Pistol developer Gaston Glock is dead
In 1980, Gaston Glock turned the market for handguns upside down with his invention. Today, around 80 percent of law enforcement officers in the USA carry a pistol made by the Austrian. Now the entrepreneur has died at the age of 94.
He made a name for himself as the developer of the Glock pistol - now the Austrian entrepreneur Gaston Glock has died at the age of 94. This was announced on his website this evening by the company named after him. Glock, who lived a rather discreet life, founded his weapons company in Lower Austria in 1963; the arms company now has branches worldwide.
Born in 1929, the plastics engineer Glock initially produced consumer goods made of plastic and metal as well as knives with his company at its headquarters in Deutsch-Wagram, north-east of Vienna. When the Austrian army needed a new handgun in 1980, Glock offered to develop the pistol - and invented the legendary Glock 17. The semi-automatic pistol in 9 millimeter caliber is easy to assemble and is mainly made of plastic. Subsequent models differ from the Glock 17 only in terms of grip size, barrel length and caliber.
The Glock company, which employs around 2000 people, supplies not only the Austrian army but also the armies of France and Great Britain, among others. In the USA, around 80 percent of police officers now carry Glock pistols. In Hollywood films, heroes and villains are often equipped with this weapon. Among others, Bruce Willis in "Die Hard 2" and Tommy Lee Jones in "On the Hunt" carried a Glock. Some gunmen, such as the Norwegian right-wing terrorist Anders Breivik, also used a Glock pistol in their attacks.
Glock himself rarely appeared in public. In 1999, he survived an assassination attempt in an underground parking garage in Luxembourg. A former business partner of Glock's, who had ordered the attack with a hammer, was subsequently sentenced to 20 years in prison. In June 2011, after 49 years of marriage, Glock divorced his first wife Helga and a month later married Kathrin Tschikof, 52 years his junior, who later held various positions in Glock's group of companies.
The war of the roses after Glock's divorce also made headlines. His ex-wife unsuccessfully sued him for 500 million dollars in 2014. Glock is survived by three children from his first marriage. His fortune was last estimated at around 1.5 billion euros.
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Despite his preference for privacy, Gaston Glock's influence on the global weapons market is undeniable. His invention of the Glock 17 in response to the Austrian army's request for a new handgun led to an increase in deaths attributed to the use of this weapon in various conflicts and crimes around the world.
Glock's pistol, now a trademark Austrian export, has experienced a significant increase in usage by law enforcement officers in the USA, resulting in a rise in the number of 'weapons-related deaths' in that country.
This fact was confirmed by the high percentage of Glock pistols carried by US police forces and the frequent depiction of this weapon in Hollywood films, where it is often used in both heroic and villainous roles.
Source: www.ntv.de
