NPR Interview on Glock, History Of

[Arclight]

An interesting interview with the author of "How the Glock Became America's Weapon of Choice". While there are a few lines that make clear neither speaker is a true shooter (e.g. use of "rearm" instead of "reload" at one point), it's surprisingly objective and insightful and the author clearly understands, if not shares, the perspective of many folks here.

http://www.npr.org/2012/01/24/145640473/how-the-glock-became-americas-weapon-of-choice

The interview is about 45 minutes long, but it's well worth a listen and you get some great stories including Glock's use of a stripper and the failed assassination attempt on Gaston Glock by a former French Foreign Legionnaire.

Well done, NPR.

[jetfire]

The book is actually called "Glock: The Rise of America's Gun" and it was a subject of some debate on Gun Nuts (http://gunnuts.net/2012/01/10/glock-the-rise-of-americas-gun/) a few weeks back.

[HCM]

You may also find this interesting from NPR: The AK-47: 'The Gun' That Changed The Battlefield by C.J Chivers

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130493013

[jthhapkido]

I decided that I wasn't interested in this book after reading this:

http://www.marketplace.org/topics/life/big-book/how-glock-became-americas-modern-handgun?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+APM_Marketplace+%28APM%3A+Mar ketplace%29

(Barrett works for Bloomberg, by the way.)

Significant quotes from Barrett:
"I think if you say the word "Glock" to pretty much any American, they'll know that it's a black, plastic semi-automatic pistol."

---not "polymer," not "plastic framed" ---but "plastic". As in "one of those guns that'll go through a metal detector!"

I know that sounds silly---and yet, it is a repeat of the phrase that Bloomberg and other idiots (VPC, anyone?) harped on throughout time regarding how "dangerous" the gun is. And if you think that people know that the gun isn't all plastic, I'll mention that several people who know I shoot asked me if I had read the book, that they had heard about it on NPR, and said something about how they didn't know a gun could be made from plastic. (As in "all plastic.")

Hobson said this part, but it was from the book:
"Now, you mention that it is more expensive than an ordinary gun, it's lighter and it also has a large capacity for ammunition."

More expensive? Really? Large capacity? Perhaps for the 90s, but for now? Yet again, the phrasing is leading.

Barrett again:
"There's different ways you can describe guns. The flipside of dangerous is effective. I mean, guns are designed to shoot bullets, which can kill people. In that sense, it has led a trend all across the industry toward more potent, higher-capacity handguns. "

More potent? Someone the Glock managed to make a 9mm round more effective? As opposed to being shot out of a different gun?

This was in response to Hobson saying:
"Has it made all guns more dangerous, for example?"

Yes, since the Glock exists, all guns are more dangerous. [sigh]

When is logical, critical thinking going to occur?

Oh yeah, never.

I must admit, I'm not particularly impressed with the author, nor the background information, nor the hype, nor, more importantly, the type of research the author did. Michael Bane had an opinion also, which, if you look at the word choice Barrett uses here and there, you can see the bias:

http://michaelbane.blogspot.com/2011/11/some-thoughts-for-saturday-morning.html

I'm not going to buy the book, salacious inflammatory rumors and all. The thing that worries me is that plenty of gun-people are buying it, which gives it credence in many people's eyes---and if you look at the word selection choices, it betrays a bias that will influence people's opinions.

[vaglocker]

There were some things said during the interview that were just untrue, and make the author sound like an idiot. He says something to the affect that Glock made lots of money off of police trade in Glocks during the assault weapons ban because they were high capacity guns that were therefore highly valuable on the civilian market. Terry Gross (the interviewer)reiterates something very similar as well. As far as I know all Glock models (excluding the 18 of course) were available to the civilian market, and it was only the normal capacity magazines that were not available. Of course that only applied to the sale of new magazines.

[TCinVA]

This demonstrates nicely, I think, the reliability of news reports. Even on a topic as relatively simple as this, the author and the news covering the book managed to get a number of important details completely wrong. Now think back to how many news stories and books like this you've heard about over the years on subjects that are vastly more complex, and how much they got wrong.

[joshs]

There were some things said during the interview that were just untrue, and make the author sound like an idiot. He says something to the affect that Glock made lots of money off of police trade in Glocks during the assault weapons ban because they were high capacity guns that were therefore highly valuable on the civilian market. Terry Gross (the interviewer)reiterates something very similar as well. As far as I know all Glock models (excluding the 18 of course) were available to the civilian market, and it was only the normal capacity magazines that were not available. Of course that only applied to the sale of new magazines.

But, those trade in guns did come with valuable pre-ban mags, which Glock did resell.

[ToddG]

There were some things said during the interview that were just untrue, and make the author sound like an idiot. He says something to the affect that Glock made lots of money off of police trade in Glocks during the assault weapons ban because they were high capacity guns that were therefore highly valuable on the civilian market.

If you follow the link caleb gave, you'll see that the author and I had a bit of a spat on caleb's site so I'm certainly not trying to defend him in any way.

But as joshs said, Glock -- and other gun companies, but to a lesser extent -- definitely made book on the AWB. In fact, the main reason .40 S&W took off in the LE world was not its ballistics or the Miami firefight (a decade earlier) or any of the other myriad justifications you see. The simple fact was that major pistol manufacturers had a sudden huge, ravenous, affluent market for used standard capacity magazines. By trading, say, a G22 with three magazines for a G17 with three magazines, Glock does multiple things:

Makes the LE agency very happy. The officers get brand new, more powerful guns. The department doesn't need to spend a dime, not even on new holsters.
Glock sells the used G17 for a second time, making more than the cost of the G22 they gave away. If they throw in one used 17rd magazine, they can sell it for substantially more.
Glock has two extra 17rd G17 magazines that are worth twenty times what it cost to manufacture.


I've got no intention of buying this book. This particular issue is a great example of how little the author understands the reality of the industry. He seems to think Glock was the only one doing this, but I made similar deals at Beretta and even at SIG near the very end of the AWB. Even the stripper story is just par for the course in the firearms industry. A certain person at a certain big gun company (not Glock) used to take a certain person from a certain huge high-profile federal agency to a strip club on a pretty regular basis shortly before said agency bought 10,000+ guns from said company. That was before I was even working in the industry, but I've seen plenty of similar shenanigans. And I'm willing to bet that if you did enough digging in the software, automotive, insurance, or almost any other industry you'd find the same stuff going on.

[peterb]

I've got no intention of buying this book. This particular issue is a great example of how little the author understands the reality of the industry. He seems to think Glock was the only one doing this, but I made similar deals at Beretta and even at SIG near the very end of the AWB.

Did he actually say that only Glock was doing it, or is Glock just the only example he uses?

[NEPAKevin]

I caught part of the NPR interview when it aired during the local station's fund raiser campaign and thought the best part was hearing Terry Gross's appeal for contributions. There's just something about listening to a hard core left wing journalist begging for her livelihood like a street vagrant that gives me warm fuzzies.

[Arclight]

I guess it goes to show it's about your expectations.

When I heard NPR start talking about guns, I expected the usual ill-informed fear-mongering you get on most news outlets. I was expecting the Glock to be called a "machine gun" at least once because it holds more than 5 rounds, and discussions of how many fun loving children have been mowed down by Glock's evil machine.

So, for me, hearing a report in which the author -- who admits clearly that he's not a gun guy -- not only pans the media for falling for the "plastic gun" nonsense, but advocates training, safe handling, and even points out that guns don't cause crime was a welcome surprise.

[fixer]

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/the-glock-family-feud-01252012.html

Problems internally at Glock may be much deeper than most think.

[EMC]

I'm currently reading the book and it is pretty well written and free of the expected bias you would normally fear from a non-gun-guy author. It's a fascinating look into the history of the gun industry in America in the 20th century. I am particularly interested in the actions of the company during the AWB of the 90's to increase factory output to take advantage of the rush on high-cap magazines. They made out like bandits. Also of interest is how bad S&W got its butt handed to it by not acting on the threat it failed to perceive from an upstart European gun maker. The chapter that talks about the development and failure of the Sigma is enlightening.

[JHC]

It was worth listening too.

The author explained the big problem for gun banners very well. Crime has been dropping for decades, while the supply of guns in the society has risen dramatically; ergo More guns and less crime, so what gives? It was humorous to hear the angst in the female NPR interviewers voice. Like when she just holds the point TuPac exploited Glocks in his music, and died from a Glock. oooooooohhhh Pulitzer material right there baby.

Author was very positive about how much he enjoyed learning to shoot Glocks and enjoys continuing traveling out of NYC to target practice. He flat out said that he thinks New Yorks gun controls are too restrictive.

And her subtle befuddlement of Gabriel Giffords silence on gun control and that Mrs Giffords used to carry a Glock herself!!! Hmmmm . . . I never heard that on the broadcast news.