malakili said:
With the massive and overwhelming popularity of non-sa/da platforms among both civilian and law enforcement, I don't think my opinion is all that uncommon.
Opinions are like... oh well, you know the argument: everybody's got one.
Can you provide verifiable statistics to back your assertion about the "overwhelming popularity of non-DA/SA platforms among both civilians and law enforcement?"
While Glocks have been popular with the LEO community, I never saw data that showed that police departments or state agencies were dominated by the Glock brand. Many of the agencies I've been around (in this state and elsewhere) used Berettas and SIGs as well as Glocks.
The U.S. military sure hasn't fallen all over itself in a rush to use non-DA/SA guns. As best I can tell, the DoD has bought more BERETTA handguns over the past 15-20 years than all of the weapons purchased by local and state LE agencies combined. I don't know about civilian handgun sales totals, but they'd have to be substantial to offset the DoD's purchase of Berettas and SIGs alone.
The last figure I saw said there were about 750,000 (sworn) LEOs in the U.S., and most departments don't replace weapons frequently. (Every 4-5 years?)
That being the case, and if Glock has 60%-65% of the total, a figure I've seen, it's still not that much of the total, and that total is still not CLOSE to the total number of Berettas sold to the U.S. government since the end of the Vietnam era.
Glocks are good guns -- I have several -- but it's easy to be overwhelmed by Glock's very effective marketing efforts. Since 2009, the U.S. DoD has purchased an additional 600,000 or so M9's, along with other DA/SA and SA weapons. The original purchases prior to that also totalled about a half million guns. the most recent DoD purchase was in 2012. The total number of Berettas purchased by the DoD must now be well over 1.2 million. (They also bought some for the Afghan Army, not included in theses totals.)