What a deal Sheriff David Clarke got on 565 Glock handguns for his deputies, correctional officers, detectives, command staff, you named it. Cops love the ultra-reliable brand, which is elemental in its simplicity. The darn things, originally designed by Gaston Glock, an Austrian engineer and manufacturer of curtain rods, pretty much never jam.
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| The Glock G22, one of the models ordered by Clarke |
Clarke traded in a mountain of decade-old Glocks for the new arsenal, using an Indiana company that specializes in such deals. Or so says the website of Kiesler Police Supply:
Kiesler’s will consider taking almost anything on trade for new products or services you require!!!!!!!
YOU NAME IT, WE MAY GIVE YOU $$$$ FOR IT!!! Kiesler’s will also give you a free estimate on what you have to trade in or sell! Used duty guns, holsters, used ammunition, riot gear, CONFISCATED AND DUTY Weapons, Magazines, Firearms, Machine Guns, weapon parts, stocks, Surplus Duty and Training Ammunition, night vision, optics, cases, body armor, knives, swords, flashlights OR YOU TELL US!
Critics are saying the deal isn’t the bargain that it initially appears to be. Pulling down a new Glock for about $130 is a deal, but some say the baby got thrown out with the bathwater here; a decade-old Glock is pretty much as good as a new Glock (those darn things last forever), given a little maintenance. The department has countered that the maintenance would have been more than Kiesler’s price, with the trade-in.
And some ugly words have been exchanged. Clarke called County Supervisor John Weishan “this puke politician” in a press release earlier this week, and Weishan, noting his service in the Marines, said he was refusing “to make this personal” and was simply stating that Clarke’s “excessive buy” would have been more responsible if carried out over “reasonable intervals during the past several years.”
