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Authors: Paul M. Barrett
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early on when deputies’ pistols jammed. After consultation with the manufacturer, Rutherford concluded that the ammunition the department was using didn’t feed properly from the Glock’s magazine. After a switch to Winchester rounds recommended by Glock, the jamming ceased. “That gun does not jam with proper ammo,” Rutherford said. Still, serious questions about Glocks discharging accidentally and having finicky appetites in ammunition would recur in other jurisdictions as the handgun’s popularity spread.
Rutherford’s allegiance never wavered. Twenty-two years later, the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office, which he now presides over as the popularly elected sheriff, has seventeen hundred officers. It still arms them with Glock pistols.
Emanuel Kapelsohn’s recommendation of the Glock wasn’t happenstance. In mid-1986, Karl Walter began putting some of the country’s most admired shooting instructors on contract to spread the word about the Austrian pistol. This melding of training and marketing, motivated by a keen sense of customer needs, became a Glock hallmark. Kapelsohn was one of the specialists Walter hired.
In some cities, the Glock gun instructors were paid by the local authorities; that’s the way it worked in Jacksonville, where the sheriff’s office hired Kapelsohn. In other situations, usually after a department indicated it would make a purchase, Glock dispatched Kapelsohn or another trainer as part of the procurement deal—a freebie for the new customer.Strictly speaking, Kapelsohn’s role as an expert hired by the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office had a built-in conflict of interest. During the plastic pistol debate before Congress, he testified in Washington with notable eloquence on Glock’s behalf. Nevertheless, he insisted he “did not have an axe to grind” and endorsed Glock on the merits.
After the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office placed their order for the Glocks, the company sent Kapelsohn back to north Florida to provide transitional training on the company’s dime. “Karl Walter had the genius at that time to take the training programs on the road,” Kapelsohn said. “You had to go to the Smith & Wesson Academy [in Springfield, Massachusetts] if you were going to use the Smith & Wesson. If your agency was going to adopt the Glock, [Walter] would send some training your way.” Many times, instructors from neighboring agencies attended these sessions out of curiosity, or Glock would sponsor an open-house seminar for all federal, state, and municipal trainers in a given region. “The effect of it was to get Glocks in the hands of instructors all over the country,” Kapelsohn explained. “This was just a brilliant way to sell this gun.”
Making customers’ encounters with Glock memorable was one of Karl Walter’s talents. He showed up to close big deals, zooming into town from Smyrna in a Porsche roadster stocked with boxes of Austrian pistols and free ammunition. (He switched to the sports car from the RV once he became a full-time Glock employee.) Walter also made a habit of inviting police customers and wholesale distributors for all-expenses-paid visits to the Glock facility outside of Atlanta. The cops were treated to steak dinners at a downtown restaurant, expensive liquor, and imported cigars.
On occasion, a visiting Gaston Glock put in an appearance. “He looked very European, smoked like a chimney,” one lawenforcement official recalled. “He knew his stuff. You could not ask him anything he couldn’t tell you about that gun.” Glock enjoyed showing off the Glock 18, a fully automatic version of the pistol. Depressing the trigger of the Glock 18 unleashes a stream of bullets in the fashion of a machine gun. It can hold a capacious thirty-three-round magazine that sticks out of the gun’s grip and empties in a matter of seconds. Unless the user is familiar with the Glock 18, its enormous recoil results in the barrel jumping upward. Many an embarrassed
Rutherford’s allegiance never wavered. Twenty-two years later, the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office, which he now presides over as the popularly elected sheriff, has seventeen hundred officers. It still arms them with Glock pistols.
Emanuel Kapelsohn’s recommendation of the Glock wasn’t happenstance. In mid-1986, Karl Walter began putting some of the country’s most admired shooting instructors on contract to spread the word about the Austrian pistol. This melding of training and marketing, motivated by a keen sense of customer needs, became a Glock hallmark. Kapelsohn was one of the specialists Walter hired.
In some cities, the Glock gun instructors were paid by the local authorities; that’s the way it worked in Jacksonville, where the sheriff’s office hired Kapelsohn. In other situations, usually after a department indicated it would make a purchase, Glock dispatched Kapelsohn or another trainer as part of the procurement deal—a freebie for the new customer.Strictly speaking, Kapelsohn’s role as an expert hired by the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office had a built-in conflict of interest. During the plastic pistol debate before Congress, he testified in Washington with notable eloquence on Glock’s behalf. Nevertheless, he insisted he “did not have an axe to grind” and endorsed Glock on the merits.
After the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office placed their order for the Glocks, the company sent Kapelsohn back to north Florida to provide transitional training on the company’s dime. “Karl Walter had the genius at that time to take the training programs on the road,” Kapelsohn said. “You had to go to the Smith & Wesson Academy [in Springfield, Massachusetts] if you were going to use the Smith & Wesson. If your agency was going to adopt the Glock, [Walter] would send some training your way.” Many times, instructors from neighboring agencies attended these sessions out of curiosity, or Glock would sponsor an open-house seminar for all federal, state, and municipal trainers in a given region. “The effect of it was to get Glocks in the hands of instructors all over the country,” Kapelsohn explained. “This was just a brilliant way to sell this gun.”
Making customers’ encounters with Glock memorable was one of Karl Walter’s talents. He showed up to close big deals, zooming into town from Smyrna in a Porsche roadster stocked with boxes of Austrian pistols and free ammunition. (He switched to the sports car from the RV once he became a full-time Glock employee.) Walter also made a habit of inviting police customers and wholesale distributors for all-expenses-paid visits to the Glock facility outside of Atlanta. The cops were treated to steak dinners at a downtown restaurant, expensive liquor, and imported cigars.
On occasion, a visiting Gaston Glock put in an appearance. “He looked very European, smoked like a chimney,” one lawenforcement official recalled. “He knew his stuff. You could not ask him anything he couldn’t tell you about that gun.” Glock enjoyed showing off the Glock 18, a fully automatic version of the pistol. Depressing the trigger of the Glock 18 unleashes a stream of bullets in the fashion of a machine gun. It can hold a capacious thirty-three-round magazine that sticks out of the gun’s grip and empties in a matter of seconds. Unless the user is familiar with the Glock 18, its enormous recoil results in the barrel jumping upward. Many an embarrassed
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