Gaston Glock, the Austrian engineer who invented the famous pistol that bears his name, has died aged 94. The BBC reports on this, adding that the Glock company said in a statement that its founder's life's work “will continue in his spirit.” The Glock has been used in various models by military personnel, security personnel, gun owners and criminals around the world. His success was cemented through American pop culture and appearances in Hollywood blockbuster films, including The Matrix Reloaded. His success was cemented through American pop culture and appearances in Hollywood blockbuster films, including The Matrix Reloaded. Despite the popularity of his creation, Glock was described as a reclusive billionaire who spent most of his time at a lakeside estate in Austria.
The entrepreneurial story
The father of the semi-automatic pistol became both discreet and famous with his invention. Glock studied mechanical engineering in Vienna before founding a knife manufacturer with his first wife Helga in 1963. At that time, he began building prototype firearms in his free time. The turning point in the production of Glock pistols came in 1982, when the entrepreneur received an order from the Austrian Army thanks to a pistol made mainly of non-metallic materials. It was a cheaper weapon, lighter and easier to disassemble, and could fire a greater number of shots than its competitors. At this point, the company Glock GmbH, based in Deutsch Wagram, decided to conquer the world market.
Gaston Glock, the Steven Jobs of arms
“You can really compare Gaston Glock to Steven Jobs when he took the first computer out of his garage,” commented Fritz Ofner in 2018, a journalist who conducted one of the very rare investigations into the Austrian billionaire (“weapon of choice”). . . In the United States, around 80% of police officers – among whom the saying “In Glock we Trust”, an ironic paraphrase of the motto “In God we Trust” depicted on the greenback – circulates use a Glock pistol.