My Fourth Worst Newbie Mistake: Believing Isolated One-Star Reviews of Firearms

This is the fourth in a series of posts discussing the worst newbie mistakes I've made during my first year as a gun owner.

The first post focused on my overall worst mistake: buying a Taurus. The second discussed the next worst mistake I made: believing YouTube Ammo reviews. The third discussed why my purchase of a North American Arms Mini-Revolver was kind of dumb. Today, I'm here to discuss why I was foolish to put too much stock in isolated one-star reviews of firearms.

Our story begins early in 2025. I had already realized that the N.A.A. Mini-Revolver was a bad purchase, and I was looking for a more suitable handgun for personal protection. When I heard about the Smith & Wesson Shield EZ, my ears perked up. As a new shooter suffering from arthritis, I found the idea of an easy-to-rack slide appealing.

But there were a handful of customer reviews on retailers' websites and archived forums complaining that the grip safety wouldn't fully disengage. (Meaning, the gun might not go boom when you need it to go boom.) So, I steered clear of the EZ.

Yeah, that was a mistake.

A few months later (after the ejector rod on my Taurus revolver fell apart in my hands), I decided to do a little more research on the EZ. This time, hands-on research. I went to my local indoor gun range and rented the thing. Turned out the grip safety was a total non-issue. In fact, I forgot it was even there! A normal grip on the gun disengaged it just fine. I went ahead and purchased one of my own.

Were those one-star reviews the result of a legit issue with the grip safety? I doubt it. The more likely explanation is that the person posting that review didn't know how to grip a handgun. (Although, I suppose it's also possible the person bought one that just happened to be defective. I find that less likely, though.)

Moral of the story: the best gun review is your own gun review, based on your own hands-on experience with a rental firearm. That takes a little more work than just reading reviews online. It also entails just a little more expense. But I look at it as being akin to test driving a car. It demystifies things.