The American subsidiary of Turkish gunmaker Canik just put out a call for owners of its full range of pistols to return their handguns to the factory for a “voluntary upgrade” of the trigger and firing pin block, after the company discovered the weapon can discharge if dropped.
The news comes just weeks after the well-known gunmaker Sig Sauer offered to fix parts of its P320 pistol to address reports of drop-firing.
Both the Sig P320 and Canik’s pistols are striker-fired semiautomatic pistols: They don’t have an external hammer; instead, an internal mechanism sets off the round.
SAAMI, the gun industry’s voluntary safety standards organization, tests guns to see if they can withstand certain kinds of falls without firing — but the standards don’t evaluate if such a gun is “drop safe” if it lands on its rear, where the striker is located.
Read on for a more in-depth look at why firearms are exempted from federal safety regulations.
