This shirt-wearing fellow named Jackson leaned over his bed one day to get his wallet. Out of the blue, his gun decided it was time to party and fired a surprise bullet right into his backside and ankle. “Oops! Ah, there’s blood!” cried Jackson after the loud retaliation from his firearm. His wife, having better ears than her husband, screamed and quickly called an ambulance. Jackson made his way to the front door, leaving a lovely path of red paint on the hardwood floors.
You see, his gun, the P320, is quite popular among the U.S. military and civilians. Since its introduction in 2014, hundreds of thousands of these feisty guns have been sold, with many law enforcement agencies tooting them around, as court records show. However, some say these guns have a potentially dangerous defect that makes them go “bang!” without anyone touching the trigger.
After looking into the matter, The Washington Post and The Trace discovered that over 100 people have claimed their P320 pistols just went bonkers and fired without any trigger action. How peculiar! At least 80 folks were in quite a kerfuffle with injuries dating back to 2016.
One man, a former gunner’s mate, even had a bullet fly through his thigh and calf (right after holstering his P320)! You’d hope companies would handle these reports with urgency. But no, our dear friends at the gun manufacturer SIG Sauer say the gun cannot fire without a trigger pull. And, with no federal consumer product safety regulations governing guns, many injuries and lawsuits later, the P320 continues to circulate in the civilian market.
Jackson, though no longer able to run, is grateful to be alive. He’s worried about how these mischievous P320 guns are going to behave in the future, and if they don’t start behaving, the next victim might not be so fortunate.
Just imagine if the Consumer Product Safety Commission could do something about these naughty guns. But thanks to an amendment from 1972, gunmakers are left to investigate these defects all by themselves. And, wouldn’t you know it, sometimes they ignore them until public scrutiny or lawsuits leave them no choice.
Risk of unintentional discharges for law enforcement officers is already quite high, with 33 officers at 18 agencies injured by P320s. Jeff Webb, a certified master gunsmith, is no friend of the P320, saying that the frequency of local and federal police injuries is far more than just a small problem.
SIG Sauer has an upgrade program where they change out some components of the P320, but not everyone is aware, nor are they replacing the guns still sitting in stores across the country. A few people who had the upgrade still experienced accidents with their P320s.
How can we solve this mysterious issue of guns firing without trigger pulls? It seems legal teams, police departments, and P320 victims all struggle to capture these malfunctioning moments. But one thing’s for sure: these P320s are not just innocent victims of fate but have a problem that needs to be solved.
In the meantime, our accidental heroes who have experienced these surprise outbursts continue to heal from their injuries, both physical and mental. They remain cautious, wondering if they can ever trust their P320s again.
The moral of this story, folks, is that SIG Sauer’s P320 may just have a mind of its own, so approach with caution!
