Experts Find Glocks Prone To Accidents

When a Syracuse man was struck last week by a bullet fired through the ceiling of his apartment, it marked the third time in eight years that an Onondaga County probation officer had unintentionally discharged one of the department-issued Glock pistols.

Those three incidents, and similar cases in Central New York and elsewhere, come as no surprise to Joseph Cominolli. Cominolli was a Syracuse police sergeant in 1987 when he was assigned to find the best semiautomatic handgun to replace that department's revolvers.

The hot new Glock pistol that other police agencies were then buying had two drawbacks that caused Cominolli to reject it. The Glock had no manual safety switch and no magazine safety that made the gun inoperable when the magazine was removed.

A Glock is a safe weapon, Cominolli said, but only if the person handling it knows how to use it. If the gun is unloaded in the wrong order, for example, a round of ammunition can be left in the chamber without the user realizing it, he said. With no manual safety, the gun will fire if the trigger is pulled.

"Even with good training, people forget," he said. "And guns are not forgiving."

On July 30, Stacey Nunn, a probation officer for about a year, was unloading her .40-caliber Glock when it fired into the floor of her second-story apartment at 1904 James St. The bullet struck her downstairs neighbor, Michael Chapman, in the chest as he was making dinner in his kitchen. Chapman's condition improved from critical to serious this week at University Hospital.

Nunn had removed the magazine from the gun before the weapon fired, according to police.

In 1994, probation officer Susan Beebe shot herself in the knee while unloading her Glock. In September 1998, a firearms instructor for the probation department unintentionally fired his Glock into a wall while teaching a class how to remove the weapon from a holster. The shot put a hole through a classroom wall at the Elbridge Rod and Gun Club.

The gun's inadvertent firing in the hands of a gun expert caused concern, Probation Commissioner Robert Czaplicki said.

"We took a look at what went on," Czaplicki said. "We had a group of people look at it. It raised some red flags."

The firearms instructor is still teaching probation officers, said Czaplicki, who would not identify the instructor.

Cominolli, who is retired from the police, has designed and patented a manual safety device that can be added to Glock pistols. Last year, he talked to Czaplicki about adding the device to the probation department's guns.

Czaplicki said the county then talked with Glock officials about having the device installed. But the county rejected the idea after Glock said it would void the warranty on the guns if the safeties were added, Czaplicki said.

Czaplicki said his department is reconsidering the safeties in light of last week's unintentional discharge that injured Chapman.

Cominolli said he knows of dozens of "unintentional discharges" of Glocks in Central New York over the past 15 years, and estimates there have been thousands across the country. He won't refer to them as accidents because that implies the shootings could not have been prevented.

No national statistics are available on which manufacturer's handgun has the most unintentional firings. The Washington Post reported in 1998 that District of Columbia officers, who use Glock 9mm handguns, unintentionally fired their weapons more than 120 times over 10 years.

In 1988, the FBI issued a report on Glock handguns giving them low marks, citing a "high potential for unintentional shots," according to the Post. The agency will not release the report, according to an FBI spokesman in Washington, D.C.

Last week, a Queens corrections officer fatally shot his son while the officer was unloading his 9mm Glock handgun in his home, according to Newsday. A police chief in Coral Gables, Fla., accidentally fired his .40-caliber Glock last month into his locker at a health club, according to The Miami Herald.

The Onondaga County Sheriff's Department, which has used Glocks since 1992, has had at least three unintentional discharges with the weapon, according to Lt. Thomas Morehouse, a firearms instructor. A deputy fired a shot that grazed his hand in 1992. A detective fired a round into the floor of his patrol car a few years ago. And a deputy accidentally pulled the trigger three years ago and fired a round into the ground at the training range, Morehouse said.

In December, an Oswego County sheriff's deputy accidentally fired his Glock handgun into the foot of a security officer at a nuclear power plant.

Cominolli, a nationally known firearms expert, said he's gotten dozens of calls from lawyers representing police officers who'd shot themselves with Glocks. He tells them he's never heard of a case of the gun malfunctioning. It's always operator error, he said.

That's why he designed the safety device and is marketing it to police agencies and private gun owners across the country. With the safety on, the trigger bar inside the gun can't move.

"If you have a brain fade and pull the trigger, it won't go bang," Cominolli said.

Newly hired probation officers in Onondaga County must carry a firearm after undergoing 35 hours of training on the shooting range and 14 hours in the classroom, Czaplicki said. Veteran officers in the department have the option of carrying a gun. Probation officers are trained by the department's two state-certified firearms instructors, he said. Forty-one of the county's 84 probation officers now carry a gun on the job. All carry Glocks.

In response to last week's shooting, the department is reviewing its training procedures, Czaplicki said. He wouldn't comment on details of the shooting, except to say it's certain that the trigger on the gun must have been pulled. Initial police reports erroneously said the gun had fired when the officer dropped it.

Mark Doneburgh, Glock's district manager for the Syracuse area, was an Onondaga County sheriff's deputy 14 years ago when he first looked at Glocks. He questioned whether they could hold up because they're made of plastic, so he took the gun up in a helicopter and dropped it to the ground. It didn't break and didn't fire, he said.

Glock doesn't fit its guns with manual safety switches because the guns have three internal "passive" safeties, Doneburgh said. Those safeties automatically disengage when someone pulls the trigger, but they prevent the gun from firing when it's dropped or when the trigger gets bumped from the side.

Glocks are popular with police because the revolvers they replaced had no manual safeties, he said. The fear was that officers would have trouble getting used to having to turn off the safety in a gunfight, Doneburgh said. He studied the Glock for the sheriff's department.

"We needed a gun that we could easily transition my people with and that they could feel confident with," he said. "It's a draw, point and shoot gun."

Onondaga County Corrections Commissioner Timothy Cowin said he would not outfit his officers with Glocks until they were fitted with Cominolli's manual safety last year.

"I've been in this business a long time, and I can tell you there are many, many accidental discharges that never get reported," Cowin said. "When people are holstering or drawing that weapon, they automatically put their finger in that trigger guard without even thinking about it."

With training, officers not accustomed to turning off a manual safety can make it a habit, Cowin said.

Cowin said it's unclear whether the added safety means Glock will no longer honor its warranty. He said he decided to make the change anyway because the weapon is unlikely to need any repairs that the correction department's own armorer can't fix.

Many accidental Glock discharges involve unloading. Doneburgh, who teaches gun safety courses at Onondaga Community College, said he always demanded perfection from his police recruits when they unloaded guns during firearms training.

"I used to tell them, No. 1, 'mag' out," he said of the need to remove the magazine before clearing the chamber. "I told them, 'Put your finger on the trigger and I'm going to take a knife and cut it off.' And they believed me. Hopefully, that's going to stay with them for 20 years."

Glock doesn't fit its guns with safeties because many police officers are used to not having to switch them off and because the company has never been found liable for any unintentional shooting, Doneburgh said.

"We've never lost a lawsuit," he said. Doneburgh said he didn't know how many lawsuits the company had settled, and a lawyer for Glock could not be reached for comment.

Cominolli said he's sold between 600 to 800 of the safeties to police agencies and private gun owners in the first year and has orders for more. He charges $75 a gun for law enforcement agencies. Local Glock owners can buy the device at Ra-Lin Discount in Syracuse.

The Kenmore Police Department, near Buffalo, wouldn't have bought Glocks without the added safeties, Cominolli said.

Twelve of the 17 police departments in Onondaga County, including the sheriff's department and state police, issue Glocks to their officers. The only ones that don't are Syracuse, DeWitt, Baldwinsville, North Syracuse and East Syracuse, Doneburgh said.

DeWitt police Capt. Bruce Wahl said he chose the Smith & Wesson semiautomatic partly because it has a manual safety and another safety that makes the gun inoperable without the magazine. Officials at other police agencies, such as Camillus, said they've never had an unintentional firing of a Glock.

"The Glock is accepted by 70 percent of law enforcement agencies in North America," Doneburgh said.

He said he's heard reports of a Glock being unintentionally fired, and each time it's because someone messed up; the gun itself has never malfunctioned.

"We're in a society where we're making inanimate objects responsible for our stupidity," he said. "You have to put warnings on things. You can't put your dog in a microwave oven to dry him. Common sense has to take over here."

This is a bunch of crap. I've owned Glocks and many other guns for years, and never had an accidental discharge. If this probation officer keeps shooting his ceiling, he needs to surrender his weapon until he gets proper training and qualifies to carry it. Guns dont "just discharge"; careless people are always at fault. Fools who shoot their own ceiling just give credibility to anti-gun nuts who want to disarm everyone.

Glocks are fine.

1. I never use safeties because they lock you at the wrong time, and they do not work at the wrong time. Except if you are a 1911 type on alert cocked and locked, I see no use of the safety in Glocks, just keep it in DA mode and things should be fine

2. All semi-autos can have a round loaded while the magazine is out. So duh! When making sure a round is not chambered, one looks in the chamber, not in the magazine by removing it.

This article seems like bull and I smell a media/law suit going on.

Typically the answer is no. Reason being that the department has liability for the weapon under the rule of respondiat superior. That is, anything the officer does is also the departments fault.

I own and fire a wide variety of handguns and have to agree with all the posters that eloquently deride the training of these careless officers. The Glock may not be pretty, but it is durable, accurate, easy to work on, and reliable. I have pumped hundreds of rounds through mine (plural) and have never had serious problems except with crappy remanufactured ammo that was loaded to hot.

THE GLOCK ROCKS.

It depends on the department's policy. My PD mandates all officers carry issued weapons; personal backups may be carried after approval by the armorer and range qualification, but the issued firearm MUST be carried.

We use a S&W semi-auto (665??) that doesn't fire when the clip is removed (although there is a way to reactivate the gun with a carefully placed pen in the receiver). This feature was deemed essential after one of our guys was shot and killed with his own revolver after a struggle with a crazy guy: if you are in a fight for possession, you can press the clip disengage button and let him take the piece, them beat him sensless with your stick.

If the gun is unloaded in the wrong order, for example, a round of ammunition can be left in the chamber without the user realizing it, he said. With no manual safety, the gun will fire if the trigger is pulled.

Duh. Yes, a gun will fire when you pull the trigger. So don't pull the trigger unless you want it to fire.

"Even with good training, people forget," he said. "And guns are not forgiving."

What exactly do they forget? To not pull the trigger? Or is it the ever-so-complicated idea that the chamber loads from the magazine, so one should remove the magazine before clearing the chamber?

If the people are too stupid to realize how an autoloader loads, they shouldn't be issued weapons, or be allowed to drive a car, or operate a toaster.

I LOVE both of my Glock's, but I can see how this sort of thing happens. I'll admit that when I bought my first one, a model 19 back in '89, I was somewhat intimidated by the fact that there was no safety other than the trigger release. I got used to it, and the fact that the Glock, in condition one, was ready to fire and it would be quite easy if you dropped your awareness for only a split second to accidentally discharge it. After I got past the initial intimidation, my second Glock, a model 27, was a no brainer, and I carry it every day.

A Glock is a safe weapon, Cominolli said, but only if the person handling it knows how to use it.

Every firearm is loaded. I don't care if I put it down 10 seconds ago, when I pick it up, I check to see whether or not it is loaded. On a semi-auto, this includes checking to see if a round is chambered.

Only point firearms at things you intend to shoot, when you pick up the beer, put away the guns, teach your kids how to handle firearms safely, and you won't have any problems.

The gun's inadvertent firing in the hands of a gun expert caused concern, Probation Commissioner Robert Czaplicki said.
"We took a look at what went on," Czaplicki said. "We had a group of people look at it. It raised some red flags."
The firearms instructor is still teaching probation officers, said Czaplicki, who would not identify the instructor.

There was a thread a while back where some of those chatting mentioned that there is no such thing as an accidental discharge. They claimed that they are all "negligent discharges". From what little experience I have with handguns and what I've heard about most "accidental discharges", they're right about negligence. A weapon won't fire without some type of action outside itself.

When I took my first safety course relating to semi-autos, it was pounded into our heads, magazine out first, clear the round from the chamber next.

A guy here in Idaho found out the hard way at a party a few years ago. Got drunk (a "here-hold-muh-beer" thing) was playing with his new "toy". Put the clip in and pulled the trigger - nothing. Pulled the clip out and pulled the trigger - nothing. Put the clip in, chambered a round, safety on, pulled at the trigger - nothing. Pulled the clip out, safety on, pulled at the trigger, nothing. Put the clip in, took the safety off, pulled the trigger (remember the still-chambered round???)- bang. All this time, he pointed the gun at his head at each trigger pull. The round killed him, killed the moron still in the room sitting next to him and went throught the mouth of the second moron still in the room with this drunk idiot.

The macho, “I'm a gun expert” attitude of Glock supporters is usually dampened by a negligent discharge. The fact is, Glocks are less safe than a revolver. Why? Glocks have less trigger pull than a revolver. At least with a revolver the user fells the trigger coming back. With a Glock, the trigger can easily be pulled.

Because Glocks are drop safe, meaning that they can be dropped without discharging, people call them “safe”. Most automatics have that feature and most modern revolvers and many older revolvers do as well. That isn’t much of a bragging ight.

Glocks have no personnel safety. They have no manual locking safety nor a magazine drop safety. They also require a convoluted method to clear them. Negligent discharges are far more frequent with Glocks. Of course, most Glock users claim to be experts until they shoot their foot off.

There are three safety rules for Glocks:
If you pull the trigger, it goes bang. If you don't pull the trigger, it doesn't go bang. If you don't want it to go bang, don't pull the trigger.

I don't know why some people find them so difficult.

Another triumph of outcome-based education, I'd wager. For example, how the officer feels about gun safety if more important than actually acting in the appropriate manner. I mean, the officer was entitled to feel safe, now wasn't she? How can we be so judgemennnnnnnnnnntal?

Glocks have their problems, but the lack of a manual safety isn't one of them. I've owned two model 17s, a 19, a 21 and a 30 over the last 15 years since their introduction, and have yet to have one go bang when I didn't want it to...nor did I have any similar problem with the .45 M1911 pistols I've used since 1960, nor the Browning GP *Hi-power* 9mm pistols I've owned and carried since 1967.

I am aware of at least two people with S&W autopistols killed when the magazine release of their handguns was inadvertantly bumped or depressed when hurriedly grabbed, and the magazine safety functioned exactly as designed, leaving them with a nonfunctioning handgun while an adversary killed them. That's not to say that I wasn't fond of the sweet little S&W M39 autoloader I carried as an armored car courier/driver and gun guard...after the magazine safety was disconnected.

But I'm much more displeased with other cgharacteristics of the Glocks, including their rifling profile unsuitable for unjacketed lead bullets, their unsuitability with reloaded training ammunition, an unfortunate tendency of some models to fire before the breech is fully locked up, and the *phase three* malfunction in which a glock will sometimes try to rechamber a fired case before it's fully ejected from the weapon, usually jamming the action pretty good.

I've still got a Model 17, the original version first introduced by Gaston Glock, and as used by the Austrian, Norwegian and Israeli military. But I'm under no illusions that it's perfect or *absolutely* reliable, any more than any other bit of machinery can be. It'll do, if I do my part.

FReep thread on Glock *phase three* stoppages *here*.

-archy-/-

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