Safeties

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    What’s the absolutely most important, significant, and consistent safety?  Your finger!  KEEP YOUR FINGER OFF THE TRIGGER until you are ready to fire.  Second most important?Your brain – Why isn’t it first?  Because if your finger is on the trigger something can hit you and cause you to inadvertently fire the firearm.  Why is it second?  Because your brain decides what to shoot and hopefully where and when.  Now on to mechanical safeties.  

    Ok, not quite - first I want to address the question “do I need a safety on my handgun?  ”The answer is “maybe.  ”If you have a double-action pistol the answer is no - you do NOT “need” a manual safety on your firearm.  That’s because the trigger pull - the distance you have to pull the trigger to make the firearm fire, AND the heavy trigger pull ensure one must intentionally act to cause the firearm to discharge.  Of course it is VERY important you carry the firearm in a holster that completely encloses the trigger and trigger guard to prevent inadvertently catching the trigger on something causing it to discharge.  There is a huge advantage to NOT having a manual safety.  Namely, when you pull the firearm out of your holster you really don’t know whether the safety is “on” or not, and there are documented cases of folks in a dangerous situation needing to fire their firearm only to discover the manual safety had inadvertently been placing “on” instead of “off.  ”When seconds count, you can’t afford to have to fumble with a manual safety.

     First we must all be aware that there is no such thing as an infallible unfailing safety.  Just ask the operators at Chernobyl or 3-Mile Island.  Even multiple safeties can and do fail all at the same time.  NEVER depend on a mechanical safety or substitute a mechanical safety for your finger and your brain!  These considerations addressed let’s consider mechanical safeties.  

    There are two “types” of safeties.  There are active safeties and passive safeties.  Active safeties are one’s that the operator has to mechanically manipulate to make the firearm fireable.  The one most are familiar with is typically found within reach of your thumb, thus called a thumb safety, and when either flipped or pushed in will allow the firearm to fire.  On rifles and shotguns the thumb safety maybe either a flippable lever located on the side of the receiver above the trigger, a button either in front of or behind the trigger, a lever that hangs down in front of the trigger, or a button that slides fore and aft on top of the receiver near the top of the butt stock.  In addition there are at least one other type of active safety you may not be familiar with that is frequently used in conjunction with the thumb safety.  

 

   That is a “grip safety” often found on semi-automatic handguns and even some revolvers.  Grip safeties are a portion of the backstrap of the handle of handguns that will prevent firing of the firearm unless you are depressing the safety in the natural act of holding the grip.  The idea is that if you are not holding the firearm you don’t intend for it to fire.  So if you drop the gun, ideally, it can’t fire.  

 

   A third type of active safety that is found on some modern handguns and rifles is a trigger blade safety.  There is a small blade 

sticking out of the front of the trigger.  Another version of this is a trigger that consists of two articulating pieces.  Both of these trigger safeties are integral to the trigger and prevent the firearm from firing unless you first pull the safety to be flush with the front of the trigger or in the case of an articulated trigger, the bottom of the trigger is pulled back.  Again, these ensure the firearm only fires when you have your finger on the trigger and are intentionally pulling it rearward.  That leads us to passive safeties.