Manual safety on a handgun foils self defense shooting

[BehindBlueI's]

I was talking to another detective last night and heard one of the saddest stories I've heard in quite awhile. I won't go into detail, but at one point the victim was able to get to a handgun in the house, put the gun into contact with the attacker...and nothing. The attacker took the gun away from the victim and continued the assault and eventually stole the gun after finishing the attack. Its an absolutely heartwrenching tale, and one I truly wish had a different ending, but reality is reality and we can try to learn something from someone else's misfortune.

So, why nothing? The safety was on.

Guys, I'm not against a manual safety. I carried a 1911 for years and years. However, not all safeties are created equal. Not all are easy to activate intuitively under stress. If your carry gun has a manual safety, you NEED to practice drawing and deactivating the safety under stress. Get a shot timer, have someone run at you from the side while you try to dry fire, whatever, just make sure its burned into your muscle memory and that you can physically always do it.

What do I mean physically always do it? Some guns have lousy safeties. They aren't positioned for easy on/off while drawing, they are too stiff, they are too small, or some combination of these based on the gun design and your hand size. I could not consistently deactivate the safety on the CZ40B under stress, so I quit carrying it cocked and locked and went to hammer down/safety off (that particular gun can be carried either way and be ready to fire at the first trigger pull).

There are, of course, also a multitude of quality proven firearms that do not have a thumb safety. Glocks, XDs, most Sigs, etc. etc.

On a positive note, the victim survived and is a fighter. I hesitate to say "victim" as much as "survivor", but common terminology says otherwise. The person has already bought a replacement firearm...with no manual safety.

 

[Tinner666]

Other than some rifles and a shotgun, all but one pistol is safetyless. It sweeps easily and is a stash gun.

 

[Disposable Heart]

I'm not trying to sound heartless, as the loss of a life is horrible, but this sounds like a serious training issue and one many gun owners overlook (along with drawing, shooting while moving, quickly reloading, etc...).

Guns aren't talismans, they are turkeys. The shooter is the platform and thus defines the weapon system's effectiveness.

 

[LarryC]

My EDC Colt Double Eagle 45 has no safety, it does have a "De-cocker", but if there is a cartridge in the barrel, after de-cocking, the gun will fire in double action mode when the trigger is pulled. I have 2 other Colt Revolvers, a King Cobra .357 and an Anaconda 44 Mag., neither of these have any safeties either. I have been looking at a Kimber Solo as my next possible purchase. This posting will make me look at the safety on that before I buy. Thanks for the heads up!

 

[Birds Away]

To me, the lesson here is to be intimately familiar with any weapon you may have to use to defend your life. If you have a dedicated house gun then you better be just as familiar with it and spend as much time with it as you do your carry gun. I have read way too many people say their house gun never leaves the house and their carry gun never gets shot at the range. I don't understand it. Be familiar and know what will and won't work. I'm sure there will be a bum rush on this thread from the anti-safety crowd but I think the true lesson here is weapon familiarity. You shouldn't wait until a situation like this to discover whether you picked the right gun for you to defend yourself with.

 

[SERparacord]

I'm not trying to sound heartless, as the loss of a life is horrible, but this sounds like a serious training issue and one many gun owners overlook (along with drawing, shooting while moving, quickly reloading, etc...).

Guns aren't talismans, they are turkeys. The shooter is the platform and thus defines the weapon system's effectiveness.

To me, the lesson here is to be intimately familiar with any weapon you may have to use to defend your life. If you have a dedicated house gun then you better be just as familiar with it and spend as much time with it as you do your carry gun. I have read way too many people say their house gun never leaves the house and their carry gun never gets shot at the range. I don't understand it. Be familiar and know what will and won't work. I'm sure there will be a bum rush on this thread from the anti-safety crowd but I think the true lesson here is weapon familiarity. You shouldn't wait until a situation like this to discover whether you picked the right gun for you to defend yourself with.

Practice, practice, practice. Then practice more.

 

[bingley]

Ugh, that's a bad story. Glad to hear the victim survived. Hope the bad guy got put away.

I agree that 1911 safety is intuitive, while other guns may not be intuitive. If you shoot with a "high thumb" position, taking the safety off is a part of the grip on the 1911. If you train your draw stroke with the thumb safety in mind, you can draw & shoot pretty fast. The last time I timed myself with others, I, with a retention holster and a 1911, was marginally slower than someone with a non-retention holster and a Glock, but I think most of the extra time I needed was for the retention holster.

You also want an ambidextrous safety. There is no telling which hand might end up doing the shooting.

I have a gun with a hard-to-operate safety. I have to use both hands. That gun is my range toy, and I'd never carry it.

 

[Hogwylde]

My EDC is my IDPA/INMG competition gun....or is it that my IDPA/INMG gun is my EDC. Either way, I get LOTS of practice drawing and sweeping off the safety during LIVE FIRE. Being intimately familiar with your weapon of choice is key. Just having it is not a deterant to anything.

 

[Manatee]

H&K P2000 LEM FTW

 

[kawtech87]

I am not anti-safety but this story is the reason I don't normally carry a pistol with a safety nor do I use a gun with a safety as a house gun. My CZ P-01 and my G19 get the most carry use and neither have a safety. And typically the gun I am carrying at the time is the gun that is on the night stand.

Just the other day I overheard the guy behind the gun counter at my local Rural King (tall kinda big guy with glasses, don't know his name but I hear a lot of non-sense come out of his mouth) tell an obviously new to carry individual that he shouldn't leave his house with a gun that doesn't have a safety. I shook my head and walked away, I was CC my G19.

 

[HoughMade]

Carry what you are comfortable with and train, train, train....and you shouldn't be comfortable with an unreliable safety.

 

[cosermann]

Competitors train and yet forgetting to disengage the "safety" is not a rare occurrence under only the stress of competition.

Add the heightened stress of a life/death situation and, frankly, I'm surprised we don't hear about it more often. Just speculation, but maybe it's because there's sometimes no one alive to tell the tale.

Glad this individual survived to tell about it.

 

[richardraw316]

My opinion on this subject has changed over the years. I used to be a safety person, he'll I used to be a empty chamber person. The day's of empty chamber carry have helped enlighten me. In all that time carrying that way the trigger never got pulled on accident or on purpose. It gave me the confidence to know how to carry safely and ready to defend. I also learned adrenalin is a monster, and until you are hit with a large amount of it, you do not know how you will react to it. My first "rush" my mind went blank. The only thing that was going threw my mind was I fowled up. If I had a fire arm I would not have remembered a safety at all. These are my results, your Maybe different. Training is key here. And never think that because you have a gun that the problem will fix itself. The gun is the tool, you Are the weapon.

 

[rockhopper46038]

BehindBlueI's, can you confirm the make of the pistol? I carry a 1911 and haven't missed the safety upon drawing for years, but even an aggressive swipe on my Canik55 Stingray-C (CZ clone) won't always swipe it off. The "shelf" is almost non-existent and my thumb just rubs over and past it. I wouldn't carry it "cocked and locked" until I can get one of the CZ Custom "gas pedal" safeties fitted (like your CZ75b, it can be carried in DA/SA mode). And the very tight safety on my S&W Bodyguard stays off when I carry it because there is no way I could click it off during a draw. But the 1911 safety is very well located and executed. Although, with a good holster, carrying a cocked but not locked 1911 isn't inherently more dangerous than carrying a striker fired "safe action" pistol.

 

[88E30M50]

This concern is exactly why I replaced the AR-24K (CZ 75 clone) I had bought for my wife with a Glock 19. My wife will do an occasional range trip but she does not take practice seriously. When I am out of town, I don't want to leave her without a gun but also understand that her level of skill is limited to point and shoot. Hopefully she will one day take her own protection seriously enough to build skill beyond simply knowing which end of the gun gets pointed away but for now that's all she'll really do.

The style of safety has also led me to carry my CZ 75 Compact with the safety off and hammer at the half cock notch. Carried like that, the initial round has almost the same trigger pull as a Glock and the follow on shots are nice and short in reset, also like a tuned Glock. If I were in the market for my next CZ, I think I'd opt for the decocker over the safety since I just don't trust myself to disengage the small safety lever any longer.

 

[88GT]

That's horrible. It's like those dreams we have when we are pulling the trigger and nothing happens or the bullets "float" to and/bounce off the bad guys. The victim is lucky indeed.

This is why I stopped carrying the 1911 (along with the desire to avoid having such a pretty thing confiscated in the event of a self defense usage). I didn't trust myself to remember the safety, no matter how much I practiced. The Glock muscle memory was just so ingrained. It wasn't worth the effort when the easier and more efficient choice was to stick with what I already knew. Others' MMV.

I'm not opposed to manual safeties. I prefer firearms that don't have them, but I won't not purchase one just because it does. It will just never be an EDC option. As it is, we rarely use safeties anyway. Never been a need.

 

[MadMan66]

That's horrible. It's like those dreams we have when we are pulling the trigger and nothing happens or the bullets "float" to and/bounce off the bad guys. The victim is lucky indeed.

I have those all the time! Or the 100lb trigger pull dream. I usually wake up in a sweat.

 

[Hoosier8]

It is one of the reasons I moved to DA/SA since I don't train all the time and am not sure how I would respond under stress. I have pulled the trigger with the safety on at the range with no stress.

 

[PeaShooter]

That's horrible. It's like those dreams we have when we are pulling the trigger and nothing happens or the bullets "float" to and/bounce off the bad guys. The victim is lucky indeed.

Had one of those the other night. Bullets did nothing to the bad guy. Had similar dreams several different times.

 

[bingley]

Had one of those the other night. Bullets did nothing to the bad guy. Had similar dreams several different times.

When that happens, I do the failure drill. Still no bang. I move in, grapple, disarm the bad guy, and shoot him with his own gun. Works in dreams. I can't say I necessarily recommend it for reality. Bad guys in my dreams don't carry guns with a manual safety for some reason.

Some weapons are more complicated to deploy under stress than the 1911 or, for that matter, any modern firearm. Imagine unshouldering your bow and grabbing an arrow from the quiver. Or drawing a long sword as an attack comes down on you. If you don't line things up right and just try to yank it out, your sword might get stuck in the scabbard. In that case you die looking like a fool. If they could do it hundreds of years ago, we can, too.