> Not clear from the article whether or not it was engaged.
Per TFA
"Investigators reviewed surveillance footage and determined that the security guard did not mishandle the weapon, and that it fired despite the gun’s safety being in place."
I'm no expert on guns and I also thought it strange when I first heard that some hand guns are intentionally made with no safety mechanism. Then my brother (who is an expert competitive shooter, instructor and range safety officer) explained the reasoning to me. IIRC, it was basically that despite all rules and training to the contrary, some people continue to occasionally handle guns in an unsafe manner with the (wildly incorrect) justification "it's okay, the safety's on."
Since safety mechanisms must be quick to deactivate and it's not always easy to visually determine the safety's state, such flawed logic substantially reduces the benefit of having a safety in the first place. Whereas the correct safety posture is to always treat any hand gun as potentially loaded and ready to fire, regardless of belief the safety mechanism is active. Apparently, with some people, training and safety protocols can't count counter human psychology, rendering the existence of a safety mechanism as another source of accidental error.
Once I thought about it, I can see how eliminating any possibility of mistaken belief in a safety mechanism being active might be preferred. Of course, this perspective assumes that weapons don't fire themselves accidentally, as reported here. (But, based on this article, apparently having a safety mechanism engaged didn't prevent accidental firing in these rare scenarios anyway.)
The actual reason is because pistols without explicit manual safeties have other safety features that make up for it (grip safety, trigger safety, firing pin disconnect etc.,) that provide the ability to carry the weapon safely in a way in which you don't need the time and muscle memory training to turn the manual safety off when you're in an adrenaline packed life or death scenario, you can just draw and pull the trigger.
There's a lot of personal preference in whether you consider the other safety features "enough" or whether you also want an explicit manual safety.
A very stupid reason not to add safety. We woudnt need safety belts with the same reasoning. Stupid people gonna do stupid things, with or without safety.
You might stumble, hook onto something, loose grip of a weapon and pull the trigger accidentially.
A safety is to prevent accidential triggering, not to prevent stupidity. For that you need laws that prohibit carrying loaded weapons without license and strict requirements and training for the ones who get such a permission.
Our police is training in virtual reality. I know of a case where an officer did not take the safety rules seriously in the vr-training who got reviewed and put on leave for a few days for his behaviour.
Per TFA
"Investigators reviewed surveillance footage and determined that the security guard did not mishandle the weapon, and that it fired despite the gun’s safety being in place."
I'm no expert on guns and I also thought it strange when I first heard that some hand guns are intentionally made with no safety mechanism. Then my brother (who is an expert competitive shooter, instructor and range safety officer) explained the reasoning to me. IIRC, it was basically that despite all rules and training to the contrary, some people continue to occasionally handle guns in an unsafe manner with the (wildly incorrect) justification "it's okay, the safety's on."
Since safety mechanisms must be quick to deactivate and it's not always easy to visually determine the safety's state, such flawed logic substantially reduces the benefit of having a safety in the first place. Whereas the correct safety posture is to always treat any hand gun as potentially loaded and ready to fire, regardless of belief the safety mechanism is active. Apparently, with some people, training and safety protocols can't count counter human psychology, rendering the existence of a safety mechanism as another source of accidental error.
Once I thought about it, I can see how eliminating any possibility of mistaken belief in a safety mechanism being active might be preferred. Of course, this perspective assumes that weapons don't fire themselves accidentally, as reported here. (But, based on this article, apparently having a safety mechanism engaged didn't prevent accidental firing in these rare scenarios anyway.)