The Mechanics of the Safety

At the FN launch event where they showcased the High Power earlier this year, FN America's head of LE training was helping run the line. He caught sight of me repeatedly fiddling with the safety as I raised and lowered the pistol to my sight line and assumed he had to help a striker-fired shooter out. I had to explain to him that, no, I carried 1911s for years and was just getting a feel for the safety on the new High Power; I'm pretty religious about "On the sights, off safe. Off the sights, on safe."

Of course, that little mnemonic is simplistic, and safety use on a single-action defensive pistol is a little more complex than that.

Erick Gelhaus, who definitely knows what time it is when it comes to SAOs, has an excellent breakdown of sound safety usage in an article at American Cop that you should read.

My main carry gun for a decade. This picture should make you cringe a bit. "iT aIn'T lOw-DeD!"

Incidentally, this is one place where there is a very real difference of opinion between the proper employment of a single action pistol with a mechanical safety in action pistol shooting and for actual carry out where the targets will do more than disqualify you from the match if you crank off a round at the wrong time. 

I'm just going to say that there are a lot of things that I am fine with you doing with a pistol if I'm standing behind you holding a timer that I would be a lot less cool with you doing if I were standing downrange of you as a Human No-Shoot.

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