The Taurus Debacle

Those of you who know me know I'm a "guns" guy. I am familiar with the safe handling of firearms, both long rifle, shotgun, and pistols. Firearms are something like the brakes on a car, they should work every time, they way they are designed to work, without fail.

One maker, Brazil based Taurus, ran into some problems with the safety mechanism in nine models of their pistols. They would fire sometimes when dropped even though the safety was activated. They have always had a dubious reputation of working or not working when they should for a long time with their semi-auto pistols. They have a lower price tag and people figure they are getting what they are paying for, which is not a quality firearm that they could trust their lives to.

In the fall of 2015 they started a recall of pistols manufactured between 1997-2013 on nine models. Soon after a class action lawsuit was filed and won when Taurus settled and agreed to pay 39 million dollars in damages. The effect on their brand was very bad. When you start to get a bad name around something that you could someday trust the life of you or your loved ones, well people talk.

Because Taurus has always been considered a budget brand, I never would have purchased one and after reading about their legal problems on defective parts, I still never would purchase one. A coworker enjoys them but tends of have the spring break in his semi-auto pistols. Again a brand that uses cheap parts, likely no or a very bad quality assurance team, and probably very little oversight on the process and testing.

Taurus should have used quality parts from the start. Their testing process should have been very rigorous and results should have been analyzed for a better product. Taurus will suffer from this for a very long time to come as it takes decades to build trust in the firearm community for quality.

Gillem, J. (2018, August 25). What You Need to Know About the Taurus Pistol Recall. Retrieved from https://guncarrier.com/the-taurus-pistol-recall/ 

Taurus Agrees To $39 Million Settlement In Defective Pistol Case. (2017, June 21). Retrieved from https://www.grandviewoutdoors.com/guns/taurus-agrees-to-39-million-settlement-in-defective-pistol-case/