Gaston Glock, Handgun Designer Who Changed the World, Dead at 94

Gaston Glock, the handgun designer who changed the world, died on Wednesday at 94 years of age.

The New York Times noted that Glock, born in 1929, “managed a car-radiator factory near Vienna” when he answered the call for a new handgun in the 1980s.

He heard the Austrian Army was seeking a handgun and he designed a 9mm semiautomatic that changed the course of the firearm world. It all started with the Glock Model 17, and the Austrian Army ordering 20,000 units. It was eventually  adopted by “two-thirds of America’s police forces.”

The Glock also became a staple among federal agencies.

The Glock handgun relied on polymer in areas which bore no stress, allowing large portions of the gun to appear plastic to the naked eye.

Glock went to public school as a child and was trained in engineering. The Daily Mail reported that he got a divorce from his first wife, Hilga, in 2011, and in the same year married Katherine Tschikof.

Katherine was 51 years younger than Glock.

The Glock company website says, “Make it Simple, Make it Perfect,” in addressing Mr. Glock’s contribution to the handgun world: “Gaston Glock not only revolutionized the world of small arms in the 1980s, but also succeeded in establishing the GLOCK brand as the global leader in the handgun industry.”

It continues, “His internationally renowned GLOCK Perfection stands for uncompromising quality and maximum customer satisfaction.”

AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio and a Turning Point USA Ambassador. He was a Visiting Fellow at the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal in 2010, a speaker at the 2023 Western Conservative Summit, and he holds a Ph.D. in Military History, with a focus on the Vietnam War (brown water navy), U.S. Navy since Inception, the Civil War, and Early Modern Europe. Follow him on Instagram: @awr_hawkins. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.