Are Striker Fired Guns Safe?

We have firearms safety rules for a reason. Handling guns safely is not intuitive for most people. If guns were perfectly safe, they would be useless to us. Chainsaws, cars, motorcycles, parachutes…I’m sure you get the idea. So, if that short list of things are not particularly safe, we try to make them as safe as possible, while retaining their inherent usefulness. Some designs accomplish this better than others, but all gun designs are a trade off when it comes to safety and shootability.

The venerable 1911, heralded by novice and expert alike as being perhaps the most shootable pistol ever made, typically has a short, light trigger in today’s market. It wasn’t always that way, as 1911s in years past often had long, gritty, heavy triggers (for a single action) and owners frequently paid a gunsmith to fix that issue before ever shooting the gun. Today, most factory 1911s come with pretty nice triggers.

While that short light trigger does provide some benefit when it comes to hitting what you are aiming at, it also makes it easy to fire the gun when you do not intend to. Many people used to see the cocked hammer as being inherently unsafe, and the gun was generally forbidden in most domestic law enforcement settings when I was growing up. Looks aside, since looks alone do not make something safe or unsafe (unless we are talking about motorcycle purchases), the 1911 had some excellent safety features built in to mitigate the potential danger that the short light trigger created for mere mortals. The factory generously included a thumb safety and a grip safety and they went a long way to prevent problems. Like everything else having to do with guns, some correct training is necessary to use those features well, as they don’t always do what you want without some specific practice.

So, if the 1911 is a great shootable gun, made safe enough to carry cocked and locked through the modern miracles of added mechanical safeties, couldn’t a squared away guy just carry it cocked and unlocked? Maybe pin the grip safety at the same time. Surely, this would make the gun even better for the first shot. After all, even highly skilled USPSA shooters occasionally have trouble with their safeties, so removing that impediment to going faster only makes sense.

Of course, being human, highly skilled USPSA shooters also occasionally have problems with their trigger finger, namely, that it goes to the trigger a little early or stays on it a little late. This sometimes results in a Negligent Discharge, and will get that competitor disqualified from the match. It doesn’t happen all the time, but it is a predictible outcome of having poor trigger finger discipline. I have witnessed it a few times in my life.

Levity aside, what does all this have to do with striker fired guns? I’m sure most of you have figured that out already. The modern crop of stock striker fired guns provide a short light trigger, much like a factory 1911. They accomplish this not through a scary looking cocked hammer, but through a hidden, fully tensioned striker. Carrying a gun like this is exactly the same as carrying a 1911 cocked and unlocked, at least as far as our primitive nervous systems are concerned.

A quick note about the Glock in particular, as it is the one I have the most experience with. While the firing pin in the Glock is not fully tensioned, it has enough energy stored that it will pop primers more often than not if it is released from its partially cocked position. The trigger on the Glock (factory standard for many years) is longer and heavier than many of the newer ones, but people don’t have much difficulty in making it go off unintentionally. I have seen that more than a few times. In addition, the trigger safety of the Glock does add a level of protection against foreign objects entering the trigger guard and activating the trigger. It is not foolproof, but it is better than not having anything to stop the trigger from moving when you don’t want it to.

This brings us back to my favorite, the DA/SA. Is a longer heavier trigger harder to learn to shoot compared to a shorter lighter trigger? Yes. Yes it is. Is there a meaningful difference in difficulty when given proper training and practice? No. No there isn’t. There are top pistol shooting units that have used 1911s just as there are top pistol shooting units that have used DA/SA. There are also line LE agencies that have been able to train their personal to a pretty high standard with DA guns. Conversely, I have seen some units use 1911s as a crutch for their poor shooting ability and limited training. It didn’t work out all that well and they have mostly moved on to different guns and better training.

For people who are not as well trained as the groups I’m thinking of, no trigger is going to save them. It can help a little, but it is not a replacement for decent training and skill. You cannot buy skill, as TLG used to say. Of course, we are only talking about a difference with the first shot, since every shot afterwards is SA.

However, the question really isn’t which one do you shoot better for the first shot. Most people will never fire a “first shot” off of the range. The question really is, which one can you live with, day in and day out, through all of the admin handling you will do, as well as the occasional stressful encounter? A DA/SA gun gives you a hedge against your more base human instincts for times when you don’t want to shoot. Those occasions greatly outnumber the times that you will want to shoot. If you do fire your DA shot, and intend to keep shooting, now you are in a fight, and you will have a short light trigger to continue with. If you don’t yet want to shoot, that DA first shot will give you a greater margin for error.

Another way to think about this is, if you were being held at gunpoint by someone, would you prefer they had a fully tensioned striker fired gun, or a DA/SA gun?

So, if you are not convinced that modern striker fired guns are maybe not ideal under various stressful circumstances, no big deal. You get to choose what you want. Just don’t pretend that all guns are equal when it comes to handling under stress. Deal with the facts and you will be better off. Not everyone who carries a gun (professional or civilian) is really qualified to do so. They may still need to defend themselves though, and I would prefer they not shoot themselves or another by accident. We can’t guarantee that, but we can make informed choices about the hardware we choose.