - Star Scat

...you don't go bock.

My gunny friend recently replaced his G19 with a G34, which isn't quite the pinnacle of Glock tacticoolery, but is quite a ways up the mountain. A sound ribbing was had, aspersions were cast, and trip to the local indoor range was planned.

At this range trip, my trusty XD (having recently performed flawlessly at some move'n'shoots with some old ammo loaded into mags that were left in my car for years) was more than up to the task, and to be quite honest, riding high in my esteem from its excellent performance.

After some initial play, we started to settle back into our grooves, and decided a challenge was in order; best three shot group at 7 yards.

He threw his first group for some reason, the sun was in his eyes, the target was moving, swamp gas reflecting off Venus, whatever the reason, I knew he could have shot it better, so I proceeded to take my time with my shots to really rub it in. I got two shots touching, and one an inch lower. "Ok, one more time." He said, and I smirkingly accepted.

It was at this point that the planets aligned, time stood still, a flipped coin landed on its edge, and he and the Glock became one. He shot, in under three seconds, three shots on top of each other. Technically, the first two were off by the thin crescent moon of paper that flew off, and the last bullet hit just inside the edge of the single hole.

After I picked my jaw up off the floor, I said, "Give me that," and proceeded to shoot that big, blocky, stupid, ugly Glock better than I did my XD. On a subsequent group, I accidentally doubletapped on the short trigger reset and sighed because I had just blown my group. "Damnit, I didn't mean to doubletap. Where'd that second one go?" "...Right into the first hole."

I respect Glocks. I don't shoot them, or like them, but I respect them. They are ugly, lack style of any kind, huge on the grip, heavy on the trigger, and command a level of fanboy-ism which only recently seems to have surpassed that of H und K. But I can't argue with results, and I won't ignore miracles when they happen.

The last Glock I shot was my friend's old 19 a few months ago. My group was meh. Before that, I hadn't shot a Glock for probably three years. There is absolutely no reason for me to pick up a G34, the biggest, and bulkiest, and Glockiest of all the Glocks, and shoot it like it was made for my hand.

After this experience, I started picking up different Glocks at the shop. I picked up a Gen 4, and to my amazement, it felt good. Not manageable or alright, but good. The grip width (frontstrap to backstrap) on the Gen 4s is definitely slimmer than the Gen 3s, and even a little slimmer than the Gen 3 SFs. I also noticed that the patented Glock humpback is exaggerated if the grip length is short. This meant that a full size Gen 4 with the smallest changeable backstrap minimized the humpback and had almost the same grip as a 45. The grip is almost straight all the way down to the hump at the bottom, which (way down there) actually fits perfectly against my palm.

I'm pretty sure Glock and I met each other half way, though my shifting must have been entirely subconscious. The point is not that I can shoot Glocks now, the point is I can suddenly shoot guns I've barely touched better than a gun I've shot for six years. I can take a hint.

So, I sold the Ruger GP100 and the 1911, and bought a Gen 4 Glock 34. I really liked those guns, but at the end of the day, they were pleasure guns, not working guns. The way things are going, I'm worried there will be more need for working guns in the future, and my pleasurable collection is getting some very practical scrutiny.

Since I've started carrying it, I've noticed some other annoyingly better things. The G34 fits near perfectly into my Galco XD Service holster (due to the extremely similar frame shape), the G34 balances better than my XD, and (worst of all) the damn huge-ass gigantic brick of a G34 feels noticeably lighter on my hip than my XD. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, Over.

Well, whatever the reason, you know what they say; Once you go Glock, you don't go bock.




Damnit.

Ratatat - Gettysburg