Too many examples of the discharge happening in YouTube and Sig gaslighting the public about it and blaming liberals made it even worse. The gun had a recall after fighting the public and then there were still problems. I hear the issue may be tolerance differences between part versions that can lead to the safety failures when mixed together.

The brand damage has been significant, but for the most part isolated to this pistol. Now, if another Sig model has a similar issue in the future and a similar response comes from Sig, the loss in trust will be immense and potentially unrecoverable.

As far as not keeping a round in the chamber, yeah, some people still do that, though that method has fallen into disfavor amongst the CCW types. But even when not ready to fire, there is a lot of time when that pistol could be loaded and go off, I.E. holding the pistol at low ready. Pistol on the bench facing down range as you check something or take a pause, unloading and reloading etc.

Pistols are already incredibly easy to accidentally hurt oneself and others that adding in this variable is just intolerable for most I think.

The gun community wants that gun to work reliably, that means it must fire when intended to fire, and only then.