A slight break from my other projects and to make good on noting interesting reads.  In this case: “Glock; The Rise of America’s Gun” by Paul M. Barrett.

Not Really a Gun Guy

Once upon a time I was an okay shot with a rifle, even scoring top marks during basic training with my unit.  Through Scouting and personally, I have taken innumerable hunter training and gun safety courses.  My wife, son and I passed the Canadian restricted fire arms course.  In as much as I enjoy the skill of shooting and the precision of fire arms, I have no particular desire to ever own one. 

This is not because I think they are inherently evil, etc. but simply because of the bother.  Ultimately guns exist for the purpose of destruction, or to practice enough so you can accurately destroy something.  Other than the occasional house fly or errant mouse, I am okay to live and let live.  As for hunting, I like game meat – in smallish quantities – but dressing a carcass at -20C on a snowy, November day – pass, thanks.  

A Glock Buster Gun

So now that you know I am at best ambivalent when it comes to guns and when thinking about the story of the Glock.  Developed in Austria in the early 1980’s by Gaston Glock, the weapon is a pistol, e.g. as opposed to a revolver.  By all accounts, it is also a VERY GOOD pistol. By using plastic, reducing the number of parts and building it from the ground up, the Glock bested the competition. 

The pistol got its start as the winner of the Austrian army’s replacement side arm.  It went on to become a preferred side arm for both the military and police forces around the world.  As a mark of its position, it has also been copied and duplicated by other gun manufacturers.  

A Weird Inventor

Gaston Glock is portrayed in the book as a provincial tinkerer who becomes fabulously wealthy because of his invention.  Sometimes fame leaves people alone – unfortunately that is not the case with Gaston.  He became imperial, divorced his wife of nearly 50 years, married a woman nearly the same number of years younger and became estranged from his children.  

He structured the Glock holdings to minimize Austrian and US taxation, began to associate with both shady characters and right-wing Austrian politicians.  He also managed to survive a murder attempt by beating his would be assassin sense-less.  

Without the gun, he probably would have been a mildly successful, shy businessman and inventor.  With the fame he becomes a millionaire-capitalist-caricature who plans to live to 120 (he turned 90 in 2019).

Cast of Characters

The sub-title of this book is “The Rise of America’s Gun”.  The Glock has become embedded in the gun-mystic of the American culture. Movies and television have popularized it [1].  But the silver screen has nothing on the cast of nasty and greedy folks who made the Glock successful in the United States. 

They included a ‘travelling-gun-salesman’, Karl Walter, who was a marketing genius and helped make the Glock the preferred weapon for American police forces and military units.  Sales to those units were nudged by nights at an Atlanta strip club, the Gold Club.  One of the ’employees’ went on to become the Glock’s poster-girl, Sharon Dillion.  Paul Jannuzzo was an in-house lawyer who later rose to the senior ranks of the US operations.  While at these lofty heights, he and another lawyer managed to defraud Glock… for a while.  

Ultimately, all of these individuals left Glock or were fired.  Some went to jail and others never recovered the earlier glory they had while being a Glock employee.    

NRA – the Villain?

Barrett has written a well balanced, thorough and very accessible book.  He is neither a shrill for the gun industry nor for gun control advocates and as such should be suitably hated by both.  If there is a villain in his book it is probably the National Rifle Association. 

From their perspective, they see themselves as protectors of the 2nd Amendment to the US Constitution, the right to bear arms.  From the author’s perspective, they are a group of zealots who’s narrow ‘pseudo-religious’ focus has diminished American civil society to sell more NRA memberships.

The Loss Book of Glock

Ultimately the book is a sober read of loss.  Loss for the American gun industry whose hubris allowed their market to be overtaken by a newcomer to the industry working out of his garage.  The Glock was a superior firearm because of its better design and superior quality.  Loss for the Glock family whose fortune has scattered them and brought out the most base and undesirable qualities of Gaston Glock.  Finally, loss for the civil society of the United States.  

‘Glock’ is a good read; published in 2012, hopefully Barrett periodically updates the ‘book of Glock’.  

Notes and References

1. If you want to attempt to count the number of appearances the Glock has made on television or in a movie, visit: imfdb – Glock Pistol.  Its first appearance was in an apparently unforgettable movie, Tiger Cage.  Its first block buster appearance was in Die Hard 2 as the fictional ‘Glock 7‘.