"Glock: The Rise of America’s Gun." author Paul Barrett - Very interesting and in depth interview on Democracy Now!

My take away: Watch the entire interview... I thought that all sides of the story were covered pretty well... Very interesting and informative... Monte

Democracy Now! - full story link
Gun-control advocates have had little success calling for restrictions on Glocks or the large-capacity ammunition magazines they can accommodate. DN spoke with Paul Barrett, who wrote the landmark book about the infamous weapon, "Glock: The Rise of America’s Gun." [includes rush transcript]
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Guest:
Paul M. Barrett, author, reporter and assistant managing editor at Bloomberg Businessweek. His latest book it called Glock: The Rise of America’s Gun.

Review:
Gaston Glock's gun
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Last portion of long interesting interview:

AMY GOODMAN: Gaston Glock was—well, someone attempted to assassinate him.

PAUL BARRETT: Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: Explain what happened and who he is.

PAUL BARRETT: Glock, the company, has been shot through with intrigue and controversy since very early on. This company made a ton of money. It was run by Gaston Glock, the founder. And while he was a quite a good engineer, he was not so great on the management side. He chose, for example, a financier from Luxembourg to set up shell corporations for him all around the world to minimize taxes, a very common international, global, you know, corporate practice. GE, of course, is the best known for that so-called "transfer pricing" gambit. Anyway, Glock wanted to do it, too.

It turned out, however, that the shell company artist, whose nickname was "Panama Charlie," because he did so much work in Panama—it turned out he set up a few extra shell companies so that he could siphon off some of Glock’s profits to himself. Glock found out about this, went to Luxembourg to confront him, and his financier arranged for his contract assassination. Unfortunately, it was about the worst contacted hit I’ve ever read about.

AMY GOODMAN: You mean he tried to use a Smith & Wesson?

PAUL BARRETT: No, he didn’t try to use a Smith & Wesson. Worse than that, he hired a former French Legionnaire and retired professional wrestler, who confronted Glock in an underground parking garage and began bashing him on the head with a rubber mallet. The plot was apparently to make Gaston—to make it appear that Gaston Glock had fallen down a flight of stairs in this garage and that there had been no, you know, assassination at all. Anyway, Glock, 70 years old at the time, is a very tough old bird. He fights back. When the cops arrive, they find these two older gentlemen sprawled on the floor of the parking garage, and Glock has survived. The financier who tried to have him whacked is now in maximum security prison in Luxembourg.

AMY GOODMAN: Paul, you were banned from the gun show. Where does it take place and why?

PAUL BARRETT: The SHOT Show, the Shooting, Hunting, Outdoor Trade Show, takes place every year in Las Vegas. And Glock, for whatever reason, is not so thrilled about the appearance of my book. And while I attend this trade show on a regular basis and am issued press credentials on a regular basis, the company succeeded in getting my press credentials rescinded this year, so that I didn’t have the little press tag that would allow me to go onto the exposition floor, which of course, just like, you know, so many things when you try to censor somebody, it only encourages them to be more aggressive. And believe it or not, I got done what I needed to get done, in terms of seeing my gun industry contacts. And in fact, there was quite a bit of outrage at the trade show over the fact that Glock had tried to ban me. So, as far as I’m concerned, they really kind of did me a favor.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, I want to thank you very much, Paul Barrett, for joining us. He is author of the book Glock: The Rise of America’s Gun. He’s assistant managing editor of Bloomberg Businessweek.