Smith and Wesson M&P Shield Recall

I’m beginning to have flashbacks to the slew of jokes made in the shooting community about the Ruger LCP when it suffered failures that resulted in a recall. Now Smith and Wesson can join Ruger because they’re issuing a recall for early the M&P Shield:

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (August 22, 2013) — Smith & Wesson Corp. announced today that the Company has identified a condition where the trigger bar pin could damage the lower trigger in certain M&P Shields in a way that may affect the functionality of the drop safety feature of the firearm, potentially allowing the pistol to discharge if it is dropped.

This Safety Alert applies to all M&P Shield pistols manufactured before August 19, 2013. We believe this condition is largely limited to recently manufactured M&P Shield pistols. However, out of an abundance of caution, we are asking all consumers of all M&P Shields manufactured before August 19, 2013 to immediately inspect their pistols for this condition.

Any unintended discharge of a firearm has the potential to cause injury, and we ask that you STOP USING YOUR PISTOL IMMEDIATELY UNTIL IT HAS BEEN INSPECTED AND, IF THE CONDITION IS FOUND, REPAIRED.

To determine whether your firearm was manufactured before August 19, 2013 and to receive video instructions for inspection, please go to MPShieldSafetyAlert.com. All firearms must be inspected to determine whether it exhibits the condition identified in this notice. You can also find this information on our website at www.smith-wesson.com under the product safety button.

If you are uncomfortable conducting the inspection outlined above, or are unsure whether the condition described in this notice applies to your firearm, please take your firearm to your local M&P Certified Armorer or send your firearm to Smith & Wesson for inspection. M&P Armorers can be found on the smith-wesson.com website under the Find a Dealer tab

If after inspection it is determined that the condition outlined in this safety alert exists, the firearm must be sent to Smith & Wesson for repair. If your firearm is affected by the condition outlined in this notice, please send your pistol to Smith & Wesson. Your firearm will be inspected, and if necessary, repaired at no cost to you. Your firearm will be returned within 5 to 7 business days. All shipping and repair costs will be covered by Smith & Wesson.

Please contact Smith & Wesson directly at 877-899-6259, or at MPShieldSafetyAlert.com to arrange for the repair, if necessary, of your pistol.

Ironically the website the recall redirects Shield owners to, MPShieldSafetyAlert.com, doesn’t present any information unless JavaScript is enabled. A safety recall shouldn’t subject a user to potentially unsafe situations such as requiring JavaScript to be enabled in order to view a new, and therefore unknown, website. It almost makes me want to register MPShieldSafetyRecall.com, or another similar domain name, and load it with web exploits.

Oh, and you should probably check your Shield. Guns that fail to operate in their expected manner are pretty good at maiming their users.

EDIT: 2013-09-23: 13:00: I misread the date. The recall affects almost all M&P Shields, not just early ones. Also, I can’t properly close HTML tags. Thanks Zerg539 for pointing those issues out.