Читать книгу The Gun Digest Book of Combat Handgunnery онлайн

49 страница из 158

A number of signs in the marketing heavens were in alignment, and this confluence of the stars would make Glock the biggest success story in firearms in the latter half of the 20th century.

American police chiefs still clung tenaciously to their service revolvers. Unique among police equipment, the revolver had not changed materially since the turn of the century. Uniforms were better, the cars had modernized along with the rest of America, communications were state of the art, and even handcuffs had improved and been streamlined. But if you went to a police museum, you would find that only two things had gone basically unchanged since the dawn of the 20th century: the police whistle, and the police service revolver.

Patrolmen’s unions and well-versed police instructors were clamoring for autoloaders. For years, the chiefs had put off these requests with stock answers. “Automatics jam.” “Our guys won’t remember to take the safeties off when they draw to fire in self-defense.” “They’re too complicated.” “Automatics cock themselves and go off too easily after the first shot.”