Plaxico Burress has Glock Leg

New York Giants wide receiver Plaxico Burress probably has a case of "Glock leg. " Glock leg is a phrase that appears on many internet sites, and is used to describe self-inflicted injuries suffered by people reaching for their handgun. All too frequently, the victims are police officers.

The way the Glock handgun is made, its primary safety feature cannot be locked into the "safe" position. The safety on a Glock is nothing more than a lever built into the trigger itself. Once one's finger is on the trigger, the first few millimeters of squeeze moves the safety backwards, into the body of the trigger. Once that happens, any additional squeeze results in pulling the trigger.

Glock leg occurs when a police officer (or someone like Plaxico Burress) reaches down to pull the gun up out of the holster (or the waistband of warm up pants). If one reaches down hurriedly and a finger inadvertently contacts the trigger, the act of pulling the gun up will retract both the safety and the trigger, all in one motion. This motion, with the gun in the holster (or the waist band), is what results in a bullet wound to the thigh, otherwise known as Glock leg.

It has been suggested that the Glock is a defective product because the safety acts almost simultaneously with the trigger. This argument is not very persuasive, however, because law enforcement personnel all over world know about this feature and select the Glock as a service revolver because of it. The Glock safety is an advantage to anyone who uses the gun carefully and who needs to be able to shoot very quickly. Because the gun is never locked in the "safe" position, a police officer who needs to shoot can be sure of doing so with a single motion.

Police officers swear by the Glock, and one can see why they might. Whether people like Plaxico Burress should feel safe while toting a Glock is a different subject. I hope that Plaxico gets back to playing football, and that other civilians learn that the Glock is not a good choice for the casual handgun user.

John Sedgewick