SIG ... Does It Matter?

The Truth About Guns reported the other day that Sig Sauer has issued a new, lengthy statement explaining why their P320 is so safe. The article hits the high points, but here is the link to the full statement. It addresses the FBI report for the Michigan State Police, the DHS and ICE memo stopping the use of the P320, and the airman killed by his M18. But the key point raised by Sig is that "[t]he P320 CANNOT, under any circumstances, discharge without the trigger first being moved to the rear." And, frankly, that is what the various videos are showing, including the video from Wyoming Gun Project. All of them involved the trigger being pressed to the wall. But the issue--and this seems to be something that Sig and its defenders are ignoring--is that the final release of the striker didn't require any further movement of the trigger, but was accomplished by squeezing the frame and/or jiggling the slide. 

    But Dan Zimmerman raises a good point in a piece at Shooting News Weekly, which is that even if the P320 is safe, the reputation of the weapon is shot (no pun intended).  He notes that it is not just the FBI report for the Michigan State Police or the death of the airman. Rather, the agencies withdrawing the pistol from use, the training facilities prohibiting the weapons, and retailers refusing to carry the pistol "is really the culmination of more than eight years of varying degrees of controversy involving the modular P320 and its design. While the bad PR and negative word-of-mouth about the platform have certainly escalated in the last two weeks, SIG SAUER has been fighting negative perceptions about the P320 since 2017 when the gun’s drop-safety issues first came to light." 

    But, he points out, no one knows whether the handgun is safe and, at this point, it probably doesn't matter because "[w]hatever the reality is regading [sic] the gun’s inherent safety, the P320 brand is being (and has been) badly damaged. Maybe irreparably so." Speaking of police agencies, for instance, Zimmerman remarks:

If you’re a procurement officer who’s in the market for duty pistols, there is zero perceived risk in choosing GLOCK, M&P, FN, or almost any other brand. But given the latest news about the P320, what incentive is there now to making that your choice? If you’re the decision-maker, why would you take that risk?

 And ditto for the civilian looking for a pistol for self-defense or target shooting.