Photo from SIG SAUER.

It's a mixed bag, good and bad, when it comes to social media and the shooting sports/defense shooting. Let's take care of the easy part first. Social media and the internet have made research easier than ever – on a range of topics far beyond the outdoors industry, to be sure, but including the industry as well. It's like drinking from a firehose. Understand that the hydration from a firehose is unfiltered, just like internet information. It's worth every nickel you paid for it. If they lead you astray, demand your money back. The information is unfiltered. It's not about censorship, it's about nonsense. There's a lot of simply wrong information out there. In response to a leaked internal memorandum from a large police department, word got out that the SIG P320 was not 'drop-safe.' Like faux-news reportage of officer involved shootings, there was a lack of hard information in the story – though the agency was mentioned by name. And, similar to police shootings, the story developed on the fly as more came out. Someone in the outfit read the SIG manual – we all know that no one reads the manual until they're in trouble. The manual had the 'legalese,' the weasel words to get around civil litigation when some idiot covered a body part with the muzzle and pressed the trigger: keep the chamber empty until you're ready to shoot. The torch was already lit: the discussion groups and social media sites were on fire with questions of the form "is the gun I carry 'safe?'" Let's back up: long guns tend to have no mechanical 'drop safe' component. Handguns started to attain mechanical drop safeties in the early cartridge era. This was done as it was realized that handguns are carried loaded and ready for emergencies. In the early 20th Century, when the Army selected their government pistol, they specified a range of mechanical safety features which they then ignored for at least 70 years of the gun's service by mandating it be carried "half-loaded" (i.e., no round chambered). This defeats the purpose of carrying a handgun. The concept of drop safety on handguns was too complicated for the military mind. Cops routinely carried guns loaded as they'd primarily worked with revolvers. Last Friday, SIG responded to the internet buffoonery by listing the safety testing the P320 had undergone. Like other manufacturers – Ruger, Smith & Wesson, GLOCK, for example – SIG has been quick to respond to problems within product lines. They are not out to sell items that are unsafe for the intended use; that would be a self-destructive business practice. Another story came out, earlier in the week, about someone who was allegedly a federal law enforcement agent who dropped a gun in an airport. In an attempt to grab it before it hit the deck, the story goes, the user clutched at it and shot himself in the foot. If that's true, he's lucky: others have grabbed at falling firearms and self-inflicted terminal injuries. Let a dropped handgun go to the ground. Don't try to catch it. Modern striker-fired pistols are at least as safe to carry as any other recently made style of handgun. That's just the way it is. And, had the worthy manual-reader checked with the manual attending that agency's issue handgun, the same language is likely in there: why did they insist officers come in to draw and shoot a city-owned gun for carry on duty? It would be safer to go without, no? No? There are four general rules about handling firearms – we've added a fifth, like Arizona, but it has to do with storage and accountability. Following those four rules go a long ways in making us safe. - - Rich Grassi