The rise of the man and his gun, as ably reported by Barrett, is a story of innovation, manufacturing, marketing, money, lawsuits, power, influence, politics and a little sex. Barrett does an admirable job of describing the Glock’s cultural and corporate ascendancy. He also explains how the company was able to remain profitable despite allegations of corruption, tax avoidance and malfeasance. A seasoned reporter and now assistant managing editor of Bloomberg Businessweek, Barrett originally covered the more disturbing allegations of Glock’s financial and managerial irregularities in a series of articles for the magazine.
As sales of the pistol took off, money flowed into Glock, lots of it, prompting one former employee who stole from the company to liken the cash to “Monopoly money.” When Charles Ewert, a former director of Glock and a corporate trustee, was about to be exposed for embezzling company funds in 1999, he hired a Belgian mercenary and professional wrestler to mash in Gaston Glock’s skull with a rubber mallet in a Luxembourg parking garage. Despite taking seven blows to the head, the 70-year-old Glock put up the fight of his life and managed to render his would-be assassin unconscious before the police arrived.
(Crown/Random House) - ’Glock: The Rise of America's Gun’ by Paul M. Barrett
Much of Barrett’s information comes from court documents — including the attempted murder-for-hire that landed Ewert and the wrestler in jail — and interviews with former company executives.
Barrett also reveals the depth of the Glock’s impact on modern culture. Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre have rapped about Glocks; Hollywood has played up the gun in movies such as “Die Hard 2: Die Harder” and “Cop Out,” which was promoted with the tagline “Rock out with your Glock out.” In “The Social Network,” the gun is a topic of conversation when Stuart Singer tells Vikram, “Mark Zuckerberg now thinks we got into Harvard on a dimwit scholarship.” To which Vikram replies, “If I had a Glock, I’d kill you.”
The pistol is used competitively by world-champion shooters and defensively by honest citizens; it rides in the holster of two-thirds of American police officers, including FBI agents (they carry Glock 22s today). It has also been used to perpetrate heinous crimes by mass murders such as George Hennard, Seung Hui Cho and Jared Lee Loughner.
Much of the Glock’s success can be attributed not only to its sharp design, but also to political campaigns and media coverage focused on banning the pistol. Glocks have been on the front line of the gun-control debates since they were first imported and dubbed “hijacker specials.” (They have also been labeled “plastic pistols” and “pocket rockets.”) It was feared that Libyan terrorists would smuggle them aboard airliners, taking advantage of the polymer frames, but it turns out that Glocks are just as easy to detect as other handguns.
Indeed, Glock’s success is proof that any media coverage in the gun industry is good media coverage. Political heat and Hollywood’s limelight helped propel the Austrian handgun from obscurity to curiosity to dominance.
While Barrett’s deeming of Glock as “America’s gun” is uncomfortable for many firearms enthusiasts, the Glock is indisputably the most widely distributed pistol amongAmerican law enforcement today, and quite popular with sport shooters, too. While its octogenarian inventor has said he hopes to live to age 120, his pistol and its impact on our culture and society will inevitably outlast him.
bookworld@washpost.com
Mark A. Keefe IV
is editor in chief of American Rifleman.
Loading...
Comments