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I bought my Beretta 92G Vertec from Langdon Tactical Technologies before Ernst went to work for S&W. I had him put in his "carry" trigger package consisting of a limited overtravel trigger, smoothed action and slightly lightened. It's a dream to shoot, but the DA trigger is still around 8 pounds and the SA around 4.5 pounds.

I sent my Sig 226R to Sigarms and had them do a carry trigger job consisting of smoothing and lightening trigger is around 8# DA, 4.5# SA.

I sent my XD Bitone to Springfield armory for their carry package consisting of lightening the trigger, decreasing overtravel and of course smoothing it. Trigger pull is about 4.5#

But many feel that any trigger action mods expose one to unecessary legal risks should the modified gun be used in a justified shooting.

I know we aren't attorney's but we still know things, so what do you guys think about trigger mods on carry guns?

 

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I am an attorney. I've been a prosecutor and am now an appellate criminal defense lawyer. I've never worked seriously in the civil arena.

Sure, anything can turn out to be a liability in court. A lot of juries have idiots on them, and a lot of civil lawyers are jerks who will bring suit on behalf of wrong-minded people without really thinking things through. No one can tell anyone how things will turn out in court.

I have had trigger work done on some of my guns, though, and my explanation would be, "This work was done in order to make my gun safer by making it more fit for accurate shooting, so that I wouldn't hit anything that I wasn't intending to hit. I had this trigger work done so that I could be more safe - I think all gun owners should be similarly responsible in ensuring their weapons function with precision."

Anyway, I've been doing this for over a dozen years (and I've worked on dozens and dozens of shooting cases, certainly over 100 - although not all of these were fatals), and I've never seen it come up in the criminal arena.

Erich,
Two things, "...anything can turn out to be a liability in court." How true. And, "I've never seen it come up in the criminal arena.", however most concerns about mods are not in the criminal court but in civil suits.

Then, "This work was done in order to make my gun safer by making it more fit for accurate shooting, so that I wouldn't hit anything that I wasn't intending to hit. I had this trigger work done so that I could be more safe - I think all gun owners should be similarly responsible in ensuring their weapons function with precision."

If I were an attorney needing to refute this, I think I would ask why you need this but police agencies all over the nation use this gun without these mods. If it's good enough and safe enough for them how come you need to be different? And, if these are such good mods, how come the factory doesn't make them that way to start with?

 

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ExSoldier762,
I need to re-confirm this, but I think Tennessee has a law that works that way too, i.e. if you shoot someone in a justified shooting, you can't be sued in civil court.

But still, we could be traveling in a state that doesn't have such a law.

And, so your thought is, that a "moderate" trigger job that doesn't affect the safety of the gun is most likely gonna be ok?

 

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But, he did write a few Gun Ragazine articles where he named actual court cases were used as examples of court gun modification troubles.
I think one or two other writers did the same also.
Massad would travel around & testify in various court cases as an expert witness.

The jury is still out with me on this subject. All of my defensive carry firearms are basically stock.
Right now...My "carry ammo" is the also exactly the same as what most of my local Police Depts use. That would be Speer Gold Dot.
I am probably being overly cautious.

That's what I'm thinking on the gun mags and "reported" cases where gun mods did cause some trouble.

We often here "I'd rather be judged by 12 than carried by 6", but I think it's prudent to add that that the 12 that judges us may also bury us - legally speaking.

I feel pretty safe with my guns that had trigger jobs done by manufacturers; they advertise it as carry trigger jobs to distinguish the trigger work from a competition trigger. Those should be safe.

My problem is I can't leave stuff alone. Once I saw what they did, I duplicated it some. That could be more of a problem since I did it, but the fact that they offer carry trigger jobs is enough to establish that even the manufacturer realizes their guns could use some work.

 

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"Because the work makes the weapon more expensive. Corporations and government agencies are concerned about the bottom line first. Look at all the aftermarket parts and accessories for cars or trucks. The manufacturer turns out a basic product and the consumer customizes it for their needs."

Good response. Then it becomes an issue of who can best convince the jury.

 

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You know, I was just thinking about this. Can you imagine an attorney that wants to prove you're a gun nut, putting you on the stand and in front of a jury consisting of people who likely don't own one gun, asking you how many guns you own? And then he asks, how much ammo you have on hand.

Or worse, he just lays out your collection and ammo for the jury to see for themselves.

I suspect trigger mods would never even have to come up.

 

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For me, I've settled the matter. I did so by talking to one of my training instructors. When he said, "You have to survive the gunfight and your tools need to be everything they can be to do that. Reasonable trigger mods are not a problem, if you get into a very unlikely situation in court, expert witnesses will testify that the mods didn't make the gun unsafe and that 1000s of police officers have trigger jobs done on their gun. Gunsmiths will testify that the mods didn't make the gun unsafe."

Then I thought what I would say if the attorney says I had made my gun into a killer gun. Now I know how I'd reply, "When I realized I was about to die and saw my tiny little gun and sights on this nightmare that was trying to kill me, I wouldn't want anything less deadly than the gun I used, in fact, if I had had any less deadly gun that horrible night, I probably wouldn't be here today."

I'm keepin' my mods. They aren't match or competition mods, they're quite reasonable. In fact, how many have "match" triggers in 1911s, even if they come stock that way?

I'm convinced it's a highly unlikely issue and I am quite content knowing that my gun is set up to give me the best results I can get from it if my life ever depends on it.