One day my partner, Dave Dampier, smiling, came in my office and said, "There's something out here you need to see." Since Dave knew me better than most, I knew it must be a treat. It was. Out in front of the PD was a parked car with a plastic gun on a chain tied to the rear bumper. I looked at Dave, said "What the. . . ?" Dave nodded to an exuberant fella near by.
"Hi," he said, "I'm Harold Huckster and I'm gonna show you the most revolutionary handgun ever made."
I looked at the black plastic, water pistol-looking thing again. "Our work generally requires we use real guns," I said.
"Oh, it's real enough," Harold said. And it was. It was the 9mm Glock 17 semi-auto, now a police standard, then something from outer space. Glock, knowing that the S&W or Colt revolvers were the police guns, figured they were going to have to come up with some innovative marketing to interest cops in this new, funny-looking semi-automatic.
Harold's act worked like this. He'd drive into a PD's parking lot with the Glock on a chain, dragging behind. He claimed it'd been there since he left Miami but who knows. The gun was scruffed up but still in one piece.
Then came his spiel. "This gun is made in Austria from the finest steel and a new, miracle nylon polymer. It's virtually indestructible. Won't rust. And to prove that, I want you to put this one in a bucket of salt water. I'll be back in about three weeks. If that Glock doesn't fire I'll give you nine free ones."
The saltwater soaked air in South Florida is hard enough of firearms. Blue steel rusts easily without constant attention. Total immersion in salt water, for that long, would turn most weapons, even stainless steel, into a corrosive green lump. We laughed but took him up on it, mostly to get rid of him. Our range officer, Jim Spohn, duly took the gun and drowned it in a five-gallon bucket of briny liquid.
When Harold returned, we quit laughing. Taken out of the bucket, wiped off, loaded, it fired an entire seventeen-round magazine. And, there was no rust. That day began the evolution from the old "wheel guns" (revolvers) to semi-automatics. It has been so total that when I retired from the SO I was the only cop that still carried a revolver.
Still do. To me, whenever I see a Glock I expect to see a stream of water squirting out of the barrel. Besides, Dirty Harry wouldn't be caught dead with something as ugly as that.
"Hi," he said, "I'm Harold Huckster and I'm gonna show you the most revolutionary handgun ever made."
I looked at the black plastic, water pistol-looking thing again. "Our work generally requires we use real guns," I said.
"Oh, it's real enough," Harold said. And it was. It was the 9mm Glock 17 semi-auto, now a police standard, then something from outer space. Glock, knowing that the S&W or Colt revolvers were the police guns, figured they were going to have to come up with some innovative marketing to interest cops in this new, funny-looking semi-automatic.
Harold's act worked like this. He'd drive into a PD's parking lot with the Glock on a chain, dragging behind. He claimed it'd been there since he left Miami but who knows. The gun was scruffed up but still in one piece.
Then came his spiel. "This gun is made in Austria from the finest steel and a new, miracle nylon polymer. It's virtually indestructible. Won't rust. And to prove that, I want you to put this one in a bucket of salt water. I'll be back in about three weeks. If that Glock doesn't fire I'll give you nine free ones."
The saltwater soaked air in South Florida is hard enough of firearms. Blue steel rusts easily without constant attention. Total immersion in salt water, for that long, would turn most weapons, even stainless steel, into a corrosive green lump. We laughed but took him up on it, mostly to get rid of him. Our range officer, Jim Spohn, duly took the gun and drowned it in a five-gallon bucket of briny liquid.
When Harold returned, we quit laughing. Taken out of the bucket, wiped off, loaded, it fired an entire seventeen-round magazine. And, there was no rust. That day began the evolution from the old "wheel guns" (revolvers) to semi-automatics. It has been so total that when I retired from the SO I was the only cop that still carried a revolver.
Still do. To me, whenever I see a Glock I expect to see a stream of water squirting out of the barrel. Besides, Dirty Harry wouldn't be caught dead with something as ugly as that.
No comments:
Post a Comment