The P320 Shake Awake Trigger?

Two short soundless clips made public by the Montville (Connecticut) Police Department– a small agency of just 29 officers– shows what appears to be a holstered pistol discharging while a group of officers are going hands-on with a bendy subject in the lobby of the agency.

In coverage of the incident by local media reported by Police One an officer’s handgun “spontaneously discharged” while he was arresting a suspect and, three days later, Chief Wilfred Blanchette said the agency has placed an order for $20,000 worth (?!) of Glock 9mm handguns after the “incident raised safety concerns over the Sig Sauer P320s carried by officers.”

The video and the article spread like wildfire across the Gunwebs spanning SIG fan pages, ARFCom, Facebook, and virtually every gun and gun-adjacent Reddit group — with thousands weighing in.

SIG, confronted with something of a cottage industry with a Philadelphia law firm carving out a niche in filing lawsuits against the firearms giant over P320 accidental discharge cases over the past few years– all of which have found little success it should be noted– hasn’t commented on the Montville incident but has generally maintained the safety of their P320 design.

The Yankee Marshall, who has often come to the P320’s defense in the past despite avowing he doesn’t have a horse in the race, posted a decent rebuttal of the event arguing that the rush to slam the gun as unsafe is inconclusive.

It should be pointed out that Glock just a decade ago was slammed with dozens of similar lawsuits over their trigger design with many arguing the trigger pack was too light and allowed for too many negligent discharges, especially in officers who had learned their trade on DA/SA S&W “Wondernines” with manual safeties and revolvers.

The late Bob Owens of Bearing Arms even opined in the LA Times that police officers shouldn’t even use Glocks for that reason. Such concerns led the NYPD to order heavier “New York” triggers, tuned for more revolver-like trigger characteristics, installed on their Glocks.

 So, has this all been seen before? Time will tell.

Update: SIG has posted its response to the incident.