On March 7, 2025, Sig Sauer issued a confrontational statement defending the P320 pistol, which has been alleged in numerous lawsuits to fire on its own, causing over 100 injuries and at least one death. Sig Sauer claimed that the allegations against it are “nothing more than individuals seeking to profit or avoid personal responsibility.” In the face of mounting reports of unintentional discharges, Sig Sauer said the P320 “CANNOT, under any circumstances, discharge without a trigger pull.”
Instead, Sig Sauer blamed the “anti-gun mob and their lawfare tactics” for attacking the pistol design. “The rhetoric is high, and we can no longer stay silent while lawsuits run their course, and clickbait farming, engagement hacking grifters continue their campaign to highjack [sic] the truth for profit. Enough is enough.”
While Sig Sauer framed the message as a warning to other gun companies, it came two days after the Seattle Times published an article about the Washington State Criminal Justice Training Commission (WSCJTC) banning the P320 from all of its properties and training courses.
The decision is the latest blow to the Sig Sauer P320’s credibility. While the U.S. military first adopted two versions of the P320 (designated the M17 and M18 in service) as official sidearms in 2017 — a fact Sig Sauer uses liberally in its marketing materials — both guns feature thumb safeties to help prevent unintentional discharges. The vast majority of P320s sold to police and civilians feature no external safeties, however, and since 2017, law enforcement agencies in Alabama, Connecticut, Florida, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Wisconsin have removed the P320 from duty due to safety concerns.
Prohibiting the p320
In its February 2025 report, the WSCJTC noted that it first banned the P320 temporarily in October 2024 “out of an abundance of caution” after a P320 “self-discharged” as a recruit drew it from his holster on the shooting range, injuring an instructor and another recruit.
Because details of the incident mirror many others across the country and even garnering the attention of the Fraternal Order of Police, the WSCJTC launched a working group of more than 30 participants, including members of numerous law enforcement agencies and Sig Sauer, to review unintentional shootings involving P320s. The materials included a press release announcing that a jury had awarded $2.3 million to a man injured by his P320, two videos showing P320s discharging from the holsters of police officers, and statements made by police, military personnel, and Sig Sauer about other incidents.
The report also shared a link to a nearly two-hour presentation where Sig Sauer representatives blamed the unintentional shootings of P320s on incompatible holsters, negligent behavior, or foreign objects interfering with the guns’ triggers. For example, in responding to a video of a Montville, Connecticut, police officer’s P320 firing while holstered, a Sig Sauer representative claimed that the pistol had not been fully seated in the holster, and that the officer’s keys slipped into the holster as he squatted and pulled the gun’s trigger as he stood up.1Sig Sauer P320 Workgroup Presentations, November 11, 2024, https://cjtc.app.box.com/s/xt4cmgmo3ass0bqcwzwf75hk8279c1a1, at 44:25.
Days after the incident, the Monteville Police Department removed the P320 from its list of approved duty weapons, and other departments in Connecticut began replacing their P320s.
The Sig Sauer representative claimed that police officers would rather say their firearms fired on their own instead of admitting that they made mistakes: “I get it. Nobody wants to get themselves in trouble, and the unions are also telling them to say the same thing.”2Sig Sauer P320 Workgroup Presentations, at 40:23. He also said that many police departments have neither the protocols nor the experience to properly investigate unintentional shootings or defective firearms.3Sig Sauer P320 Workgroup Presentations, at 41:45.
According to the WSCJTC report, one member of the working group even “opined that the online videos are propaganda created by George Soros.”
Ultimately, the commission decided to ban the P320 due to “an abundance of allegations of un-commanded discharges occurring around the country and world attributed nearly exclusively to the Sig Sauer P320, M17, and M18 platforms. The WSCJTC’s only concern in this process is preserving the safe learning and working environment for its recruits and instructors.”
reactions from the gun world
Sig Sauer’s defensive statement, duplicated on X and Instagram, received numerous negative responses from gun enthusiasts, including GunTuber Brandon Herrera and 3D firearm printer John “Ivan the Troll” Elik.
Smith & Wesson even poked fun at Sig Sauer by posting a video on X of another GunTuber, Garand Thumb, dropping one of the company’s pistols without the gun firing.
In a blog post, Jim Shepherd, a gun industry thought leader, noted the criticism “echoing through social media and the same alternative channels that have defended” Sig Sauer and the P320. He also raised the question of whether Sig Sauer “can be taken at its word as a company,” which “should cause real concern inside [its] Newington, New Hampshire headquarters.”