Posted on 02/08/2006 9:23:25 PM PST by DuckFan4ever
A Portland Police officer who was injured while firing a handgun has filed a multi-million-dollar lawsuit against the manufacturers of the gun and the ammunition.
Officer Florin B. Pirv was taking a qualification test in March 2004 with a .45 caliber Glock 21 when the “breech/cartridge feed ramp fractured, causing backward propulsion of hot gases, hot air, and shrapnel to be blown into Pirv’s face, body, and hands,” according to the suit.
The lawsuit names Glock and two ammunition-makers, Federal Cartridge Company and Alliant Technosystems, also known as ATK. Glock is based in Georgia. The ammunition-makers are based in Minnesota.
None returned phone calls and emails seeking comment.
Pirv was one of two Portland officers injured while firing .45-caliber Glocks in March 2004, prompting Portland Police Chief Derrick Foxworth to order the recall of the weapons carried by 230 officers.
The bureau replaced them with 9mm Glocks.
Pirv’s suit seeks $50,000 in compensatory damages, $3 million for pain and suffering and $50 million in punitive damages.
Pirv is assigned to a patrol shift, according to a Portland Police spokeswoman.
Hey! I went to school in Meadeville back in the late 70's.
Small world! Where are you now? I'm near Pittsburgh, as you no doubt saw on my home page.
Lots of shooting around here. For fun, I mean.
Keeping your eye in?
Might?
They'll find them without having to break a sweat.
The wife and I both have a Neo. They work real well. Never a jam and very accurate.
Is cheap, dirty ammo your problem?
that makes no sense to do at all. The barrel should've been ported too. Possibly an amateur hack job on both the barrel and slide, so the previous owner rebarreled it(or completely misunderstood the reason for porting and just ported the slide). either way it was not a factory option back then and no reputable gun shop would've donr it.
CC
My personal favorite wass seeing a guy load a Glock with primer-only blank rounds - no powder, no bullet - and hammer nails with it.
IIRC, the gist of it was that you couldn't hold a gun / ammo manufacturer strictly liable for the actions of somebody else. I.e., my neighbor goes crazy and blows away my wife and son before killing himself, I sue the companies that manufactured the gun and ammo he used on a strict liability claim. The way S/L tort claims work is that you don't need to show any kind of intent or negligence on the part of the defendant, just that his actions -- or product -- caused the injury in question. So, in a wrongful death case like the one I just described, you would need only show that the defendants manufactured the gun and ammo used in the killings in order to get a large jury verdict from them, or alternatively coerce a large settlement out of court. That was the kind of crazy stuff that was happening before the passage of this act, and what it was designed to stop from happening.
Glocks do suffer from one design flaw, and that is the requirement to pull the trigger before disassembly. However, the first rule of disassembly for ANY firearm is "Ensure the firearm is unloaded."
Firing when at suspects on the ground is entirely the fault of the shooter, and the same accidents happen with any other firearm.
As far as firing when being holstered, ya just gotta be careful where you're shoving your loaded pistol. :)
As my master firearms instructor is fond of saying "you have to be smarter than the gun in order to operate it"
CC
Glocks are tough guns with a lot of safety features built into them. They were very revolutionary when they came out.
Built for soldiers, so they had to be tough and idiot proof.
But you know what they say about making something idiot proof...along will come one special idiot and figure out how to screw something up anyway.
Naw, I have a cheap, dirty mind, but I use good ammo. The only stuff that works reasonably well in it is CCI Standard.
Maybe I just got a lemon.
As a former soldier who now carries a Glock, I can attest that they're both tough and idiot proof.
Gaston Glock's genius was in (intentionally or not) taking advantage of human stress reactions. When we're unstressed (ie, not in a firefight), we can remember simple rules like "Keep your finger off the trigger." When the world suddenly turns into a two-way range, we lose our fine motor skills. All we can generally do is point gun and squeeze trigger until bad guy stops shooting at us. Glock's design allows us to do that.
If you remember this ONE simple rule, you'll never have an ND with a Glock: Like a revolver, a loaded Glock WILL fire when the trigger goes to the rear, regardless of what pushes it.
I like Hodgdon Varget in my .308's. Very accurate. And their H4427 in my .41 mag with a 225 grain cast bullet. And in my suppressed .44 Ruger bolt action with a 300 grain bullet. 15.2 grains, 920 FPS MV. Have to keep them subsonic or it sounds like a HV .22 with the sonic crack.
But they've discontinued H4227 as they now took over the IMR series of powders and said they don't need two brands of 4227. Unfortunate.
And U.S. Repeating Arms is also going out of, or has gone out of business. Factory is for sale, with the "Winchester" trade name being sold separately.
Lots and lots of stuff going on in the firearms and firearm accessory business, like you said.
A couple of years ago I saw the video and there was about 15 guys taking turns trying to shoot that monster. Only one of them had the brains to lean into the rifle. It was hilarious.
The Nitro 577 Tyrannosaurus Rex is more gun than my old body would want to hold.
Glocks are fine pistols, but, like anything else, they have their detractors. Probably over 99% of the people who own one really like it.
Can't please everyone.
Nope, was a factory new gun. I knew the dealer well and no way it was a hack job. That may be why the guys thought it was unusual.
Actually it makes a lot of sense to me. Glock simply made two versions, one with the ported barrel the other without but both with the long slide. No reason to have different slides as the cut out also made that long slide lighter which was desireable since it weighed more than standard anyway.
In addition having the ported slide allowed the user to buy a ported barrel if he wanted one at a later time.
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