Well said Sir.A-R wrote:Sorry good buddy, but this is inaccurate. Glocks have three safeties - one active (trigger safety) and two passive/automatic (firing pin safety and drop safety).The Annoyed Man wrote:For one thing, a typical 1911 has at least three safety mechanisms to the Glock's one
Original 1911s only had two active (grip safety and thumb safety) and zero passive/automatic (though later models have integrated various drop safeties and firing pin safeties).
In a nutshell, the 1911 safeties would "allow" someone to press the trigger of a loaded 1911 without it going BANG. Depending on your point of view, this good (extra level of safety) or bad (false sense of safety, as in "look I can press the trigger and nothing will happen" ... until you fail to realize your muscle memory already subconsciously deactivated the thumb safety and ... BANG).
Both are great handgun systems, likely the best two ever developed. And each user should choose the system that fits them best.
As for NDs, it's a stretch to compare 1911s to Glocks in this regard because of sheer numbers (how many more police officers etc. use Glocks daily than 1911s?) and because of the change over that was made in law enforcement from revolvers with relatively heavy triggers (8-15 pounds vs. about 5-6 for a stock Glock) but still no external active safeties of any kind. And yes, I realize the US military used 1911s for 75 years, but it was not the primary weapon of many (most?) who carried it and and likely not subject to number of unholster/reholster repetitions as a LEO-used handgun.
To the OP, It would seem your friend is just letting his personal prefererence bias his point of view... I really really, really dislike it when folks who use that same approach make a bad name for owners of a certain Gun/Brand. It's a pet peeve of mine, actually. For instance, my wife went through a Basic Firearms Safety/Pistol Usage Class some months back at out local community college (it was free). She was telling me how the instructor went off an a tangent during the class when asked what some "good" handguns were. He basically said that anything made by Beretta was pure junk, and went on to prasie a number of the modern Polymer pistols (Glock, M&P). I laughed when she told me this. Seriously, I consider it a mark of an excellent instructor if he takes the high road and does not let his personal bias interfere with the honest assesment of a certain Firearms performance. I can understand saying "This brand has a bad track record with reliability" or something of that nature, but flat out telling a group of New shooters that "anything from this brand is crap" is just too far out there. I know we're all humans, but c'mon! When I become an instructor I will be trying my absolutel dangdest to stay away from that type of behavior.
Drinking Brand/Type Kool-aid just isn't wise, as I've found Myopic views will only let one down in multiple ways over the long haul. Options are always good.
Just my 2 cents.
