Attack the false premis upon which the other guys argument is based? ok
Mechanisms have much to do with safety. If a hammer that is pulled back is not secured against vibration and creep it could fall without the user pulling the trigger. If a firing pin that is in position against a primer is not mechanically secured against movement from acceleration and inertia, not imparted by the hammer falling from the user given signal of pulling the trigger, then the cartridge can be discharged by a violent movement of the firearm such as a fall. It is true that most if not all modern firearms guard against these possibilities, but to say mechanisms have little to do with safety is not valid. Accidental discharges are possible though improbable with modern firearms.
However I would agree that any discussion of the differences in safety between DA and SA are more likely to go into the realm of negligent discharges as indicated by the initiate of this thread.
I understand your point. We're getting there.
Lets use your point for a moment. I would respond that the mechanisms' weak points--slipping sear, etc.--known to the safety conscious--would cause him to store, carry, handle his weapon in ways that minimized or eliminated the likelihood of a discharge caused by one of those weaknesses.
In one sense, I think it boils down to someone calling a device a "safety". (Oh? A device can really make a loaded gun safe?) So, everybody else proceeds from the premise implied in the name of the mechanism--safety. Just because somebody called the thumb safety on a 1911 a thumb safety doesn't really make it the cause of safe-ness. For illustration, what happens meaning-wise if we rename these mechanisms, omitting the safe-ness connotation. A thumb-safety becomes a
hammer-drop preventer. A grip-safety becomes a
trigger-bowstop. A Series 80 firing pin block becomes...well...a Series 80 firing pin block.
Hmmmm. Maybe that's what we should do. Just stop calling these things safeties. Then maybe folks would wake up a bit and realize the actual safety is the gunner.
Heh, heh, heh. Imagine the conversation:
Real Man: "What? You don't carry your Peacemaker cocked? Annnnnd, you only load five chambers? What are you? Some Eastern greenhorn wussie?"
EGW: "Well, uh, um. No. I mean, well, isn't it dangerous to keep it cocked and load all six?"
Real Man: "You idiot! If its cocked, there is no way the hammer is going to rest on a live primer, is there? And, second, if you are so unattentive in handling your Peacemaker that you just have to leave it hammer-down, maybe you won't last long around here. Or, is it that you are soooo wussyfied that you
worry it might go off by itself? Geez, what a wuss. Real men know their iron. Get outa here before I spank you and turn you into a squaw. Git!!"
Now, that would be a viewpoint that really trusts both the iron and himself.