Tom Taylor

The response is just the fact that we're getting a little or a lot tired of this kind of thing.

A gun goes off. And the immediate response is “my gun went off by itself”. It's happened many, many, many times, we've been involved in a number of lawsuits. It’s cost us a lot of money.

And there’s been a lot of a lot of discussion - and questions - about the P320.

This is a good case in point. So I'll kind of talk you through what happens. So the chief in less than 24 hours released that video -and with no investigation that we know of. Or if there was an investigation, it was very rapid. He released a video that’s problematic on several fronts.

Front number one: he didn't release the entire video. He released it after a struggle, as we understand it, had already happened.

That's why the subject was in handcuffs and being restrained by two other police officers.Then, another struggle ensues. And that's kind of where, where he picks the video up.

The officer’s gun went off when grabbed the guy's legs, and the cops are sort of all gathered around him in close quarter contact. And the gun goes off.

So we requested the video to be able to review it. And they declined that request.

So we don't know what led up to the discharge, or what happened after - which would potentially tell us a few things.

We have a lot of resources here at SIG in terms of, you know, being able to look into those sorts of things. I’ll maybe talk about our resources later. But some pretty early investigations show that somewhere in the process, the hood on the officer’s retention holster had come undone and the gun was not fully seated in the holster. It was sticking out at a level where the trigger was actually exposed.

And while it's not clear in the video - because we don't have the original video- we're taking it from a copied video. And I think the original video would probably have even clearer evidence of what happened.

But the gun’s trigger was actually fully exposed when he stepped into that struggle. Then, there are hands, keys, utility belts, all kinds of things, coming in contact with his hip.

And this has happened time after time after time. So we we simply took some screenshots from the video, we sent it out. And we basically said we believe that the city and the chief are irresponsible in sending that video out without any investigation or any context.

That’s why we responded the way we did.

Tom Taylor

We have not. We do plan on communicating with him in certain ways, but any requests for conversation have been denied. So we have not been able to to have any conversations with him other than denials of sharing information with us.

Tom Taylor

Well, we requested the full video because we wanted to see what happened leading up to that. Was there a moment in time when his retention became free and his gun popped out of his holster? That’s what we would like to have seen. We would also like to have seen if he took his gun and pushed it back into his holster. If he had, shouldn’t the retention hood have clipped back over the top of it?

We don't know. We have gone back on their Facebook pages in different places. And we found that officer, and we've been able to look at his holster and look at it in clear daylight pictures where you can see exactly what holster it is. We can’t confirm his holster because we can’t see it as clearly in the video. Is it a different holster? I suppose it could have been, but it’s unlikely. The daylight picture is middle of July, you know. There was a picture of him on their Facebook page with a holster and gun. Little unclear but, you know, we're not even sure if the holster was was made for a SIG classic or P320.

Because there was no investigation, no information provided to us. There are just so many unknowns. But the one known fact is that the gun was out of its holster and the trigger was fully exposed during a struggle.

And we’ve seen that happen in the back seat of cars. And for the record, it doesn’t necessarily mean -even if the gun was in a retention holster- that it couldn’t have gone off because of a foreign object. There are so many unknowns, but the one known fact is that that gun was out of its holster, and the trigger was fully exposed during a struggle. And we've seen that happen before in the back seats of cars. And for the record, it doesn't necessarily- even if the gun had been in its retention holster - it couldn't have gone off because of a foreign object.

That's what happens more often than not. When a police officer is carrying a light-bearing holster -and there are brands and series that are well known and I don't really want to get into for legal reasons. There are some that have anything from a quarter to a half-inch of open space next to the trigger. That’s while the trigger -if you’re looking at it- is visually covered.

There's a gap on the outside of that trigger guard area to allow the light to go into the holster. It’s where anything, including a finger- could go down into that opening.

After this video went viral and people started responding to it, we weren’t the only ones who saw the same things.

There are other people in the media world and in the internet world who saw the same thing and captured it and sent it out there. So it wasn't just SIG who caught that.

One guy did a little post where he took the holster, he held it in his hand. He took some keys and dropped them down in there, jiggled them, then pulled the keys sort of the holster at a 45 degree angle -and the gun went off. It was it was a dummy round but but the gun went off. He was just demonstrating that with that kind of holster - even if it were the gun were fully holstered and retained - objects can go in those holsters. It happens.

We have had other reports where we figured it out. We’ve had reports where departments did the right thing and their own internal investigations determined that some foreign object made contact with the trigger.

But we've seen so many different kinds of allegations. We've seen allegations where an officer says they put her SIG P320 in her purse - and never touched the trigger - and it went off.

A lot of holster manufacturers even put warnings on their products that say be careful because a light-bearing holster can allow foreign objects to get into the trigger guard area if you’re not careful.

So there was another case where an officer in his statement - his legal statement - said “I carefully wrapped my P320 in a towel and put it in my gym bag.” That's a loaded gun.

Last time I checked, carefully wrapping your gun in a towel and putting it in your gym bag was not a safe way to carry a loaded gun.

We've also had a very well known case in Pasco County where a sheriff's school guard was in a school cafeteria. And he was standing, basically in the food line area near the cashiers. He reported that his gun went off while he was leaning against the wall not even moving, which we all know is not possible

Of course it made headlines - similar the Connecticut story. Little did he know that there was a camera in the school. He could be seen holstering and re-holstering and re holstering his gun; basically fidgeting with his gun. Lo and behold, it goes off. You can see him actually- his hand jumps off the grip -you can see it. So..once the investigation was finished the sheriff’s department actually terminated him for both lying and not safely handling his firearm.

More recently, there was a case where there's a high speed chase and three police cars converged and finally pulled over a car. They expected the driver to be dangerous.

So the complaint was that as an officer was exiting his car, his 320 went off -in the holster.

Unbeknownst to him, his body camera caught him basically pulling in, then coming out of his car with his gun in his hand and his finger on the trigger.

The officer said it went off while it was in his holster, but his body camera footage showed he just lied. Or it might have been one of those high-stress situations where, you know, there are lapses in memory-you don’t know what you’re doing - exactly. But you think you know what absolutely happened.

But he waved his gun right across the corner of his body camera, and we freeze framed it. It’s in his hand, finger on the trigger. Yet he claimed it went off by itself.

There have been so many of these, we've heard it from every angle. But here's the key point, Jim, there’s one not one jury trial that has found this can happen.

They’ve dismissed the “expert witnesses” as uncredible. Three other federal courts have not allowed cases to go to jury trial; they've thrown them out.

In all three instances, they dismissed the expert witnesses as un-credible. In most cases, it's the same person - or two people.

There are two more federal cases where we’re hoping for similar results in the very near future.

So these claims are going to trial, but no one's being successful.

But maybe the most important fact of all these reported discharges, you can think of all the the media people, the bloggers, you know, basement podcasters, or YouTubers or whatever, are talking about this and looking into it. Whether it's a firearms expert testifying in court, or whether it's the internet world, no one has ever been able to replicate a P320 going off by itself.

The second most important fact is no one has even offered a theory as to how this can happen.

That's what we keep leaning on: if someone can just show us how to replicate this we will absolutely look at this from all aspects to make sure there isn’t any truth to this.

In a company of our size, would anyone ever believe that there was a real issue going on, and we wouldn't address it? Those are the facts that kind of roll up into our frustration here and why this is such an unfortunate situation.

Tom Taylor

Great question. And you're absolutely right. Because when you look at the percentages of P320s on the street, P320s in law enforcement and P320s with the US military and Canada, Australia and many other militaries around the world that carry the P 320, the numbers are staggering. As a percentage, the incidents would have to be point-0-0-0-0-0-3-6 or something like that.

Tom Taylor

But, but but that being said, the incidents are out there. And yes, it's primarily law enforcement. And we understand that what you said is true. The guns are being handled much more by police officers in most cases than any any civilians.

That’s why there’s a higher propensity for it to be law enforcement.

There’s also another factor at play there: a discharge there launches all kinds of investigations. It puts jobs at risk. You know, it could hurt innocent people -all those kinds of things. So it is a fine line.

Having been at the core of this for years now at SIG, when we talk about this, or we talk about it with people, or we do interviews about it, or write stories about it, or whatever the case may be, police officers are generally not offended by what we're saying, because they know what's going on.

They understand the paradigm.

Now, there are certain people in positions of influence in the law enforcement world that don't understand guns.

When they read these stories, they react to them, because, you know, not all police officers are gun aficionados. They may or may not understand what is happening when somebody says “my gun magically went off by itself.”

They may react to it.

But generally speaking, anybody in the police world for the most part knows what's happened.

They understand there was a discharge. They understand that there's a very, very high likelihood that something extraneous came into play with the trigger.

They know guns just don’t go off by themselves.

So, we understand that this is a large customer base for us in law enforcement.

But we also know we're speaking with facts, the legal system is on our side.

No one's ever been able to replicate this.

This gun has been evaluated by high level government agencies in the United States that I probably shouldn't talk about by name.

It has been investigated and tested by the highest level of ballistics experts in America.

No one, from the legal system to any expert to any law enforcement ballistics agency has been able to replicate this - or offer a theory as to how it can happen.

And so I think, generally speaking, most people in the law enforcement world, understand the situation, and why we're being defensive.

This is the handful of police officers and a handful of citizens who do something and the easy response is “my gun went off by itself.”

It’s the easy out when you're when you're scared about the possible ramifications of the situation.

There are far less claims in the civilian world. Yes, they may not handle their guns as much. But I think, you know, if you've been around guns long enough, you probably know that ADs (accidental discharges) happen. We all know it. But what most of us do -if it happens- is we turn around and go “crap I just screwed up.” I mean, we all know that it can happen.

But when jobs are on the line, it creates a need maybe to say something happened that really didn't.

And it doesn't help that the legal world is pursuing people whose guns go off saying, “well, your gun went off by itself, didn't it? There's others that have happened. So I'm sure yours did.”

So it's interesting. Good Morning, America ran a story on this. You know, they're telling the story and their own legal expert on Good Morning America starts talking about “I've spent a lot of time with this gun. I've done a lot of research on this gun. I've tested it, I've looked at it.”

And he said, I can't find any reason this gun would go off by itself other than one factor, and that factor is legal momentum.”

We're watching this and we're like, “Wait, did he just say what I think he said, he said that, you know, this gun is going off, because lawyers are telling people it went off.”

We watched it like three or four times were like, “yep, that's what he said.”

He actually said it's being caused by legal momentum.

Interestingly, the same story ran on Nightline later that night and lo and behold, I guess ABC didn't even have enough knowledge about guns understand that that was not favorable to the negative story they were trying to tell, edited that out of the report on Nightline. The “gun expert” interview was cut out on Nightline.

We kind of know what we're dealing with here. It’s just very frustrating for us to have to spend the amount of money we're having to spend.

We have forty-one hundred engineers at Sig Sauer; probably have more engineers at SIG than the top five firearms companies - combined. That's how we've been able to be successful: with tremendous innovation, with winning military contracts, and handguns and rifles and machine guns and ammunition and optics and suppressors. We have a lot of engineering expertise.

We have a very large company that has a lot of stake. If there's any chance any of this was real with the amount of time we’ve spent testing and evaluating and making sure we’re right, we would have acknowledged that something was going on. There’s no question that would have happened.

Tom Taylor

What I'd like to say, Jim, is you and I've known each other a long time. This is a small industry, a lot of people know each other. And while we compete by day, we bond at night. We’re fighting for what’s right for the Second Amendment -and for our industry.

There are people who, you know, are, to some degree eating their own and hoping it it hurts another company, I'm sure. I would certainly hope not.

What I'd like to say is, other companies have been here before us.

Right now, SIG has a lot of momentum. We won a lot of military contracts. The P320, despite all this news, is still winning contracts. We just announced a couple of weeks ago that the Canadian military has adopted the P320 as its handgun-although it’s going to be called the C-22. We called it the M17 and M18 in America, the Canadians are calling it the C22. The Aussies recently picked it, and so on. The Norwegians have picked it. I mean, it's just been, it's just winning contracts.

All this speculation that something is actually wrong with this gun that these military testing facilities didn't find, is ridiculous.

We’re definitely doing really good things here at SIG. We're in a good place right now.

But you look back 25-30 years ago, there were other companies that were growing like crazy in this marketplace. And they went through the same issues.

They had discharge stories and all kinds of legal issues.

I think what happens in this situation, when it’s alleged at a high level against a company, you have to fight it and fight it and fight it - legally.

When you win enough, the money goes away for the lawyers who chased this sort of thing, and it sort of goes away.

So lawyers seem to be a driving factor. If they find out there's no money, then they go pursue the next thing where they think they can make money.

I think that's happened to some of our competitors before. Most major gun companies have gone through these kinds of allegations or legal issues; that sort of stuff. You just have to you have to deal with it. You have to spend the money, you have to weather the storm. And the “my gun magically went off” legal scenario seems to be fading.

And there are other legal scenarios trying to go off after more ambiguous cases, such as the P 320 is “less safe than other striker fired guns”.

The burden of proof is is more difficult in that allegation. But are there competitors behind it? I certainly hope not, that’s not the way our industry is.

Tom Taylor

That's a great question. I think somewhere in there somewhere that you call me old, but that's okay.

Tom Taylor

You can get away with it (laughs). That's a really, really good question. Because I have worked for some really good brands in my career, top notch brands. In a lot of cases, we were already or had always been, number one.

There’s a certain way to market that. There can be a complacency at being number one, allowing that challenger to chase you, then catch you, then pass you. I saw that back in my days prior to the gun industry, at Coca-Cola.

But here, you know, it was interesting. We've become the largest gun manufacturer in the world. But

we don't have the top market share in any category, including striker fire guns. We have a competitor that's larger than in striker fire guns and by a good margin.

And then when you look at optics and ammo and suppressors, and all the different kind of categories we're in, we are chasing them. We're not even chasing number one in most of those categories, we're we're just trying to become relevant in some of them.

Not that we're irrelevant, but we're not “the brand” - the brand leader against some of our competitors and optics and, and suppressors and ammunition and that sort of stuff.

So in most of our marketing we are chasing the biggest guy in the category.

But as a brand…. that's probably, if I if I can answer your question with doublespeak… we are marketing the number one brand in the world in terms of revenue sales.

So our marketing for the brand is a lot of lifestyle. You know, a lot of just we want people to feel confident and comfortable that a SIG is is is the best product in the world; that you are truly buying the top of the line product.

We don't we don't have to message a lot that our brand has a really good quality reputation. We market it a certain way.

But when you break it down into individual categories, we’re definitely trying to tell different stories depending on what category it is.

Take SIG brand suppressors as a good example…we just won the U.S. military contract with the NSWG program - yet our market share in the commercial market for suppressors is very small.

My take on it was: the day we win the US military contract will immediately you know, consumers will immediately run out start buying suppressors. That hasn't really happened - yet.

There’s still a lot of really good quality suppressor companies out there. And they’re doing a really good job.

We have so many different products that we're marketing. We have a marketing department that’s not a small marketing department. But if you look at our competitors in those categories, their entire marketing department -and all their resources are marketing an optic, or a suppressor, or ammunition, or whatever.

They wake up one morning thinking about that one thing and promoting it, and building a brand.

We wake up in the morning and have to think about marketing ten different things.

So it's really a unique question because sustaining marketing is easy, but you can't get complacent.

When you're chasing you just gotta be creative. You have to let people know why your product should be desirable, why it should be the top product.

So we really have to rely on our brand and then you know, market very aggressively category by category.

Tom Taylor

Another great question. Legion, you know, was a another thing that has been beyond our belief in terms of how big that program has gotten. Shoot SIG is another program that we've just launched.

So it's interesting that you brought that up, because while we're still chasing, you know, market leadership, and a lot of our categories, you know, we have had win after win in innovation. I mean, the SIG P365 changed the rotation of the Earth in a lot of ways.

But even with all the money we've invested in defense, and in all the effort we've had to put against that, you know, I don't know what the next game changing innovation from SIG is going to be in the commercial marketplace. We don't really have that horizon today.

But what we are starting to do is market very differently. And in terms of what you just said, The Rose program, the Legion program, Shoot SIG, we do have two or three other fairly significant programs that we're going to launch within the next six to 18 months.

You know, we look at how we talk about our company. When we go to trade shows, or our range day, which you’ve been to many times, you know we’ll be shooting guns on the range. Everybody loves to shoot guns. We had machine guns out there and all that. But at the end of our Sponsor Row, there was the big rose garden tent.

We said “if we put a rose 365 out on the range, it's just another, you know, gun that has rose gold accents” - it doesn't do anything particularly different.

The difference is the The Rose program. The marketing and all the training and information and empowerment, they're done by a series of videos that lean on Lena (Miculek) and some of the other women out here. It's about a state of mind, When you walked into the Rose Garden tent at our what we called the rose garden area at our range day, it was a very, very different feel.

That’s where our industry is going.

Most of our programs are targeted to people who want to be part of something; especially people who are new to our industry. Because there are so many new gun owners and so many more females and so many more people who have never touched a gun.

We have to think that even though we have a product at the highest level of performance, we still have to reach new gun owners and say “Hey, here’s why you should carry a SIG, or even if it’s not a SIG, here’s why you should shoot more, and train more and get out to the range and be part of a group that can talk to each other.”

The Rose Facebook group is growing exponentially. We have 180,000 Legion members. That’s not a club you can just join, you have to buy the gun to get into the Legion program.

It's 180,000 people who spent a lot of money to buy a gun. And gun industry, consumers are not exactly the most free people with information and joining things where their information has to be sent in.

But the Legion has a very high percentage of people who bought the gun that actually gave us their information and joined something. We communicate with them; we give them advantages. We have our Camp Legion, where people come up and get to experience SIG and our factories for a week.

Those things cost a fair amount of money -and they sell out in minutes.

So that's the way we have to look at innovation in the future and where we go and how we market.

We want to create situations for people to be part of something and, and learn. Too-many people buy a gun that have never shot a gun before, take it home, watch a couple of TV shows, put the gun in a safe. They're just not trained to use it.

We view part of our job as making sure people aren't doing that, that they're actually getting training.

We have SIG SAUER Academy.

We have The Rose program, we have Shoot SIG; we have we have a couple of other programs that are going to be about participation and training coming soon.

That's where our head is.

Next year might not be the most innovative year for new guns coming out from SIG. But what we hope is that we have innovative ways to get people out.

If you’re already experienced, get you out shooting more.

If you’re not experienced, get you training, get you learning and get you to be part of the group of people that believe the same things you believe.

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