I shot one of the very first Glocks in the US, back in the 1980s. The SN was in the 40K range: thing was brand new. It was one of the very first guns into the country. The American Rifleman was running skeptical reviews, the ‘media’ crap about ‘The Plastic Undetectable Gun That Can Go Through X-Ray Machines…’ etc. A hillbilly/biker buddy of mine on the roofing crew bought one at a gun show, in the original Glock Box, for $425 cash, out the door, under the table with no background check, from a guy selling off his guns so his soon-to-be-ex-wife wouldn’t attach his guns as assets. We took it out with 100 rounds of 9mm.

The first thing that happened was the back sight vanished. It was a profoundly cheap plastic-ey arrangement that 1) didn’t work at all and 2) broke when you touched it. It turned out that the BATF required an ‘adjustable sight’ on the back of all imported handguns so as to qualify for ‘sporting purposes’. The back sight flew off. We never found it.

At that point we discovered you didn’t need the sights at all.

The thing was so revolutionarily ergonomic you could simply point it at things and hit them. We were, within seconds, hip-shooting beer cans out to 75 feet (25 meters). The thing pointed so well, in its original Glock17 9mm incarnation, it was frightening.

We were gun guys, for real, not hobbyists; almost every biker/hick/gentleman at this shoot had either shot someone or had been in a gunfight. Including me. So this gun impressed everyone as revolutionary. It was amazing. Equally amazing to me was the arms race it was sure to set off. The only real discussion was that it was plastic, and that it was in 9mm, and would only feed Geneva Convention 9mm, which everyone knew wouldn’t stop a rabbit, having tried it.

I thought, and we talked about, over 87 beers, “What is this thing FOR?”

It was like, a handheld submachine gun. One guy had an illegal MAC10, and he was baffled by the Glock. I was, too. You’d shoot the thing and it didn’t seem to run out of bullets. It got named, for a while, derisively, ‘The Buck Jones Gun’, from the old Bill Cosby skit where TV Cowboys’ 6-shooters never ran out of bullets. The Glock did not. It just kept shooting.

Then the guy ordered up a 22-round magazine for the thing, still the only one anyone had. My God. 39 rounds of 9mm as fast as you could pull the trigger, with one magazine swap, and if you had shot the thing more than five times, you were going to hit what you pointed it at.

I came to the conclusion that it shines at what pistols shine at: killing an adversary at less than 20 feet. The Glock? Unless you are in some kind of WWI trench warfare, you simply do not need 17 rounds of 9mm. I viewed it as a room-clearer, or a gun for taking out a crackhouse of defenseless, prone druggies. I saw no other purpose. I kept my .357 M19 and my Colt .45 auto; and have not regretted it.

Since that first experience with the Glock, it has been implicated in more mass shootings than any other gun. This is logical: it’s what it is for.

I’ve since pulled triggers on other human beings, with revolvers and automatics (.38 snubbies, .357 Magnum, .45 Auto) and I didn’t do it with a Glock. I’ve been shot at, a lot. I’ve returned it back. But I have found that Wild Bill Hickock’s advice rings true, still: “You must be willing, and keep your head.”

The Glock fulfills neither of those instructions. I will never own one. They don’t fit my morals.