Glock: The Rise of America's Gun by Paul M. Barrett is a fascinating account of a very unlikely weapon.
A small curtain rod manufacturing firm in Austria that also produced field knives and bayonets but which had never made a handgun decided to bid on a pistol contract for the Austrian Army. Gaston Glock began to study handguns; buying and testing the various models in a shooting range he'd installed in his basement. He asked firearm specialists what they would want to see in the pistol of the future and a picture began to emerge.
The pistol should point "instinctively" at the target without requiring use of the gun sights, it should be able to withstand snow, ice, and mud, have a long service life, a generous magazine capacity, and address a major problem: the fact that many soldiers and police officers become confused as to whether the safety is on or off.
Barrett's book shows how Glock's pistol beat out his formidable competitors in part because he was not restrained to produce a product with set resources but instead could assemble the resources around the product. The Glock pistol came out at the perfect time as American law enforcement was concluding, after some disastrous encounters in which the cops were outgunned by the criminals, that slow-loading revolvers were unable to do the job on America's tough streets. Barrett reveals how Glock's company made an astute marketing move by selling his pistol first to law enforcement with the knowledge that its fame would spread to the society in general and to Hollywood. Once the Glock became the screen weapon of choice of Bruce Willis and others, its reputation was assured.
Barrett explores the controversies surrounding the Glock pistol as well as technical criticisms of the weapon. Essentially, his book is a tale of an eccentric inventor who made a very good product that coincided with a rising and powerful demand. You don't need to be a gun-owner or advocate to enjoy this book. It is an amazing story and its ending has not yet arrived.
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