Death of Gaston Glock: The billionaire inventor of the Glock pistol who, at age 70, knocked down a professional wrestler-killer intended to kill him and “revolutionized the world of handguns,” dies at the age of 94

Reclusive billionaire inventor of the Glock pistol, Gaston Glock, who “revolutionized the world of handguns”, has died aged 94.

The Glock company said in a statement that its founder’s life’s work “will be carried on in his spirit.”

Not only is the weapon used by security personnel, armed forces, gun owners and criminals around the world, but it has also become a staple of American pop culture, appearing in several Hollywood films.

Despite his success, Glock, once a professional wrestler who was supposed to kill him, is portrayed as a reclusive character who enjoyed spending much of his time at an Austrian lake estate.

He managed to avoid media coverage for most of his life, but came to attention in 2012 when a book about his company was published after he divorced his first wife Helga in 2011.

Arnold Schwarzenegger loads a high-capacity magazine into the Glock 18 in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines

Charles Ewert, who ran Glock’s business in Luxembourg, tried to have him killed in the late 1990s.

The hired attacker, a professional wrestler, hit him in the head seven times with a rubber mallet, but Glock, then 70, managed to knock him unconscious.

Ewert – also known as Panama Charly – was sentenced to 20 years in prison for organizing the attempted murder in a car park in Luxembourg.

“Gaston Glock has devoted his life to setting the strategic direction of the Glock Group and preparing it for the future,” the company said.

It was also noted that he “revolutionized the world of handguns” and “managed to establish the Glock brand as a world leader in the small arms industry.”

Glock was born in 1929 and studied mechanical engineering in Vienna.

In 1963 he founded his own consumer goods company in the town of Deutsch-Wagram, twenty kilometers outside the capital.

At the beginning of the 1980s, Glock focused on military supplies and decided to respond to a tender from the Austrian army, which wanted to renew its pistols.

He designed the Glock, a firearm that revolutionized the field: Made largely of non-metallic components, it was lighter, easier to disassemble, more reliable and could carry more bullets than other brands.

After securing its contract with the Austrian military, the company’s fortunes soared as it entered the US market before going global.

Gaston Glock and his wife Kathrin Tschikof. Glock married Tschikof, 51 years her junior, in 2011

Between 2014 and 2017 alone, the company’s value is said to have increased by almost 50 per cent, and in 2021 Forbes estimated the fortune of Gaston Glock and his family at $1.1 billion (£863 million).

American pop culture in particular helped the Glock achieve cult status.

“In the late 1990s, Glock was the most mentioned brand” in the US Top 50 singles charts, said Fritz Ofner, one of the directors of a film about the Glock, in 2018.

Glock designed and patented a lightweight 9-millimeter semi-automatic pistol that was easy to reload and could fire 18 rounds.

Paul Barrett, the author of Glock: The Rise of America’s Gun, wrote that the Glock is now “the Google of modern civilian pistols: the pioneering brand that defines its product category.”

Due to the Glock’s ubiquity in pop culture, numerous rappers, including members of the Wu-Tang Clan, have included mentions of the weapon in their lyrics.

In 2014, Glock’s then-ex-wife unsuccessfully tried to sue him for $500m (£391m). She accused him of blackmailing and taking money from the company and treating his family “with the senseless and self-destructive rage of Shakespeare’s king”. File’.

The lawsuit made numerous allegations about how Glock spent the money, including hiring strippers to represent the company at trade shows.

In 2011, Glock married a woman 51 years his junior, Kathrin Tschikof.

Gun control advocates criticized Glock for popularizing high-powered weapons that they said were easy to conceal and could hold more ammunition than other weapons.

White supremacist Dylann Roof killed nine African-Americans with a Glock pistol during a Bible study at a church in Charleston, South Carolina, in June 2015.

Glock itself has rarely responded to criticism from activists, shied away from public debate and, along with other gun manufacturers, refused to sign a voluntary arms control agreement with the US government in 2000.

Glock and Co. did not hesitate to use legal means to defend their reputation, but it was not always successful.

In 2012, the company lost a long-running defamation case against the human rights group Amnesty International, which drew attention to reports of the use of a Glock rifle by rebels in Sudan.

Glock is survived by his wife, two sons and a daughter.