Air Force Report Noted Issue with Sig Sauer Pistol in 2022

In July, the issue with the Sig P320 reached something of an apex. An airman was shot and killed by his M18 pistol–that being the military designation for the P320–when he did not pull the trigger. This was just the latest incident where it was clear the firearm could discharge without anyone’s booger hook on the bang switch.

But it seems that the Air Force might have had some earlier indication that there was an issue with the M18 well before then.

It happened on an Air Force Base in Italy back in 2022.

But records obtained by New Hampshire Public Radio through a Freedom of Information Act Request show that years before the death of Airman Brayden Lovan on July 20, Air Force investigators concluded that an M18 pistol appeared to have fired without a trigger pull on a U.S. base in Italy.

The incident occurred on Aviano Air Base in 2022: As a staff sergeant loaded a magazine into his M18 and released the slide — with the gun’s safety on — the weapon fired unexpectedly. Air base staff treated the area as a “crime scene” and took statements from 15 military personnel.

Investigators went so far as to fingerprint the gun, finding no prints on the gun’s trigger, according to an Air Force report.

Investigators then disassembled the pistol and found wear marks on an internal component of the gun called the mechanical disconnect, leading them to conclude that “the weapon suffered a mechanical failure.” According to the squadron commander who authored the report, “negligent discharges are on the rise” and there have been other “reported possible mechanical malfunctions” of the M18 documented by the Air Force.

Asked about the statement in the Aviano report about other possible incidents involving the gun, U.S. military officials said “to date, there is no documented instance within the Air Force of an M18 discharging unintentionally in any of the reported negligent discharges.”

Of course, the question is whether that means no documentation was recorded or that the discharges were, in fact, negligent is unclear based on this statement.

However, this one documented instance is troubling in light of what we’ve seen since then.

The question I have to ask myself is whether this is troubling because I know what all has happened since then, or would it be troubling enough at the time that I’d think it warranted further investigation?

If I’m being honest, and if this incident were only known about in isolation from any other unintended discharges that may have happened around that time, I doubt I’d read too much into it myself. Even if someone had reached out to Sig Sauer, the company may have downplayed it as some kind of anomaly if it came up, and absent any other information, there’s no reason anyone would have necessarily thought otherwise.

And there’s nothing in the report to suggest any such discussion happened, for the record.

Yes, there were reported mechanical functions, but how many were cases of a gun going off for some reason, and the person in possession of that firearm saying it went off, and no one believing them all that much? Its inclusion in the report suggests that’s not inherently the case, but I can’t dismiss it being viewed by others the same way.

After all, how many of us have said for years that guns don’t “just go off” when someone claimed otherwise?

Honestly, this is a major problem, and while the DOD says they still have confidence in the M18, I have no idea why in the hell they would. Then again, handguns aren’t handled nearly as often as many might think, so there have likely been fewer examples to give the DOD pause.

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