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Book about Glock, Rise of America's Gun


scottb

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I just finished reading a book called "Glock, the Rise of America's Gun" By Paul Barrett. ( BTW Paul also posts on the Glock Talk forum) I am not for against Glock.

It was an good book that provided insight on what was occurring in the US in the early 80's with the Maimi FBI shootout, Ruby RIdge, Waco and Brady Bill. This lead to the "need" for a pistol that could replace the common 6 round S and W revolver.

I read the book as more of a case study on marketing and how a non-US company became the most popular firearm. The book does point out some area's that the the US firearm companies made some blunders and did not take the imported pistol as a threat to sales ( much like the auto industry and the imports).

Marketing includes the police trade in allowance to switch to Glock, then Glock selling the traded in pistols and still make a profit. And the common occurance to take high volume customers to the Gold Club (strip club) to help make the sale.

I would not place Gaston Glock in the same rank as John Browning, but Glock was at the right place, at the right time and a great design for a firearm.

If anybody else read the book, your thoughts?

If the mods think this post should be moved to the firearms section please move it. I posted it here since there could be more areas to discuss besides the firearm aspect of the company.

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One area of marketing is the clothing and other company logo items, seems Glock caught on early. This allows the customer to feel company pride and they are part of a "club". Like how Ducati and Harley have a huge clothing and other branded stuff. Suzuki doesn't have much for logo items, other than Joe Rocket jackets with Suzuki logo's.

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Yes. Also when they were hitting the American market they were first going to hit the market at around 200 dollars I believe. The marketing guys said no way. They knew that no gun costing that much would ever be taken seriously. (High point for example)

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1911 is like the HD of guns. Overpriced,outdated and purchased as a status symbol or a method of compensating for other areas.

I'm not saying I totally disagree with you...but what I will say is, if you've never shot a really nice one(Kimber and the likes don't even fucking count), you should, as it just may change you mind.

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