A question for this group--

[Alea]

54. Glocks are safer than you say

It has more safeties also. The trigger pull weight 6-9 lbs is a safety itself. If you pull the trigger that hard then you intend the gun to fire. The trigger also has 2 levels of trigger pull. The first half inch takes about 3 lbs, then you hit more resistance that requires at least 6-7 lbs to overcome and fire the gun.

The trigger itself has a little lever on it that has to be depressed for it to even move. Because of where it pivots, small fingers have a hard time depressing it and pulling the trigger. The first time I ever tried I couldn't pull it. You need more finger on the lower part of the trigger. Most people pull from the center and adults have big enough fingers so this don't matter, but young kids are going to have a hard time either pulling the trigger at all, or pulling the trigger back far enough to fire the gun.

Then as you said, the firing pin safety block. It blocks the firing pin at all times until the trigger is most of the way back, making it nearly impossible to fire if dropped.

Also, one thing most people don't even know about glocks, is that when a glock is cocked and ready to fire, it's not fully cocked. Pulling the trigger not only depresses the firing pin safety block, but it moves the partially cocked firing pin further to the rear, fully cocking the gun just before the trigger sear releases the firing pin. This is done so that if, and a big if, the firing pin safety block gets stuck depressed, and if, another big if, the firing pin slips off the trigger sear, because it's only partially cocked it doesn't spring forward with enough force to fire a round. This also means anyone that carelessly shoots someone and says "I didn't even touch the trigger, the gun just went off" is full of shit. Everyone says that but most people accidentally fire a gun because they pulled the trigger fingering it, or intentionally because they thought it was unloaded. Saying "it just went off" is just a lie you tell the police or family member to try and get out of your careless screw up.

In short, they're designed to shoot when you want it to shoot, and not shoot when you don't mean for it to shoot. A manual flip safety is not a cure all requirement to make a gun safe. Cocked rifles, shotguns, and most automatic pistols that can fire from single action, where only slight movement fires the gun definitely need a safety. An example would be a cocked bolt action rifle or a Colt type 1911 pistol with the hammer back. Once cocked they go off easy so a safety is necessary. Guns that need a long stiff trigger pull of 6 + lbs aren't going to accidentally fire if you touch the trigger or snag it on a small branch. They might fire if you forcefully jam it into you pants or in a holster, but then you're being a moron anyway and just as likely to click off a safety and make the gun fire as you would be with a non safety pistol.

Said earlier in the thread, a double action revolver has no safety. The length and force of the trigger pull means it's not easily fired in double action use. Why no safety for single action use on a revolver when they fire so easily if the hammer is back? It is assumed if you cock it into single action mode, you are going to shoot. Only an idiot would walk around with a cocked revolver unless they had some kind of imminent threat. Glock assumes, and rightfully so, that if you put enough pressure on the trigger to make it fire then you want it to fire, and that your very unlikely to ever put enough pressure on the trigger to fire it accidentally. It also follows reasonable theory that if you're so careless that you accidentally discharge a glock because it had no safety, that you're just as likely to accidentally discharge a gun with a safety.

Remember, no gun has a safety once the safety is off, and people accidentally discharge guns with safeties all the time. If a glock had a safety and the safety was off, it would still be a hard gun to accidentally discharge. It's my opinion that with or without a safety it's one of the safest pistols available for responsible or careless people.