Not surprisingly, announcement of the unnamed gadget has spawned some discussion on the ‘net from folks who say that thanks to Rule 3 (“Keep your finger off the trigger until your sights are on the target and you have made the decision to fire“) the whole thing is just a gimmick.
This morning, Tom Jones and I were happy to see that well known instructor and author Rich Grassi had heard of the gadget. Recently, Rich wrote in his Tactical Wire column about using one’s thumb to block the hammer while holstering. Apparently, some readers responded with the same “Rule 3” noise. This morning, Rich followed it up with a direct reference to the gadget.
Rule 3 is certainly important, as are all the Cardinal Rules of Firearms Safety. But I hate to break it to you, chanting rules does not envelope you in a magical aura. The gods of war aren’t going to bless you and make you immune to gunfire just because you have the rules memorized. Skilled, trained people can and do make mistakes. And as I’ve said many times before both here and in classes, it’s very dangerous for us to point our fingers and declare those people stupid or reckless. Knowing a rule is a far cry from being physically incapable of violating it.
To the infallible among us, I say soldier on. For myself — and maybe I’m just not as skilled or practiced or serious or smart as the “All I need is Rule 3” crowd — I know I’ve made mistakes before. I’ve done some pretty boneheaded things under stress, and I’ve even done some pretty boneheaded things merely due to complacency or distraction. Good? Of course not. Reality? Afraid so.
But let’s look at it another way. Even if you think you are too skilled/good/smart to need a redundant safety system, why criticize folks who aren’t as brilliant/talented/god-like as you? Allow us lesser beings to add another layer to our safety protocols because we, unlike you, are capable of imperfection.
In closing, I’d simply like to steal a line from Grassi’s column this morning:
I still endorse the concept. As to my critics, they can ignore it and hope for the best.
Train hard & stay safe! ToddG
Making mistakes in using firearms are often deadly. Simple, reliable, unobtrusive and redundant safety system is a good thing in firearms.
I’m eagerly waiting for Todd & Tom’s new gadget.
I read the description but I still don’t entirely know how it works exactly.
Your finger isn’t the only thing that can set a gun off:
http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2011/03/29/the-importance-of-a-good-holster
I was hoping the link on the words “make mistakes” was going to link to your post on the “Glock For-tay” DEA agent. 😉
Violating rule #3 is one thing, that leads to an AD.
Thumb break safeties on old, worn out leather holster, draw cords from jackets, placing the gun in car´s glove compartment or even a zipper can lead to an AD, too. This happens without violating rule #3, as we had seen recently on the internet (worn out leather holster causes AD).
Everybody make mistakes!
Jesse,
By keeping pressure on the gadget with your thumb, you prevent reward travel of the trigger. That is, when you pull the trigger, the hinged part of the gadget moves rearward as well, so long as it isn’t hindered in it’s movement.
Bob’s post above is spot on. I don’t even see Rule #3 as applicable here…yes, I know its always applicable, but the point is one’s finger is the least of the concerns when reholstering. Holster leather, straps, clothing, other equipment, etc., as just some of the many things that can cause an AD here…and I mean AD, not ND. Those crowing about fingers on triggers have entirely missed the point of the new device or, for that matter, a thumb on a hammer when reholstering. Great invention w/ solid reasoning behind it. There will always be naysayers. Ignore them.
Actually, violating rule #3 leads to an ND. A real AD is something different entirely.
I have caught myself reholstering on auto-pilot a few times when practicing at the range. No one around me could tell anything was different but I suddenly realized I wasn’t paying any attention to what I was doing, I was just going off of “muscle memory”. That is not a good feeling even when nothing bad happens and you have a thumb safety engaged (I run a 1911).
I can already imagine the the people who are going to see The Gadget and say something like “If you need that to be safe you shouldn’t be carrying with a round in the chamber” or “The only safety you need is the one between your ears.” If it doesn’t cost anything in terms of reliability, durability, or state of readiness of the gun, and it helps get your brain engaged before something bad happens, then why wouldn’t everyone that uses an SFA pistol want it.
That “rule 3″is the most ludicrous argument that i’ve heard. I look at the “gadget” as an added safety measure for app carry. In that case, you most likely arte adhering to rule 3, but you can still get your junk shot off or hit the instant death artery. Those rule 3 guys are idiots.
There are individuals out there who are fully convinced that they aren’t human and aren’t capable of having bad luck or doing something stupid while there’s a gun in their hand. If you’re too awesome to believe that it can happen to you and that it can happen tomorrow, so be it. Have a nice life.
The rest of us who realize that deadly weapons are handled by human beings that can be dehydrated, medicated, inattentive, or simply at the epicenter of a perfect storm of bad luck will seek out good pieces of hardware that will act as an extra measure of safety when all the proper programming has failed us.
If everything went by the script all the time, fighter jets wouldn’t have ejector seats, cars wouldn’t have airbags, and tires wouldn’t be run-flat. In every dangerous endeavor in the world there are generally redundant safety systems, rules, checklists, what have you…all designed to interact to prevent a tragic outcome. Nobody who skydives believes that redundant safety systems are somehow a stain on their masculinity. Nobody who flies fighter jets thinks that the redundant safety systems and checks they go through are the mark of the untrained wuss. The “Gadget” is the same concept, another layer of protection in case everything else fails.
For the sake of consistency, I expect those mindlessly chanting “Rule 3!” to eschew other safety devices like seatbelts (if you drive like you have sense you shouldn’t crash), fire extinguishers, and having patients undergoing surgery mark the spot where the surgeon is supposed to cut. After all, a trained surgeon should know what leg to cut on, right?
TC,
It’s really a pleasure to read your posts, always! You are hitting the nail on the head.
JohnR,
So the gadget remains on the slide permanently, in order to pull the trigger you need to be pressing on the gadget itself? That seems like it could get dangerous.
Excellent comments above.
The truth is, in no other industry would “keeping your finger off the bang switch” be seen as an adequate safety standard. Over the past 30 years, American industry has spent tens, and probably hundreds, of billions of dollars of dollars working out and installing automatic safety systems that do not depend on people getting it right every time.
Yes Rule 3 is vital, as is training. But all of us make mistakes–and we particularly make mistakes in the middle of the night or in high stress situations. The idea that we only need Rule 3 runs ignores how humans actually act and runs contrary to years of experience.
Todd, if it works the “gadget” is an unambiguously good idea and I, for one, will be buying a bunch of them. As for the “Rule 3 only” folks, all I can say is I hope they never are physically present when proof to the contrary occurs.
Jesse — Thumb pressure on the gadget (rear of the slide) prevents the trigger from being pulled. The device is designed such that constant user action (thumb on rear of slide) is required to prevent the trigger from being pulled. Without your thumb on the rear of the slide, the gun functions normally and the gadget doesn’t come into play.
“…chanting rules does not envelope you in a magical aura. The gods of war aren’t going to bless you and make you immune to gunfire just because you have the rules memorized…Knowing a rule is a far cry from being physically incapable of violating it.”
Brilliant!
Does it hurt you to have this on the gun? Absolutely not. If you want to say that the end all be all to gun safety is rule #3 then so be it but please do not judge me for wanting an extra measure of safety when i stick my guns muzzle mere inches away from my groin and all of its much loved components.
Keep on rocking with this thing, i really do believe it will be a nice addition based upon its USEFUL function in a world of superfluous gun crap.
The holstering safety device, or “gadget” is a concept that i personally have wanted ever since I purchased my Glock 19, (gen 3). On my very first trip to the rang with the gun I immediatly realized the danger of an AD the very first time I holstered the weapon with a live round in the chamber. I practiced dry firing and holstering the gun before going to the rang but for some reason having a live round in the chamber made me realize how easily the trigger could be inadvertantly pulled due to an unkown forgein object getting in the way during the process of holstering. I have since been very paranoid every time I do holster it. This “gadget” would give me a lot more peace of mind!!
Since I have had to speed holster several times in real life (getting caught in a fist fight or grapple while holding a pistol is at times almost as bad as the opposite situation) I think this device is a most excellent idea, and my only objection is that I don’t have one on my gun yet.
Thanks, folks. It’s certainly rewarding to know that so many folks with real life experience understand the value of our little project. But really, my concern was more with the thought process some seem to have that makes them believe they’re immune to injury because they can recite four sentences from memory.
Hate to be a naysayer but…
(pulling my flame retardant suit on)
Rule or no rule, the “gadget”, while perhaps more safe in helping to prevent a possible NG, only really becomes a “great idea” in the eyes of those who’ve already decided to ignore the negative drawbacks encountered and weslnesses attached to appendix carry.
Something that makes an appendix carrying individual’s gun more accessible when they’ve been forced down on to their stomach and/or back by an attacker is what’s really needed.
Just my $0.02.
I try not to just get on here to be a jerk (though messing with Todd is fun), but I have to say that the above post is one of the dumber things I’ve read lately. No carry position is immune to issues, though how aiwb is bad on both stomach and back is really perplexing to me.
Chip — I’m curious why you think it would only matter for aiwb carry. Every AD I’m aware of that has occurred while holstering involved a non-aiwb set up, usually some kind of duty rig or OWB holster. Quite a few of them resulted in injury.
As a matter of fact, the initial idea for the gadget came before I’d ever carried or even seriously considered aiwb. I’ve been thumbing the hammer of my Berettas and SIGs since the late 90’s and sincerely believe it’s a smarter, safer way to holster a gun.
Thank you, again, Todd for a humble and honest viewpoint. That’s why I read your blog!
What Todd said.
I carried a revolver at work for several years, then a S&W 3rd gen 9mm, I was taught to place the thumb on the hammer of both weapons while holstering, as a fail safe.
Almost every ND that I have seen or read about while holstering has been with a non-AIWB holster, several being with standard SSH IWB holsters and police duty holsters.
It has bothered me quite a bit since we transitioned to Glock that I have lost this failsafe, having been used to it for over 20 years.
Anyone who believes that a ND/AD within a holster in any carry position is safer than another, should definitely rethink their position.
Also, as far as any carry position somehow being better than another – well that is just a moot point (because as soon as you say X is better than Y you will get 100 people that will dream up a scenario where your position fails if the stars are lined up just right). What do you do if you carry strong side, behind the hip and have your right arm incapacitated during the initial engagement? With my build, I would be unable to reach my weapon, even while standing, without being disturbed. At least with Appendix Carry you have equal access to the weapon. You have to weigh the advantages and disadvantages of the various positions and pick the one that works for YOU.
Todd:
Why are some people so totally opposed to the gadget? I might be wrong, and my view might be far too simplistic and unfair, but I think that the single worst thing to happen to gun safety was the scene in the movie “Blackhawk Down,” where the cool Delta guy barges into a chow line with his CAR-15 set to fire and tells the Ranger captain that his finger is his safety.
The message received by a lot of shooters was that cool guys don’t use safeties, and since then legions of shooters who want to be exactly like cool Delta operators (minus, of course, the brutal selection course, the extensive screening and the intense training) have mocked all safety devices. (The actual guys in that line of work who I knew, by contrast, tended to be very cautious and careful about such things precisely because they were extraodinarily well trained).
Personally, I wish Glock would bring their pistols with manual safeties to the US, but since that doesn’t seem likely, your gadget sounds like the way to go.
IMO, nobody can really judge the value of the gadget, because it´s not even on the commercial market. (beside the inventors)
There are very little details on public due to some other reasons. Only Todd & Tom knows the real potential untill the gadget was handed out for T&E or hit the market.
Everything else is speculation.
I, for my part, like the idea behind and will try it, as soon as I can get my hands on.
Steve –
The errornet is full of people who have not yet realized the limitations of their knowledge and experience. Moreover, many are completely uninterested in acknowledging that they have such limitations in the first place.
There is this pernicious idea out there that only the “stupid” have accidents with firearms. Indeed the very term “accidental discharge” has unleashed dozen page threads on internet forums where the conversation descends into a contest of machismo with the winner being the person who can manage to make everyone else a lesser human being if their definition doesn’t place all blame on the individual who obviously must have been born a special breed of idiot cursed from the foundations of time to be a living example of what not to do with a firearm.
Lots of guys like to get on the internet and beat their chest about the “sheep” who think violent crime can’t happen to them…but then display the exact same mindset when it comes to potentially having a Murphy moment with a firearm in their hands. They don’t believe it can happen to them and they don’t believe it can happen tomorrow. If they just keep spouting nonsense about “booger hook!” over and over it’ll protect them from The Curse.
The simple truth is that many of the loudest voices have the least amount of time handling firearms under any sort of stress. Their range time is a couple of hours on a sunny Sunday afternoon. They’re not out in 33 degree weather with a heavy rain trying to use a handgun with hands that you can barely feel in gloves that are hopelessly soaked. They’re not in a 5 day course where you spend 10+ hours on the range in 100+ degree temperatures, sunburned, dehydrated, and miserable. They’re not trying to handle hot weapons on a live range in low light. Etc.
When you spend a couple of thousand hours doing that sort of thing you eventually come to the conclusion that the people handling firearms are just that…people. The same aspects of human nature that make it possible for us to miss a turn, lose our keys, or break our little toe when we’re trying to go to the john in the middle of the night make it possible for us to screw up when there is a gun in our hands. Anything from simple inattention to a perfect storm of unusual events can lead to a situation where holstering a 2+ pound striker-fired handgun with a ~ 5 pound trigger can result in the trigger of that weapon being pulled.
One of the best professors I ever had in college said that experience was an incredible teacher, but that her lessons were always the most costly. The wise man, he said, learns from the experience of others as much as possible. I don’t need to shoot myself while trying to reholster a weapon to realize that it can happen to me and that perhaps I should take the possibility into consideration. While I don’t shoot 50,000 rounds per year, I do put more rounds through a handgun than most and on more than one occasion I caught myself on the range reholstering in a sub-optimal manner. I didn’t come close to killing myself, but I realized that with enough repetitions sooner or later the 1 in 1,000 or 1 in 10,000 event was going to show up. That drove me to seek a mechanical means of increasing the margin of error. With a hammer-fired pistol or with the “gadget”, when that 1 in 10,000 event comes up I have a mechanical means of preventing tragedy.
When the final tally is made and you compare the sorts of people who are buying the gadget to the sorts of people who are spending their time bitching about it online, you’ll see a very marked difference in levels of experience and quality of thinking.Lots of people like to talk about “big boy” rules, but few have any experience with big boy accountability.
TC,
Well played sir, very well indeed.
Great points TCinVA –
Often times, the people MOST likely to have an AD are the most experienced. They get complacent. They have done this for so long without incident that they no longer have any fear of an accident – which is totally wrong! They can also be the most vocal about the worth of things like the GADGET. Anything that improves safety without affecting function is worth a look for sure.
TC;
As usual very well said sir. I wish I had your way with the English Language.
Since instructors handle weapons as much as they do it has been said – Any instructor who claims they haven’t had an AD is:
1. Lying
2. Lucky
3. Any time now.
The law of averages catches up at some point and we then are reminded why there are 4 rules of firearms safety, cinch up our belts and pay better attention.
Oh and for the record, If the gadget ever becomes available for M&P or I ever aquire a Glock. The Gadget will be one of my first purchases.
TC:
That was an incredibly good post. I wish that all the “Rule 3 Only crowd could read it and think it through.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Product_naming
Any ETA on getting these to market? Depending on price point, I’d like to outfit all of my Glocks, though if the price is wrong, I could see only doing my 3 main carry ones.