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Look at the video -- he's not even holding it in a normal firing position, he's got his hand wrapped around the lower grip. (as one would when handling an unknown firearm -- not sure the training on this, but it seems like something that would happen pretty often in a legal CCW jurisdiction, and Grey Jacket looks pretty well trained)
Note that this also means that if the gun did go off for SIG reasons (that nobody has really been able to replicate in controlled circumstances), the recoil would cause a lot more muzzle flip than usual, potentially even causing him to lose control of the gun -- like I said last week the would be extremely obvious, not a matter of trying to see the slide moving in grainy compressed footage.
I can't say that it's out of the question, but it's extremely implausible -- the only real evidence ever presented is "SIG lol, amirite" which seems awfully weak if you're going to present it as "the most likely explanation".
I have watched the video. It's fast enough and grainy enough that my (terrible) eyes can't make out enough detail to see one way or the other.
It does, however, sound like one report is slightly different than the others. That could be an artifact of how cell phone mics work, but it does make me hesitate to discount the "first shot was an ND with Pretti's gun" theory out of hand.
It's actually a lot easier to see what's going on by watching the video (maybe slowed down a tick) with sound -- it's clear to me that he has his trigger finger not only outside the guard, but wrapped around the grip -- as you would hold a hammer or something and a finger's width lower than you normally would.
That seems like the safest way to handle a gun that you aren't sure of the loaded/safety status of -- but would be fairly uncontrollable if that gun were to somehow go off.
I'll take your word for this and assume that's what's going on. My vision is so bad that I can't tell either way.
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This is why I regard it as pretty comparable to the “Kirk Shooter was MAGA theory.” “SIG lol” as the entire basis for the theory is pretty comparable to “his parents were MAGA” as both are just probabilistic arguments while all the direct evidence we have is contrary. The grey jacket guy didn’t react as if the gun in his hand went off, and he looked behind him over the opposite shoulder. As far as I know ICE/DHS has not even claimed this misfire theory in their own defense, it is 100% cope. As you said, is it strictly possible a misfire happened despite all the evidence? Sure. In the same sense that it’s strictly possible Kirk’s shooter is a groyper chud despite the evidence.
It's even worse, really -- I'm sure you could establish a reasonably strong correlation between Trump-voting parents and MAGA-chud children over the entire population; on the other hand there are millions of SIG 320s out there, with very few NDs at all and zero strongly confirmed ADs. The probabalistic argument isn't even particularly strong.
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