This Week in Bad Ideas

Sigh.

I’m not sure what’s going on with gun manufacturers and accessory companies this week.

First, the folks at DeSantis (who make fine leather holsters) came out with this monstrosity this week:

What were they thinking? A “holster” that attaches to the gun, but other than holding the gun onto your belt, doesn’t do anything that a holster is supposed to do (like cover the trigger guard, have a means for retaining the gun in a struggle, etc.) Furthermore, I’ve shown that when you add in the size of the pistol, you really aren’t saving any size over a regular holster, and you get nothing but drawbacks.

Next we have the Ruger LC9s, the new striker fired Ruger LC9. On the surface this looks like a great pistol. Its a great size, nicely rounded off edges, 7+1 capacity, and it’s supposed to have a decent trigger with a pull weight around 5lbs, and half the travel distance of the hammer fired LC9.

Unfortunately, it appears that Rugers lawyers got their hands on the LC9s before it left the factory and messed everything up. The pistol still sports the thumb safety that the hammer fired version has, and it sports the Glock-like trigger safety, AND it has a magazine disconnect. I guess the up-side is that they didn’t add an internal lock as well.

As we’ve seen with the Springfield XDs recall, adding unnecessary safety devices to these micro pistols adds unneeded complexity and makes more room for things to go wrong. I think gun companies are going to need to start making some changes to their micro pistols pretty soon to get rid of these ridiculous “safety” devices. S&W listened to their customers and is now making the Shield without a safety (It’s fantastic, by the way) and in order to stay relevant, these other companies are going to need to make some changes to keep up.

I’d carry an LC9s minus the thumb safety and mag disconnect, but those two things make it a no-go for me.