Dozens of lawsuits filed in recent years have alleged that Sig Sauer’s P320 pistols can fire on their own, injuring their owners. An investigation by The Trace and the Washington Post published in April 2023 found that more than 100 people had alleged that their Sig Sauer P320 pistols fired unintentionally in lawsuits, with at least 80 people injured in those shootings. Since that investigation, more lawsuits have been filed against Sig Sauer, alleging that at least another 23 people have been injured by P320 pistols.
In June, a jury found Sig Sauer liable in a case where a man from Roswell, Georgia, alleged that his P320 fired and injured him without the trigger being pulled. In addition to awarding the man $2.35 million in damages, the jury concluded that the P320’s design was defective and that Sig Sauer had failed to adequately warn customers about the risk of unintentional shootings
On the record
But in a recent interview, Sig Sauer CEO Ron Cohen defended the P320 — and called critics “vultures” motivated by money. When asked about the controversy surrounding the pistol, Cohen said, “This world is surrounded by a lot of vultures that enjoy picking at a company, especially the companies that are on top. Everybody loves to try to pick somebody that has a wallet.”1TFB TV, “Interview with Sig’s CEO Ron Cohen: Wins, Controversies, and Drones?” YouTube, July 11, 2024, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFhjZIpUfZc&ab_channel=TFBTV, at 10:30.
Cohen did not confirm or deny the allegations of P320 pistols firing unintentionally, or express sympathy to those who were injured. But he did appear to take the issue personally: “Asking me what I think about the [P]320 is asking me about my child.”2Ibid, at 10:51.
When asked to respond to claims that Sig Sauer “uses its customers as beta testers,” Cohen leaned into the sheer quantity of weapons his company produces, saying, “when you launch so much product over a decade, you will always have something that didn’t work exactly like you wanted to in the first go.”3Ibid, at 5:20.
military and police contracts
In the interview, Cohen defended his company’s P320 pistols by naming several military and police customers who have adopted them, including the U.S. military, who “purchased 500,000” of the pistols, as well as “the Canadian military, the Australian military, the Danish military, and I can’t even mention how many more federal agencies, law enforcement agencies, around the world.”4Ibid, at 11:03.
According to Cohen, those customers test firearms to measure their “safety, durability, reliability, and accuracy. Why don’t you just go interview them, ask them what they think?”5Ibid, at 11:56.
Cohen added that in “serious” competitions to win military and law enforcement contracts, Sig Sauer firearms “tend to do really really well. If we lose it, it’s not technical, and it’s not safety. We lose it on price.”6Ibid, at 13:00.
The U.S. military adopted the P320 as its standard-issue handgun in 2017. But the Full-Size and Carry variants of the P320 issued to soldiers and Marines (designated the M17 and M18, respectively) have thumb safeties that, when engaged, prevent the guns from firing — providing an additional mechanism to prevent unintentional shootings — unlike the vast majority of P320s sold to civilians, which feature no external safeties whatsoever.
militaristic marketing
While Cohen used Sig Sauer’s military and police sales to repudiate claims about the safety of P320 pistols, his company has a history of leveraging such contracts to market similar firearms to civilians. For example, Sig Sauer regularly depicts soldiers using and carrying P320 pistols in ads and social media posts as a way to build their credibility, as shown below. In June, the company posted a video on YouTube showing various soldiers using and firing the P320 with the description, “Through the toughest most rigorous testing, from agencies around the world, the P320 has been chosen again and again, quickly becoming the global standard for military pistols.”
Sig Sauer even sells “Commemorative” editions of the P320 to civilians that it advertises as being “identical to the U.S. Army’s official M17 service pistol” and “[t]he real deal. What they get is what you get.” This language mirrors the “use what they use” slogans found in other militaristic gun ads, like those shown here.
In 2018, Sig Sauer announced that it had created customized M17 pistols for the soldiers who guard the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, which the company described as “one of America’s most sacred sites” in a companion video with the description, “On Veterans Day, and every day, we honor those who have served and sacrificed for the United States of America in the defense of freedom.” But in June, Sig Sauer began selling a “Ceremonial” version to civilians. In promotional materials, the company shows a Tomb guard handling the pistol and describes it as “an acknowledgement of dedication, sacrifice, and unwavering commitment to our country.”
firearm recalls
Sig Sauer has not issued a mandatory recall of its P320 pistols. While the company initiated a “voluntary upgrade program” for the pistols in 2017 following reports that the guns could fire on their own when dropped, a number of the lawsuits filed against the company allege that even those “upgraded” pistols have fired unintentionally.
The controversy surrounding P320 pistols draws attention to the fact that no federal agency can require a gun maker to recall an unsafe or defective firearm. Further, no agency provides safety standards for firearms sold to civilians, or tests them to ensure they function properly.
To read our database of firearm recalls and safety bulletins, click here.