The Ayoob files: when your gun jams in a firefight - Massad Ayoob

American Handgunner, Jan-Feb, 2004

The jeweler cited above is the only case I've ever actually unearthed in which the good guy got hurt because his gun's safety was engaged and he forgot to release it at the moment of truth. The slide-mounted manual safety of the Walther should be engaged because, until the 2003 introduction of S&W's American version, these little Walthers did not have passive firing pin safeties and could discharge if dropped or struck when the safety was off and there was a round in the chamber. The PP/PPK series Walther's safety is more difficult to manipulate than most slide-mounted safety/decock levers and requires more practice, not less. In this case, it was lack of training and practice that caused the good guy's pistol to remain silent when it urgently needed to speak, and as in the Glock case above, no fault of the weapon.

Cops

A Midwestern state trooper pulled up to assist a man standing on the side of the highway. As she approached, he pulled a 6" S&W .44 Magnum and shot her in the torso with a 240-grain Federal HydraShok. The full-powered Magnum hollowpoint was stopped on her Second Chance vest. She drew her Beretta 96D and proceeded to launch a torrent of .40 S&W slugs back at her attempted murderer.

Suddenly, her pistol stopped shooting. There was no time to diagnose the malfunction. She performed a "rip-strip-reload" as she had been taught and resumed firing until the man went down. She had hit him some eight times, inflicting multiple mortal wounds and one that would have left him with dim hopes for his sex life had he survived. In despair, the dying criminal blew his own brains out.

The Beretta 92, one of the world's most reliable 9mm pistols, has had some reported problems in its later incarnation as the .40 caliber Beretta 96. The manufacturer felt that under stress, the trooper had tailed to fully return the trigger of her double action only 96D. The agency, however, was not taking chances. They switched to a different make of DAO .40, the SIG-Sauer.

In Washington state, a thug with a pistol tried to rob a gun shop with a marked police car outside and a uniformed policeman inside. He shot it out with the cop, who got off a single round from his newly issued Glock 17 before his service pistol jammed. The cop ducked for cover to clear the malfunction in the way he had recently been taught, as the gunman moved toward him to kill him while he was helpless.

Fortunately, one of the clerks was also an armed citizen. He drew his legally-carried Colt Delta Elite and pumped three 10mm hollowpoints into the offender, dropping him with fatal results. A laceration on the weak-hand thumb of the officer told the tale of why his Glock had only fired once. He had reverted to his old-fashioned revolver training and grasped his new semiautomatic pistol with the thumb of the support hand over the back of his firing hand and behind the gun. Here, his thumb had blocked the slide of the Glock when it moved back from the first shot, and jammed its firing cycle.

When a Midwestern trooper approached a driver's door in a routine traffic stop, the man pulled out a revolver and shot him in the gun arm. The officer staggered back as the gunman roared away, and managed to draw with his weak hand and shoot at the fleeing felon. When he attempted to fire again, his 9mm pistol would not discharge; looking down, he saw it was jammed. The fleeing gunman was subsequently captured, tried, and convicted. Examination of the officer's S&W Model 39 showed it was bone-dry. As any gunsmith or S&W armorer can attest, these guns--like any semiautomatic pistol--require lubrication of their long bearing surfaces or they may be unable to cycle as designed. In this case, the weak-hand-only shooting posture may also have led to an unlocked wrist; most auto pistols are susceptible to jamming when shot this way, since the slide needs to work against the abutment of a firmly held frame.