Police: Hug Triggers Officer's Gun, Kills Woman

[TheWraith]

33. Most police weapons are double-action-only, with no safety switch.

In other words they act like revolvers: a long, hard pull of the trigger is needed to set them off, but there's no external switch to lock them. All Glock models, most Smith and Wesson, most Ruger, etcetera are like this. They do it that way because of the possibility that police may have to draw their weapons and use them right away--they don't want officers getting hung up by a safety switch in a life or death situation, and the long hard trigger pull is to insure it doesn't go off too easily.

That said, I find this story extremely questionable. With most shoulder holsters, the trigger isn't even remotely accessible while the gun is in the holster. And modern firearms do not go off for any reason except pulling the trigger. On top of that, the sheer odds that she would accidentally pull an exposed trigger, and that an accidental shot would kill her so quickly that she couldn't get medical attention to save her life? Amazingly unlikely, like hitting-the-lottery type odds against it. If I were the police, I would look VERY, VERY carefully at whether this officer may have had any previous romantic relationship with this woman, or any other reason to want to hurt her.