Man who made billions out of death and killing dies at the age of 94
The Austrian developer of one of the world’s most famous handguns died yesterday at the age of 94.
Gaston Glock, a ‘reclusive’ engineer, formed the Glock company in 1963 in Deutsch-Wagram, nearby Vienna.
The Glock company announced his death yesterday saying that their founder ‘not only revolutionised the world of small arms in the 1980s, but also succeeded in establishing the Glock brand as the global leader in the handgun industry’.
The company expanded around the world, including a US subsidiary founded in 1985.
Glock handguns are used by police and many countries’ military forces, as well as privately.
The weapon was significantly lighter, cheaper, and more reliable than the models available when it was created.
But many gun control advocates criticised Mr Glock for popularising powerful guns that they said were easy to conceal and could hold more ammunition than other guns.
The first mass shooting believed to involve a Glock handgun was in 1991 when George Jo Hennard shot 24 people and injured 27. He fired two guns, including a Glock 17, at diners in Luby’s Cafeteria, Killeen, Texas.
Mass shootings involving Glock handguns
Luby’s Cafeteria, 1991 - Nepalese royal massacre, 2001 - Erfurt school massacre, 2002 - Virginia Tech, 2007
Tucson, 2011 - Norway attacks, 2011 - Aurora, 2012 - Sandy Hook Elementary School, 2012 - Charleston church, 2015
Kalamazoo car parks, 2016 - Orlando nightclub, 2016 - Munich shopping centre, 2016 - Thousand Oaks bar and grill, 2018
Pittsburgh synagogue, 2018 - Chicago hospital, 2018 - New York subway attack, 2022
A former US Marine combat veteran armed with what police described as a .45 caliber Glock with a high-capacity magazine killed 12 people in a bar in Thousand Oaks, California, in November 2018.
White supremacist Dylann Roof used a Glock pistol to kill nine African-American people during a Bible study session at a church in Charleston, South Carolina, in June, 2015.
The weapon has become a well-known standard in the industry and around the world – US soldiers found toppled Iraqi President Saddam Hussein hiding with a Glock in a hole in the ground in 2003.