Why Not Have A Safety On An M+P ?

[Strike 3]

I have em on 3

 

[Backbone]

Because it is designed and intended to be a duty weapon. Quick, out of the holster, on the draw, on the target. Oh, yeah I forgot, USED BY ADULTS!

Its a tool not a toy. At 3 am on a roadside, no time to fumbeling around with a safety!

 

[Jeb21]

I am in favor of useable safeties on pistols. With a little bit of training there will be no fumbling when it is needed.

 

[Twoboxer]

If you fumble with this particular safety, you're likely to shoot yourself in the foot when you draw without one

 

[blkpitbull]

Wow, another safety thread....

 

[jay1975]

It is not hard to release the safety while drawing if practiced. The anti-safety warriors probably never had to draw their weapon under any more stress than the timer in a controlled sport match. I have seen enough trained soldiers instinctively go to the trigger under duress to know that a manual safety is not a bad thing at all.

 

[Lost Lake]

I had safeties on all my machine guns and it never bothered me. I never have a problem using the safety on my trap gun, in fact I always have it on until a bird is in the air. It's just good practice. On every gun I own the safety goes off like magic, I don't even realize I moved it, the instinct is pure muscle memory or something.

But I don't have safeties on my M&P's.

 

[kbm6893]

If you actually TRAIN yourself in the use of a deadly weapon, having a safety is NOT a disadvantage. And the comparison to a revolver is ****. MAYBE I'd accept that on a hammer fired DAO weapon, but a striker fired gun? No way. How many of us make a conscious move to press on the brake pedal before shifting into drive? 1911 shooets have been carrying safety on for over 100 years. Frankly, some people I have seen need all the safeties they can get, and i would ventue that some members of gun forums fall into that category, as well.

 

[Engine 21]

JMO...a manual safety is never a bad thing unless you don't train with the weapon on a continuing basis. Any high stress situation you will revert back to your training and common sense is lost for a while.

 

[SEIndSAM]

The wife and I are both 50 and have had semi's with safety's all of our lives. Clicking off the safety is automatic, don't even think about it. It's the way we were trained and works for us.

 

[firstcounts]

My training: "Safety engaged until you are ready to fire.". It can become 2nd nature.

 

[Smithaddict]

There is nothing more dangerous than a safety. Not only does it encourage poor discipline, you lose respect for the one thing that will make your pistol shoot : pulling the trigger.

 

[jdh]

If you fumble with this particular safety, you're likely to shoot yourself in the foot when you draw without one

Again, a training problem.

It is not hard to release the safety while drawing if practiced. The anti-safety warriors probably never had to draw their weapon under any more stress than the timer in a controlled sport match. I have seen enough trained soldiers instinctively go to the trigger under duress to know that a manual safety is not a bad thing at all.

LE transitioned from revolvers to pistols. "They" wanted to keep the manual of arms as similar as possible to avoid officers becoming confused in the heat of battle. Revolvers did not (for the most part) have safeties.



MY $.02 on the M&P safety, it was an after thought in the design to make some administrative types happy. It, on the samples i handled, was not positive enough in the on position, and was easily knocked to off in the holster. If it is going to self disengage in the holster why do I need it on the gun in the first place?

Training to keeps ones finger off of the trigger until it is time to shoot is much more important than training to disengage a safety device. Take, for example, the venerable 1911. If one has one's finger on the trigger when one disengages the safety the pistol will, ready or not, fire.



Oh, BTW, Glock is perfect and does not have one so why do the M&Ps need one?

One more thought, The primary safety on any WEAPON is between the ears of the operator.

 

[CAJUNLAWYER]

Because it is designed and intended to be a duty weapon. Quick, out of the holster, on the draw, on the target. Oh, yeah I forgot, USED BY ADULTS!

Its a tool not a toy. At 3 am on a roadside, no time to fumbeling around with a safety!

There is nothing more dangerous than a safety. Not only does it encourage poor discipline, you lose respect for the one thing that will make your pistol shoot : pulling the trigger.

Welcome to the forum!!!!
I'm 56 and have been shooting guns equiped with safeties all my life. I don't trust them, but I use then and will continue to buy guns with them over the same gun without them. It has been ingrained in me and like a poster said previously it is second nature like putting your foot on the brake before shifting out of park.
I posit a question to both of you.
How many times has fumbling with a safety gotten you killed or seriously injured-or let the intended shootee get away unscathed??

 

[kbm6893]

There is nothing more dangerous than a safety. Not only does it encourage poor discipline, you lose respect for the one thing that will make your pistol shoot : pulling the trigger.

There is something far worse than a safety: a gun owner who thinks they know everything and shoots somebody by mistake. Look at police departments. Shoot as few rounds as possible to make somebody minimally proficient to save money on ammo.

Glocks and other non safety guns are marketed to those who don't want to be bothered to train with their weapons. And the "it's just like a revolver" is nonsense. Unless your carrying a revolver with the hammer back, they're nothing alike.

How many people have been killed or injured because of the presence of a safety? Now how many have been killed or injured because of the ABSENCE of one? Wanna bet FAR more have been when there was no safety present?

 

[T-BoneFL]

I have a Mag Disconnect on my 9c, and no safeties on my 45c. I am not an LE... and I do not like the M&P TS. Feels flimsy compared to the TS on 1911 weapons.

 

[walkin' trails]

My carry pistols do not have manual safeties primarily because the employer I work for does not allow pistols with manual safties. I have not carried a pistol with a manual safety, on or off duty for 22 years. I've had a couple of 1911s for toys over the years, and discovered that remembering to activate the safety before holstering is something that I was not conditioned to do. I admit that its a training thing. For those who trainied religiously with a manual safety pistol, it is second nature. My carbine has a safety and activating or deactivating the lever is usually not a problem. Still with a pistol, a manual safety lever is the last thing I think about because of my training with revolvers and transitioning into Glocks and Sigs. There are good arguments for having a manual safety, but also a few against. I have played with M&P with manual safties, and because of my experiences, they just didn't feel right. It just wasn't the same positive, metal-on-metal click as a 1911. Hilton Yam of 10-8 Performance blogged that an M&P 9 with a manual safety was a good training and transition gun for those looking to eventually enter competetion with a 1911-based pistol. I can't say that I don't agree with him. Still, I will probably stay with what I'm now comfortable with even after I retire. If I rightly recall, John Browning's original 1911 prototype (the 1910) did not have a manual safety, just a grip safety. Imagine what it would be if the Army had been good with that.

 

[Silversmok3]

Assuming no extraterrestrials are gun shopping, all of us gun owners are human. With that understood, there is an inherent error capability in all of us. It doesn't matter whether we've only fired 10 rounds or ten thousand. Because we are people, we cannot under any credible circumstance claim perfection in any activity.

Should a co worker start the watercooler talk the way some gun owners do, that he'll never have a car accident because he is trained in how to drive his car,well, he'd be the laughingstock of the building. Everyone knows the moment such talk comes out its hubris;he's a man, just like the rest of us, and thus subject to imperfection and fallibility.

Difference is, mistakes in driving a car result in crumpled metal and some boring paperwork. A mistake in handling a firearm can end someone's life. Rather than assume the arrogant attitude that in the next 70 odd years of my life ill never, ever make a mistake in handling my firearms I take the approach that keeping my neighbors, friends, and myself uninjured and alive is worth a layer of safety.

Those of you on the prideful side of the argument should ask yourselves if you can honestly achieve a 100% safety record for 50+ years continuously, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Jeff Cooper didn't. Neither have some Special Forces operators who shoot bad guys for a living.

 

[Deadeye Dick]

Yaaawn.... another safety vs no safety thread.

Here's my .02 cents on the subject:

If you have enough sence to keep your booger hook off the trigger and are comfortable carrying your M&P sans safety then there's no need for one.

If your the type who wears suspenders with a belt and carrying a loaded gun with no safety gives you the heebie-jeebies then by all means get an M&P with a safety.

Is a safety on an M&P a necessity? Apparently not since S&W markets them with and without safeties.

Now... shall we revisit carrying dry or with one in the chamber? : )

 

[Deadeye Dick]

By the way... I don't think that the auto accident analogy is a very good one since many accidents are caused by the other guy and are beyond ones control.

Hmmm... now that I think about it maybe manual safeties on your guns is a good idea since I have no control over how you all handle them. ; )