Another SIG P320 Discharge Story Goes Public — and the Lawsuits Are Piling Up

A new P320 story broke out of San Antonio that’s getting shared hard for one reason: it’s paired with surveillance video and a straightforward allegation. A local station reported that a security officer’s SIG Sauer P320 fired unexpectedly at a USAA guard gate, with witnesses describing it as “his gun just went off,” and the reporting says the round struck the sidewalk and sent debris and shrapnel outward. That kind of clip doesn’t need narration to spread—it’s the exact format that turns a safety claim into a national argument by lunchtime. But what makes this “newsy” for Avid Outdoorsman isn’t just the clip; it’s how it plugs into the bigger legal and political pile that’s been building around the P320 platform for years, including state-level lawsuits, mass-action filings, and high-profile denials from SIG.

What the San Antonio reporting describes

News4SA/Fox San Antonio reported that surveillance video shows Officer Chuck Surles stepping out of the guard station when his P320 fired, and it quotes another guard describing the gun going off after he exited. The report says the bullet hit the sidewalk, sending concrete fragments flying, and that one guard felt a burning sensation from debris. This matters because it’s not the usual “I swear I didn’t touch it” story told after the fact with no visuals; it’s a public incident described as being captured on camera, which changes how people react and how attorneys frame claims. A video still doesn’t prove the mechanical cause—cameras don’t show internal trigger movement, holster tension, or the exact moment of contact—but it does raise the stakes and keep the story from getting dismissed as “he’s just saying that.”

The lawsuits aren’t background noise anymore — they’re part of the headline

When people say “lawsuits are piling up,” it’s easy to assume that’s internet exaggeration, but Reuters has been tracking major legal turns that keep the issue alive. In August 2025, Reuters reported that a federal appeals court revived an ICE officer’s lawsuit claiming his P320 discharged while holstered during training, sending the case back toward trial after earlier expert exclusions. That’s important because it signals that courts are still actively sorting these claims, not just dismissing them into oblivion. Separate from individual cases, New Jersey filed its October 2025 lawsuit against SIG, and Reuters described it as a push to halt sales and pursue mandatory recall relief inside the state, with SIG denying the allegations. The result is a controversy that now has ongoing oxygen from both private litigation and state action—meaning every new incident report lands in a world already primed to argue.

SIG’s position is not “maybe” — it’s an outright denial

SIG Sauer has not tried to split the difference on this topic. The company’s public-facing pages state the P320 cannot discharge without a trigger pull, and SIG has also published blog statements disputing media reporting and pointing to dismissals and a unanimous jury verdict in one case. You don’t have to agree with SIG to recognize what that means in practical terms: if you’re an owner who believes you experienced an uncommanded discharge, you’re not going to get a soft, “we’re looking into it” answer in the court of public opinion. You’re going to get hard denial, and the fight will turn on evidence quality—preserved gun/holster, controlled testing, expert credibility, and chain of custody. That’s exactly why these stories become culture-war material: the claims are extreme, the denial is absolute, and most of the public never sees the technical record.

What’s worth telling readers without overselling fear

If you’re writing for Avid Outdoorsman, the most responsible angle is “here’s what’s being alleged, here’s what the reporting shows, here’s what SIG says, and here’s how to reduce risk no matter what you believe.” That means you avoid claiming the pistol is “defective” as a proven fact unless you’re citing a final adjudication or recall (none exists for “no-trigger pull” claims), but you also don’t hand-wave the issue as internet fantasy when major outlets and courts keep addressing it. For the guys carrying daily, the bottom line is still the same: quality holster, full trigger coverage, disciplined reholstering, and if anything ever happens that you can’t explain, preserve the setup and document it instead of trying to win the argument on social media.