Corollary

"Do not trust safeties."

It gets quoted over and over.

Like any mechanical device, a safety can fail.

But the overall lesson has been lost in the repetition.

They don't fail in the holster, they fail when you're pulling hard on the bang switch with your booger hook!

I'm willing to bet that the most common safety failure is it simply being disengaged unintentionally followed by an unexpected bang.

I've seen guns where the safety was decorative from being worn out.

I've read about a couple of designs where disengaging a worn safety could result in a bang.

In both cases, if you're aligned with what you want to shoot before disengaging the safety or pulling the trigger, you're golden.  Surprised, but safe.

I've heard about guns firing with the safety engaged and the brute ape strength of the firer breaking the parts keeping the gun from firing; resulting in a bang.

Again, if you're following the rules this will result in the bullet going down range and not into something you want to keep.

Some of the worry makes me think that we've got a hindmost hiding in the bushes and the safety of Pierson Puppeteers is the goal.

We need to work harder, we do live perilously close to an asteroid field.