Book review: Glock: The Rise of America’s Gun, by Paul M. Barrett

Not for fanboys (January 22, 2012)

If you are a fan of Glock pistols, you probably won’t like this book for the same reason that if you like sausage you shouldn’t watch it being made.

First, most of the positive information about Glock design and Glock history found in this book is widely available elsewhere.

Second, there is a ton of negative information about Glock (the man and the company), little of it leavened by objectivity.

Third, the author has clear anti-gun biases, and rarely misses an opportunity to express them.

Also, unlike The Gun, where C. J. Chivers lards up the book with longish digressions to make up for a paucity of source material, in Glock, Paul Barrett delves into just about everything but the actual design and innovation of the Glock pistol, about which there is a lot to say. Considering the break that the Glock design represents from past pistol designs, this could have been a chapter all by itself. Instead, there are a couple of allusions to Glock innovations, and a hint that maybe Gaston Glock was not really the inventor of the Glock pistol.

Other than that, if you want to read about how unsafe Glock pistols are — from a guy who took three days to learn how to present from a holster under the personal tutelage of the Ayoobs — go for it.