This magazine "safety" is the one that requires you to have a magazine in the weapon during tear-down so that you can drop the hammer after clearing the weapon. I have a 22-45 Ruger that has this type of "safety" on it, and IMHO all it does is force a violation of the rules of gun safety. I'm a believer in not having ammunition and feeding devices (aka magazines) on hand for cleaning handguns. The magazine "safety" requires that I violate this guideline as well as Rule 3. I would agree with you that it may have its place, but I don't think handguns are the right place.TEX wrote: Magazine Safety – this is a device that prevents the pistol from firing if a magazine is not in place. Standard Browning Hi-Powers and many Smith and Wesson automatics have them. The idea behind this device is that we fallible human beings, in one of our dimmer moments may assume the pistol is unloaded if the magazine is removed. We all know, or should know, that there could still be one in the chamber. There is some merit in such a safety and I feel confident that it has prevented some injuries or deaths. The down sides are only two. One is that it affects the trigger pull (not true in all models) and that during a tactical reload, it leaves you with a gun that will not shoot until you get the fresh magazine inserted. If you know how to properly perform a tactical reload, this time period would be less than a second so I don’t see that as a big issue. The benefit of a magazine safety is that the pistol remains non-functioning until a magazine is inserted. This allows you, in a struggle, to pop the magazine out so that your weapon cannot be used against you. This also allows you to store the pistol in one place and the magazine in another, but still in close enough to make the pistol fully operational in a matter of seconds. For instance the pistol could be on a closet shelf, but the magazine in a certain coat pocket. You would be betting that the magazine safety does work, and that no one will find where you stashed the magazine. I know one person, who when he has to leave his pistol in his vehicle, takes out the magazine and puts it in his pocket so that if they vehicle was stolen, the crook would not immediately have a functioning firearm.
As to the other types of safeties, I would generally agree that your analysis is on target. I would encourage anyone who hesitates to leave one in the pipe to load their weapon, engage the safety (or safeties), and place that weapon on a flat surface that will remain undisturbed and see how long it takes for the safety to disangage and for the handgun to fire. I suspect you'll be waiting an exceedingly long time.
In every AD/ND that I have read about, at least one of the four rules was disregarded. The only safety that will prevent that AD/ND from happening is the one between your ears.