This is the result of people being stupid and our society rewarding them.
Originally published at Gun Totin' Hippies. You can comment here or there.
This is an excellent article on the ridiculous proliferation of safety devices being built into firearms. Thirty years ago, most civilian firearms did not have a safety. Now, due to people not following the basic rules of firearms safety and not reading the owner’s manuals, firearms have built in locks, heavier trigger pulls and more safety devices than necessary. This is all done to protect the firearms manufacturers from lawsuits by the stupid.
An example: Freedom Arms recently lost a lawsuit due to the protecting of the stupid. The plaintiff, against the instructions given in the owner’s manual and historic precedence with single action revolvers, left the hammer down on a loaded chamber. When he was removing his coat, the coat pulled the hammer back and caused the weapon to fire. This caused massive damage to his leg. Another mistake was carrying a single action revolver in holster that does not provide some sort of hammer restraint. He argued that, despite the manual’s warnings and historic precedent, Freedom Arms should have built in a safety device to prevent this. The jury awarded him $600,000.