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Air Force Command Pauses Use of M18 Handguns After Security Airman's Death
For those of you who do not pay attention to small arms development or small arms procurement, the story of the M18 is an interesting one.
Several years ago, the US military published a request for a new sidearm for all of its branches, called the modular handgun system (MHS). They asked for several highly specific features, including the ability to replace grips and change slide lengths at the armorer level.
Multiple companies tendered submissions, including Glock, Beretta, HK, SIG, and a few other smaller players. After years of examination and multiple lawsuits (that are worth examination on their own), the department of defense settled on the SIG P320, which they labeled the M17 and M18, depending on the barrel and grip length.
As a result of the contract, multiple law enforcement agencies across the US standardized on the P320 as a service weapon.
Unfortunately for SIG, users discovered that the P320 was not drop safe. If dropped from several feet onto a concrete surface at the correct angle, the mass of the trigger shoe could cause the trigger to pull itself due to inertia.
While SIG did not issue a recall, it did offer a "voluntary upgrade" program that replaced the heavy trigger shoe with a lighter polymer model, which was the one used on the M17 and M18. This variant did not have enough mass to pull itself when dropped from a height onto a hard surface at a specific angle.
However, the pistol now had a reputation. It was The Gun That Goes Off For No Reason. SIG rapidly found itself playing defense against a torrent of lawsuits where individuals claimed that the pistol discharged with absolutely no user intervention. Claimants argued that since the gun was once, in specific circumstances, able to fire without human intervention, that it was fundamentally and inherently unsafe. Even though no one could ever describe a mechanism for uncommanded discharge, SIG lost two of those cases because they shipped a trigger shoe that did not have a Glock-style trigger safety, which would have hypothetically prevented an uncommanded discharge that occurred due to an undescribed mechanism.
Fast forward to now. A US Airman has died, allegedly because the service pistol fired a round while it was sitting in a holster on his desk.
A YouTuber and a redditor have both claimed to be able to repeatedly create an uncommanded discharge. The "gun community" has taken this as permission to Hate SIG, and has begun to do so with gusto.
Here's the thing: both the YouTuber and the redditor manipulate the trigger in their reproduction steps. The YouTuber shove a screw into the trigger assembly, and the redditor literally pulls the trigger with his finger.
To my knowledge, no one has figured out how to make the gun fire without touching the trigger.
I feel like this series of events has culture war implications.
The first reason is because it seems like a lot of culture war activity seems similar to a concept in the gun world called "fuddlore". "Fuddlore", to those who haven't heard about it, is received wisdom that has only a tenuous connection to reality at best, but is nonetheless extremely sticky in the mind of a certain class of person. An example would be someone saying something like "I'd never use an AR-15 because it shits where it eats and constantly jams". You could show them dozens of long duration tests across multiple environments and duty schedules, from multiple sources with different biases, that all prove the modern AR-15 is a solid, dependable rifle that will keep firing in even the most vile conditions. They'll nod their head, then a week later say "I'd never use an AR-15 because it shits where it eats and constantly jams". In the case of the M18, it's the Gun That Goes Off For No reason now, and it's firmly embedded in the fuddlore even though nobody can figure out how to do it.
You might recognize that same mindset from stories here. I've seen people mention it around politics, romantic relationships, COVID, and Lord only knows what else.
The second parallel to the culture war is that a lot of people hate SIG for a few different reasons. Some are fanboys of other brands. Some think they're cheating on the federal contracts. Others just think they're Too Jewish (don't ask me. I don't get it). The end result is that they're using motivated reasoning to make a point of believing the stories. It feels similar to Scott's old arguments as soldiers story.
I don't if I have anywhere else to go with this, but it's wild to see concepts discussed here show up in a different subculture.
I'm pretty sure there's something wrong with the gun. The guy died, so he certainly wasn't making excuses like "I holstered it I swear I didn't touch the trigger" and it seems likely that respondents showed up and found the gun in its holster in a way that made it clear that nobody pulled the trigger.
Considering how much the military loves to put its people in deathtraps and deny that anything is wrong, I'm pretty sure that there's some serious evidence that the gun is actually bad. And the military bureaucrats certainly don't care what gun twitter has to say about hating the gun when they decide whether or not to ban it.
People do lie about the reasons for things happening.
The fact that the P320 has the issues it does makes it easy for anyone to just blame it on the gun.
He's dead so how can he lie about it.
It's conceivable in principle those who found him lied about intentional or incompetent acts.
I have no idea about this particular case. Nothing has been revealed, officially. It's a best practice to always keep the business end of a gun pointed in the safest direction possible. (It strikes me as strange he would take his gun+holster off and set in on a table pointing right back at him.) Things can get caught in holsters. Glock Leg has been a thing for quite some time now. Base rates being what they are, my bet is on some form of user error over mechanical failure.
https://www.npr.org/transcripts/145640473
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