You Will Shoot Your Eye Out

… take heed of this development in Washington state.

The Washington State Criminal Justice Training Commission has prohibited recruits from training with a popular semiautomatic handgun and has banned the pistol from the commission’s campuses after reports the gun could fire without someone pulling the trigger.

In an order issued Feb. 24, commission Executive Director Monica Alexander made a permanent prohibition of the Sig Sauer P320, one of the most popular handguns on the market, a version of which is used by the U.S. military.

Alexander had temporarily banned anyone from carrying and training with the firearm after an Oct. 9 incident, in which a recruit in a Basic Law Enforcement Academy class in Spokane reported his Sig Sauer “self-discharged” as he drew it to fire on targets at the police range. The round struck the ground behind the recruit and fragmented, striking and injuring an instructor and another recruit.

The recruit insisted his trigger finger was “indexed” — pointed alongside the frame of the handgun, outside of the trigger guard — when he drew the weapon. A firearms instructor confirmed the incident, stating he was watching the recruit’s hand and that the “weapon immediately fired while he was drawing the weapon” while his finger was not on the trigger.

. . .

The work group uncovered a number of lawsuits and video of incidents involving the Sig Sauer P320 firing while in a holster, including 2022 body-camera video of an officer in Milwaukee who was wounded when his partner’s firearm discharged in its holster.

Another body-camera video shows a 2023 incident in Montville, N.J., where an officer’s holstered sidearm goes off in the lobby of the police station.

There also have been a number of lawsuits filed against Sig Sauer over unintended discharges of the P320, including one settled in Tacoma in 2023 after a man suffered a serious leg wound when his gun discharged while he was holstering it. The details of the settlement were not immediately available.

There’s more at the link.

There’s no word on whether the prohibition also applies to the Sig-Sauer M17 and M18, military versions of the SiG P320.  However, I’d assume the risk is the same – they’re mechanically identical internally, as far as I know – so I’d be careful with the military pistols too.

I’ve never fired a Sig P320, so I can’t comment from personal experience.  I know it’s become very popular in certain circles, with a number of top competition shooters using it.  This troubling development in Washington state may change that.