What's the point of a magazine safety?
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Or Lawyers advice on how to avoid lawsuits....
Magazine safeties are exactly like DOT approved seat belts. They have saved lives. They have been the cause of death for many as well. It's the same argument. In case anyone is wondering I drive a Jeep with a 4 point harness and a roll cage - neither of which are DOT approved anywhere for use on the street. I plan on walking away from the next wreck I am in in spite of stupid laws made by stupid people.
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My '78 CJ-7 came with a soft top and lap belt only!
Magazine safeties have been around since the beginning of the last century and the transition by large armies and police forces in Europe from revolvers to semi-autos. My understanding is that many of these large purchasers required magazine safeties be included in the semi-auto designs as contingents of their contracts to buy.
Many of these forces were bound by tradition and were not completely comfortable with semi-autos, fearing that their users would have accidents and negligent discharges because the semi-auto handgun manual of arms was more "complicated" and difficult to learn than the same skills for their revolvers. Semi-autos were pretty "high-tech" at the time, and the old guys at the tops of these armies and police forces cut their teeth on black powder back in the day... They didn't believe that their forces were capable of handling such "advanced" weaponry without extra safety devices.
The economics of these purchases also led to things like magazine retention devices (internal devices and external ones, like the 1911 mags with lanyard loops) to prevent simply dropping mags and possibly losing them. Mags were expensive, too expensive to consider them to be expendable or semi-expendable.
This doesn't explain why any modern semi-auto has a mag safety today, but the feature itself is no present-day invention of lawyers. It's been around since the early days of the semi-auto handgun.
Many of these forces were bound by tradition and were not completely comfortable with semi-autos, fearing that their users would have accidents and negligent discharges because the semi-auto handgun manual of arms was more "complicated" and difficult to learn than the same skills for their revolvers. Semi-autos were pretty "high-tech" at the time, and the old guys at the tops of these armies and police forces cut their teeth on black powder back in the day... They didn't believe that their forces were capable of handling such "advanced" weaponry without extra safety devices.
The economics of these purchases also led to things like magazine retention devices (internal devices and external ones, like the 1911 mags with lanyard loops) to prevent simply dropping mags and possibly losing them. Mags were expensive, too expensive to consider them to be expendable or semi-expendable.
This doesn't explain why any modern semi-auto has a mag safety today, but the feature itself is no present-day invention of lawyers. It's been around since the early days of the semi-auto handgun.
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Just remember the old saying... if you make something idiot-proof someone will come up with a better idiot.
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To many safety features and people get complacent and think its impossible to shoot yourself while you're cleaning your pistol.
When I was in Iraq for OIFII, we lost 5 aircrew to a Helicopter crash, and one pilot that shot himself cleaning his M9. He had just put it together and cycled the slide several times to check the action, with the muzzle facing him, the witness say they heard a pop, and he just fell forward on the table. Shot himself at the perfect center of mass like the targets, at point blank range no less. Never got the details from all the stories how he managed to get a live round in the chamber as he was cleaning it.
This also happened to the lead singer/guitarist for the rock group “Chicago“, back in the early 70s. Did the same thing at a party w/ a 9 mm pistol to impress some chick & blew his brains out…
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I doubt we could prove him wrong. You know what is sad about that? They all get to vote at least one time.
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I'm not too sure about that analogy with seat belts. The problem is that if a person gets accustomed on a firearm with a magazine disconnect safety, they might believe all semi-auto firearms have a similar feature and could lead to an negligent discharge when they get their hands on one without that safety feature. So it works both ways. In fact, the reason I believe we do have these occasional negligent discharges you read about in the news is because people may have handled one with that feature and assumed wrong that was the behavior of all magazine fed semi-autos.
It always amazes me how people are not aware of two important issues... 1) Dropping the magazine is not the same thing as unloadfing... 2) Many carry guns and self defense gun have a round in the pipe ready to go, and that round needs to be extracted. It's not like in a Hollywood movie that a gun is carried with an empty chamber and the slide racked when danger approaches or when the bad guy wants to execute the good guy.
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Back when our department was considering changing from revolvers to semi-autos there was a short period of time that we were able to carry our personally purchased and owned semi-autos after qualifying with them. I chose a 5906 for myself and the magazine disconnect did come into play in that purchasing decision. During a gun grab in the holster the mag could be dropped and the gun would not be able to be discharged. This was around 1988 or 1999. We transitioned to Glock 22’s in 1990 and that was also about the time that I took over as the Chief Firearms Instructor for the department.
Since then, I have Personally had no need for a magazine disconnect. At the time it seemed like a good idea.
Since then, I have Personally had no need for a magazine disconnect. At the time it seemed like a good idea.
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USMC Pilot killed by accidental shooting in Iraq – Operation Iraqi Freedom – POPASMOKE NOTAM Board This one?
Sad story and loss of a great military asset. Anyone who has flown at tree top level with military pilots is more than impressed, lot of training and lot of skill. Lots of guts when they fly in weather, and they do. Did they ever rule it suicide or just bad accident? 36 years old, sad.
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It is designed to keep idiots who cannot be taught to properly unload a pistol from shooting themselves because they remove the magazine and cannot remember to clear the chamber.
If you find yourself losing a struggle for your pistol, it makes for a nice “kill switch,” to prevent your own pistol from being used against you while you pull your back up gun and rid the world of the hyena who just disarmed you.
Think is a reason dreamed up to tell people instead of telling the real reason which is one of the arguments of the gun safety crowd -- store gun and mags separately and it is safer. Gun cannot be fired without maginze inserted. Turst me if all semi auto firearms had to have a magazine safety, the anti-gun crowd would be screaming for separate storage in separate secure storage containers.
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Before I had my carry license I owned mostly S&W steel .40's and was permitted by state law to leave the gun in the car, unattended "securely encased". When I had to go into a store, bank or other place shopping, I'd simply take the mag with me. If the car were broken into and the gun were stolen the thief had an unusable weapon until he went to the LGS to explain the situation 
At the very least it may have prevented a tragedy. Nowadays I have the license and no longer worry about it unless I have to go into city hall or bar, then I continue to remove the mag and empty the pistol before going in.
At the very least it may have prevented a tragedy. Nowadays I have the license and no longer worry about it unless I have to go into city hall or bar, then I continue to remove the mag and empty the pistol before going in.
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Yes, and to be honest, he was part of the previous units that we relieved, so technically I was still in the states when it happened and we were preparing to deploy and replace all these units. Because of that we were talking to the units over there that we would replace. So we were keenly aware of the incident.
But, we were learning more of the details via word of mouth, than you can find in the news release. No one ever had an explanation of how he managed to get a weapon he was cleaning, loaded and then the trigger pulled while it was pointing at him. It wasn't a suicide that they were covering up, there was other Marines in the room with him, that said he was op checking by manually cycling the slide.
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