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Title: The Gaston Glock Story: Why Americans Love European Guns (American capitalism is not as innovative as European socialism)
Source:
theatlantic.com
URL Source: http://www.theatlantic.com/technolo ... med-the-us-gun-industry/69386/
Published: Jan 12, 2011
Author: Edward Tenner
Post Date: 2011-01-22 16:50:28 by Godwinson
Keywords: None
Views: 16166
Comments: 20
Edward Tenner The Gaston Glock Story: Why Americans Love European Guns Jan 12 2011, 2:11 PM ET < SNIP > Writing in the National Rifle Association's American Rifleman in 2009, Industry Insider columnist Cameron Hopkins provides background: The most significant innovations of the past 30 years, have all come from European gun companies. Even Ruger, the most innovative American gun manufacturer since World War II, has been playing catch up to the likes of Glock, HK, Beretta, Blaser, Sauer, and SIG. In the early 80s, the U.S. Armed Forces conducted a trial to replace the venerable 1911 pistol. An Italian gun came in first (Beretta) and a Swiss-designed, German-made gun was second (SIG). In the mid 80s, some 90 percent of U.S. law enforcement officers carried Smith & Wesson revolvers, but a change came about with the introduction of a "point gun, pull trigger" semi-automatic pistol from Austria. Glock never looked back and now controls an estimated 60 percent of the police market today with SIG and Beretta taking sizeable chunks from Smith's pie. Glock falls into a pattern of the Central European independent engineer-inventor-entrepreneur. I've written about a few of them (Anton Lorenz [reclining chairs] and Kurt Lorber [triangular paper clips) here. But the Glock saga also shows that "only in America" doesn't happen only in America, and our unique traits good and bad are the result not of a bygone frontier but of the contemporary globe.
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Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 10.
#8. To: Godwinson (#0)
The unit in this table are so-called trend indicator values expressed in millions of US dollars at 1990s prices. These values do not represent real financial flows but are a crude instrument to estimate volumes of arms transfers, regardless of the contracted prices, which can be as low as zero in the case of military aid. Ordered by descending 2000-2009 values. The information is from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.[10] US arms are selling better than the socialists, or communists.
So like the late USSR, the USA only makes useless weapons it can sell overseas but not anything for the civilian consumers.
#11. To: Godwinson (#10)
American citizens are allowed to own tanks and bombers as long as their weapons are disabled.
Yet your socialist brothers keep buying them. Wassup wi dat?
Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest[edit] World's largest arms exporters
Current Rank Supplier 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 1 
United States7220 5694 5091 5596 6750 6600 7394 7658 6090 6795 2 
Russia3985 6011 5773 5202 6260 5321 6156 5243 6026 4469 3 
Germany1603 821 892 1697 1067 1875 2510 3002 2499 2473 4 
France1055 1270 1308 1288 2194 1633 1577 2342 1831 1851 5 
United Kingdom1484 1257 915 617 1180 915 808 987 1027 1024 6 
Spain46 7 120 156 56 108 757 565 603 925 7 
China272 496 515 632 282 306 599 412 544 870 8 
Israel354 360 414 358 612 315 282 379 271 760 9 
Netherlands280 203 243 342 208 583 1221 1322 554 608 10 
Italy189 217 400 312 214 743 525 706 424 588 11 
Sweden46 830 185 515 305 537 417 367 457 353 12 
Switzerland176 193 157 174 250 267 306 324 467 270 13 
Ukraine288 661 244 430 202 281 557 799 269 214 14 
Canada110 129 170 255 268 235 231 343 236 177 15 
South Korea8 165 N/A 104 29 48 94 228 80 163
#10. To: hondo68 (#8)
World's largest arms exporters
Replies to Comment # 10.
#14. To: Godwinson (#10)
the USA only makes useless weapons
End Trace Mode for Comment # 10.
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