I've tweaked by comment above a bit.
Maybe my comments were too literal or taken too literally..no shooter would pop his finger onto the trigger to take a shot. I hope folks can interpret my comment in the spirit of finger outside the trigger guard unless the gun is pointed in a safe direction--downrange for example. By 'shooting a gun' I mean actively taking shots in an intended direction, I guess. Shooting includes those moments when the gun isn't actually discharging. Placing the gun on the table, recovering it to the holster, lowering it down to see if you hit anything, etc., are examples of 'not shooting'. Clearly your finger has to be on the trigger before and after the gun discharges.
I also didn't mean to even remotely suggest that because a gun can't discharge without a trigger press, and because good trigger management means your finger isn't on the trigger until it should be, that all other safeties are in some way a bad idea or unnecessary. If I implied that, it isn't what I intended at all. I feel that's the most
reliable safety because it's fairly easy and rapid to accumulate a habit where having the trigger finger elsewhere feels unnatural, and if you're shooting with other shooters who are trained (competition, training classes) you'll be fairly well scolded if observed. So it get's wired-in rather quickly.
My opinion is that, even if excellent gun handling is practiced and there's no reason to think there would ever be any issue, this doesn't mean there's any downside to an external thumb safety. I don't see any. I don't for a second feel that a thumb safety slows me down in drawing, presenting and firing the weapon--it simply is not a factor.
I hope I didn't express my views as though they were doctrine--I do tend to run on with careful language so as not to offend anyone, but sometimes I just make statements of viewpoint as though they were fact.
We all okay now?