Air Force unit suspends use of Sig Sauer pistol after shooting death of airman • Hacker News Board

Re: Air Force unit suspends use of Sig Sauer pistol after shooting death of airman

#411

Post by ummonk » Fri, Jul 25, 2025, 8:56 PM UTC

solatic wrote: post #330

kortilla wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn’t true in robberies where someone pulls a gun as an intimidation tactic. There are plenty of videos where the store owner shoots a robber who pulled out a gun before the robber could fire.

It's rather debatable whether it should be legal for store owners to shoot robbers and call it self-defense; not all states protect shop owners in such circumstances, and state law may differentiate between when robbers pull lethal weaponry and when robbers pull toy guns that were not actual lethal threats. In the US you take further risk if there end up being racial differences between the shop owner and robber. Con…

Do you have any examples of a store owner being convicted for shooting an armed robber?

Because I can show examples of store clerks being executed despite fully complying with the armed robbers.

Re: Air Force unit suspends use of Sig Sauer pistol after shooting death of airman

#412

Post by relaxing » Fri, Jul 25, 2025, 9:27 PM UTC

sugarplant wrote: post #356

relaxing wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But if you have good reason to believe someone is after you, this is the only way to go. What pray tell is this hypothetical threat? Who is this attacker who comes in your bedroom in the middle of the night to use lethal force against you, but gives you time to rouse, grab your weapon, and acquire target? Or they wake you by running in with full knowledge committed to memory of the layout of your house and your sle…

im curious where you live where home invasions dont happen. i live in one of the safest states in the US and home invasions happen here. people actually do commit random violence in home invasions by the way. your having chosen not to look into it at all or read the news ever doesnt negate this. its to say that random violence in home invasions is common, but the point is that it does happen. and i think people shoul…

of course home invasions happen, but they’re rare. and the number involving guns is much smaller. look up the statistics instead of getting scared watching the news.

so a police officer shows up at your door. you’re going to greet them with a gun drawn? that will get you killed.

i do own a firearm, but i don’t walk around with it like a cowboy. and i discourage others because of all the risks mentioned.

Re: Air Force unit suspends use of Sig Sauer pistol after shooting death of airman

#413

Post by dmoy » Fri, Jul 25, 2025, 10:50 PM UTC

relaxing wrote: post #412

sugarplant wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

im curious where you live where home invasions dont happen. i live in one of the safest states in the US and home invasions happen here. people actually do commit random violence in home invasions by the way. your having chosen not to look into it at all or read the news ever doesnt negate this. its to say that random violence in home invasions is common, but the point is that it does happen. and i think people shoul…

of course home invasions happen, but they’re rare. and the number involving guns is much smaller. look up the statistics instead of getting scared watching the news. so a police officer shows up at your door. you’re going to greet them with a gun drawn? that will get you killed. i do own a firearm, but i don’t walk around with it like a cowboy. and i discourage others because of all the risks mentioned.

> look up the statistics

https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/ascii/vdhb.txt

As of 2010, about a million home invasions per year in the US, 250k of which end up with the occupier (owner, renter) being a victim of some violent crime.

Not a lot ending in death though.

Also I think the numbers went down a bit from 2010.

Re: Air Force unit suspends use of Sig Sauer pistol after shooting death of airman

#414

Post by Ostrogoth » Fri, Jul 25, 2025, 10:53 PM UTC

Ostrogoth wrote: post #390

spl757 wrote: post #133

There are really two separate claims being made about the P320 and unintentional discharges. One claim is that the gun can fire when dropped at a certain angle from a certain height. The voluntary "recall" lets you send it back to Sig and they replace some parts. I think the cause was because the trigger itself was bulky enough for a drop to give it enough inertia to fire, but I'm not 100% sure on that. The other cla…

I don’t know if the Sig P320 has a similar firing pin safety design to the P365, but I optioned to go with Springfield Hellcat vs P365 specifically because the Hellcat has two separate safety catch points on the firing pin assembly, thereby eliminating a single point of failure, while the P365 essentially has one (see photos here https://www.reddit.com/r/gunsmithing/comments/f7dgnl/how_saf... ). Glock has also has a…

For anyone interested, here is a video showing Glock internal safety mechanisms: (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Fg2tlV1oqVM).

A mechanical description of Sig P365 internal safety in comparison to Glock: (top comment from https://www.reddit.com/r/SigSauer/comments/c5ddz5/can_someon...).

Video comparing P320 to Glock internal safeties: (https://youtu.be/dLm23zJGSL0) Note: it does appear that P320 has a more robust internal safety design than the P365.

Re: Air Force unit suspends use of Sig Sauer pistol after shooting death of airman

#415

Post by efitz » Fri, Jul 25, 2025, 10:54 PM UTC

aaronmdjones wrote: post #348

wl wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US military uses the M17 and the M18, two versions of the P320 that have manual safeties.

And most US law enforcement uses Glock pistols, which are also famous for having no external safety. There's a lever integrated into the trigger such that the trigger must be pulled before it can travel backward, and there's a safety internal to the slide that ensures the firing pin cannot travel forward until the trigger has been pulled, but there is no external safety anywhere. Pull the trigger (by any means, finge…

I do not think that allowing people to sue gun companies for not having an external safety is a good way to accomplish the goal, if the goal is actual safety.

If the consumer protection bureau of a state wants to make an external safety a requirement for pistols sold in the state, I think that is a legitimate use of government authority and is used all the time with other kinds of products. Personally I think such a proposal evinces a complete lack of understanding of modern handguns and I would be opposed to it, but it is a legitimate use of government powers, and is not just a back door way to sue a disfavored company out of existence.

For this particular case I think that discussing external safeties is a distraction. In my opinion a handgun should not discharge under any circumstance where no one and nothing pulled the trigger. As a firearm owner I have that expectation of every firearm I own. I deliberately chose not to buy an Sig 320 because of the large number of reports of accidental drop related discharges; it makes me think that there might be a design defect.

Re: Air Force unit suspends use of Sig Sauer pistol after shooting death of airman

#416

Post by matt-attack » Fri, Jul 25, 2025, 11:24 PM UTC

ryoshoe wrote: post #382

matt-attack wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great so us petite women are back to having a natural disadvantage to would be attackers. My gun is an equalizer. Doesn’t guarantee me safety but when I’m on that empty subway car late at night and a large aggressor enters the car, I’m at least on equal footing. Those who wish to disarm us women are doing so from a position of luxury. Where you’re never felt what it’s like to be completely at the mercy of those drast…

The emphasis of identity politics talking points here gives off the same vibes as a lot of "as a black man" style posts

I don’t “identify” as a petite comparatively weak individual, it’s just a physical fact. I’m not ashamed that I’m weaker than most men. I fail to see where “identify politics” entered into my post.

Re: Air Force unit suspends use of Sig Sauer pistol after shooting death of airman

#417

Post by snypher » Sat, Jul 26, 2025, 1:12 AM UTC

abbycurtis33 wrote: post #403

jack_riminton wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I carried a Sig in Afghanistan and whilst I was very experienced with firearms, the no manual safety thing gave me major heebie geebies

If you have experience with firearms then you know that very few modern handguns have manual safeties.

While this statement might be true there doesn't seem to be a reason you are making it.

Re: Air Force unit suspends use of Sig Sauer pistol after shooting death of airman

#418

Post by Ostrogoth » Sat, Jul 26, 2025, 5:30 AM UTC

spacephysics wrote: post #211

mycodendral wrote: post #24

I don't think this issue has been reported on the P365/x-macro platform, for those discourage by this unfortunate situation. Different striker system.

Yeah, i heard the P320 was originally a non-striker system that they modified to become a striker system to try and save research/development costs from creating a striker system from the ground up, which led to these wildly low tolerances in the FCU and ultimately a poorly designed firearm. I’ve heard of no issues from the P365 models. A knowledgeable firearm instructor I talked to mentioned the P320 and P365 are en…

The P365 does have essentially one point of failure on the striker assembly (see here https://www.reddit.com/r/SigSauer/comments/c5ddz5/can_someon...), and lacks a trigger blade safety.

Re: Air Force unit suspends use of Sig Sauer pistol after shooting death of airman

#419

Post by remarkEon » Sat, Jul 26, 2025, 5:34 AM UTC

bugsMarathon88 wrote: post #373

solatic wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The reason manual safeties are going away is that for side arms, time matters A LOT. Gun fights are typically over within just a few seconds and the person who fires first has a huge advantage. I know there are a lot of people who share this opinion, but speaking as ex-military, I think it's quite disingenuous and dangerous. Real life isn't some old-fashioned Western film where draw speed matters. If an adversary i…

Why is every opinion qualified as "ex-military" always tend to be hyperbolic, technically incorrect and full of appeals to authority rather than actual factual information? > There is no real-world situation where you are really just that much better at drawing and firing accurately that you will out-draw an adversary who drew on you first There is, and it is called training. Get a timer, hit the range, and get your…

For what it's worth I'm also "ex-military" and the person you are replying to is in fact wrong. For many, a "manual safety" is a preference but for others confident in their training it's not necessary or desirable. I also own a P320 (but will be purchasing a Glock soon) and stopped shooting in shortly after these stories came out. Unfortunate, because all things considered I really did like that pistol. Anyway, depending on branch of service, deployment experience, time in service etc a lot of veterans' experience with handguns is minimal, amounting to firing enough rounds on the qual range once a year. No idea about OP's experience, but these things do tend to correlate if you get my meaning.

Re: Air Force unit suspends use of Sig Sauer pistol after shooting death of airman

#420

Post by remarkEon » Sat, Jul 26, 2025, 5:37 AM UTC

Alupis wrote: post #387

lenerdenator wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Charged and locked, hard to screw that up.

"Cocked & Locked" is usually how people refer to this - and it is easy to screw up. Under stress, people's fine motor skills vanish, sometimes resulting in the safety not being disengaged as you draw from the holster. Additionally, it can be accidentally flipped off during handling. Modern firearms have multiple internal safeties to prevent accidental discharges (unless you're Sig apparently).

This comment should just be pinned to the top for folks curious about why manual safeties are undesirable.