Originally Posted by
WillCAD
Nope.
It takes 10 pounds of pressure to fully depress the trigger on that model of handgun in double-action mode (assuming it hasn't been modified). The weapon fully loaded weighs less than 3 pounds. Therefore, gravity alone pulling down on the weapon would not have exerted the necessary 10 pounds of pressure to fully depress the trigger if it 'landed' on the agent's finger.
The point is a falling object is subject to a momentary force at impact far greater than the force it's weight would exist while resting. If the catch exerts 4g the gun fires.
Also, I cannot imagine the chain of unlikely events that would have caused the agent to catch a falling weapon with only one finger inside the trigger guard in just the correct position to depress the trigger, since it was falling from a shoulder holster and was almost certainly falling butt-first (because that's the direction it withdraws from the holster and the butt is also the heaviest portion of the weapon). If he'd caught it with only one finger, he'd have caught it by the trigger guard, not the trigger, and even if it did discharge, it probably would have discharged upward, not downward.
Why would the weight distribution have anything to do with the direction it fell? It wouldn't have nearly enough time to rotate in response to a weight imbalance.