The Hits Just Keep Coming For Sig Sauer

Years from now, someone is likely to have a section in a business textbook about Sig Sauer over the last handful of years as a case study in what not to do.

From 2017, when my second story ever published here at Bearing Arms was about Sig’s “voluntary upgrades” following reports the guns weren’t drop safe, to today, the company hasn’t really handled the P320 controversy well.

The voluntary upgrade was probably the smartest decision they made, because it at least tacitly acknowledged there was an issue and gave people a way to solve it.

Since then, though, the issues have gotten worse, and the company’s responses have been anything but golden.

Now, they have a different problem.

A couple of weeks ago, I noted that ICE told agents to hand over their P320s.

Now, one of the agents whose incident precipitated that call and who sued the company just saw his lawsuit revived.

A U.S. appeals court on Friday revived a lawsuit seeking to hold firearms maker Sig Sauer liable to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer who was injured when his P320 gun went off accidentally during a training drill.

The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia said a trial judge erred by dismissing Keith Slatowski’s lawsuit after excluding testimony from two experts about whether the gun’s design could cause injury.

Sig Sauer and its lawyer did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The company has faced several lawsuits over alleged unintentional P320 firings.

Slatowski’s gun discharged from within its holster after his hand hit the grip in September 2020 at a New Castle, Delaware firing range. A bullet went through his upper right hip and out his thigh.

While unsure whether debris or the holster itself caused the trigger to depress, the former Marine said the lack of an external safety to prevent unexpected firings made his gun unsafe. Slatowski sought $10 million in damages.

The panel basically said the trial judge should have allowed testimony regarding the design flaw to be included.

Of course, this is likely one of the cases Sig cited as a victory when they first responded to the controversy–badly responded, of course–and now, it’s not just a victory.

Recently, the YouTube channel Wyoming Gun Project aired a video that went viral, showing just how easily the gun can be made to fire without pulling the trigger. This followed an airman being killed when he put his M18–the military version of the P320–on a table. The gun discharged and hit him in the chest.

Slatowski’s allegations seem to largely fit with what we’re seeing happen, where a hit to the grip would probably cause some shifting of the slide within the holster. If there are enough out-of-tolerance parts or even dust or debris causing things to function like they’re out of tolerance, a discharge would happen just the same.

Look, I don’t hate Sig.

More accurately, I didn’t hate Sig. I still don’t, but that’s starting to change. It’s not because I think they make bad guns. They’ve got a lot of firearms on the market that function just fine. A lot of people love things like their P365s or some of their older designs. I still want P226 at some point.

But they’re not making things easier for themselves. A recall would have been costly, sure, but it would have at least allowed them to keep the goodwill they had in the gun community, as well as with law enforcement.

They might have had to do some fast talking with the military–or maybe not. I honestly don’t know–but even there, they’d have still earned at least a little respect.

Instead, they’ve gaslit the entire community, as Brandon Herrera argued in a recent video of his–and double down.

Luckily, it seems the community will act where Sig won’t.

A lot of P320 owners report that their pistols are now in the safe, there to remain until and unless Sig issues a recall. They won’t carry them, and they won’t sell them because they don’t want someone who doesn’t know any better getting hurt.