More than 80 people, including police officers, allege they were shot by their SIG Sauer P320 pistols. Some have lost work and live in pain after serious injuries.
But it has never ordered a recall of a gun because it does not have the authority to do so, even if it explodes in someone’s hand or spontaneously fires a bullet.
SIG Sauer has faced claims that the P320 malfunctions since at least 2017, when accounts surfaced that the gun could fire when dropped. A video released in August that year by a Texas gun store showed the gun firing consistently when dropped at certain angles. The impact caused the trigger to depress, the video showed.
“If I had known about this gun’s problems, it would not have been the gun I carried,” said George Abrahams, 55, an Army veteran in Philadelphia whose P320 sent a round into his thigh in 2020. He had purchased the gun in 2018 — a year after the upgrade program had been in effect — but it had not been upgraded and he was not warned at the gun shop of the firearm’s potential issues.
Democrats in Congress have repeatedly tried to establish a regulatory authority with the power to investigate reports of defective firearms and require recalls. The charge has been led by Rep. Debbie Dingell, a Democrat from Michigan and widow of John D. Dingell, whose amendment created the exemption five decades ago. Her proposed legislation has never made it to the floor for a vote.The P320 is what’s known as a striker-fired handgun.
The military variant of the P320 includes a manual thumb safety, and SIG Sauer offers military-branded versions of the gun for civilians that also incorporate one. All but one civilian-branded model of the P320 have no such safety mechanism, according to a review of available P320 models on SIG Sauer’s website.
In the report, commissioned by a legal team bringing a case against SIG Sauer in Philadelphia, Tertin opined that the P320’s primary Other experts consulted by The Post and The Trace said the P320 could fire if jostled or slammed while the trigger is depressed enough to disengage the gun’s internal safeties.
In court, Sean Toner, the P320 designer, has acknowledged that “U.S. standards are not very stringent.” “It’s a big challenge for plaintiffs’ attorneys to show the gun has problems when whole police departments have been unable to re-create it,” said Curtis Marshall, a former agent at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and U.S. Park Police officer who now offers weapons training to law enforcement.
In its response to questions, SIG Sauer wrote that “the suggestion that ‘slight shifts’ of small components in the P320 could result in a discharge without a trigger pull is simply not credible given the extensive and rigorous testing conducted by SIG Sauer, the U.S. military and federal law enforcement agencies, and other military and law enforcement agencies around the world.”
Cross, 49, concedes that he should not have been handling his weapon in a cafeteria full of children, but he maintains that he didn’t pull the gun’s trigger. The sheriff’s office argued that he mishandled the gun and suspended him the same day. He was later fired.Two other officers at the Pasco County Sheriff’s Office survived incidents in which they say their P320s discharged in situations in which nobody pulled the guns’ triggers.
SIG Sauer said independent investigations into unintentional discharges with the P320 had demonstrated that some were caused by careless handling. “Our officers are fearful of the gun,” said Andrew Wagner, head of the Milwaukee Police Association officers union. “They’re not taking it home. They don’t want it around their family.”
“When asked if the Sig Sauer P-320 pistol can discharge spontaneously without a trigger manipulation ,” Capt. James MacGillis wrote in the summary shortly after the meeting, “the representatives did not answer the question, even when asked twice.”, the Milwaukee Police Department announced it would begin outfitting its officers with Glock handguns.
In April 2022, a surveillance camera captured Officer Ashley Catatao, 35, carrying equipment bags to her car in the Somerville Police Department’s parking lot in suburban Boston. With her hands full, her holstered P320 fires, striking her thigh.
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