Budget cutbacks & tight $ may screen out makers like HK or SIG Sauer.
As it should.
I don't mean to turn this into a
Manufacturer X versus Manufacturer Y debate, but what do you really get from Hk and/or SIG that you don't get from Glock? Really. I mean, if Glock had a reputation for mediocre quality (much less, poor quality), I could see a LE agency desiring Hk or SIG, but the opposite is true. There's about as much talk regarding malfunctions with Glocks as with Hks and SIGs. Given the exponentially higher number of Glock owners than Hk or SIG owners in the US, "damn, that's impressive" doesn't quite say it. Like it or not, Glock makes a great product for the price they charge, compared to companies like Hk and SIG. Those are also superb products, don't get me wrong. But with Glock sitting at the big-boy table, it's nigh impossible to justify spending ~2x on an Hk or ~1.5x on a SIG
when budget matters - as it does (or ought to) in the world of government-funded spending.
My interpretation of Hk and SIG is simple, and about the same as I view BMW. I know BMW makes an outstanding vehicle, just as Hk and SIG make outstanding pistols. I also know the biggest difference between a BMW and a Honda is the envious looks a BMW driver gets from a guy, or the flirty looks from the girl in a Honda. In the most materialistic country in the history of mankind, nothing says, "Look at me! I'm a success!" like buying something thats 1.5x better for 2x the cost. You think Ferrari is in business because their car is 10x better (on the low end) than a Honda in any quantifiable sense? Give me a break. They thrive for the same reason SIG and Hk thrive: If you can swing it, it's easy to convince yourself that you need a higher quality product, even if you know the higher cost of that product is greatly unbalanced to the benefit. The more people who do buy those products, the more justifiable it is to the next guy for whom it's just barely out of reach. And voila, enter America's overwhelming debt problem.
Comparing Ferrari to Hk is a stretch, I agree. But the business model is the same; the difference isn't in the concept, but in the scope of the application. Suppose you invent a completely new type of product Z. Fifty years from now this product has taken, and it's in every home in America. Over the next fifty years, there will be ten new companies making and selling a slight variation of product Z. One company will make it 20% "better" (options, aesthetics, power/volume/capacity, etc) and charge 1.5x. Another company will make it 75% "better" and sell it for 3x the cost. Another company will cut a couple corners and make it 10% "worse," but they'll only charge 75% of what you do. All these companies will thrive, and they all basically sell the same product; but if people are in varied income brackets, there's a market for each of the varieties of product Z, even if, ultimately, they all do the same thing.
"Product value" isn't an obscure, subjective concept. It's objective and concrete, like black and white, true and false. Today more than at any time in world history, people want to pretend everything is subjective. Even right and wrong is viewed as being subjective. Similarly, marketers want you to believe value is subjective, and many people believe it. The truth is that value is a basic concept that compares cost to quality (generic "value" graph below). Quality is simply a measure of something's ability to do that which it was designed to do. Features are not a component of quality. Aesthetics are not a component of quality. These are other variables which act on
value, as in value + features. Since value is both concrete and measurable, it stands to reason that when comparing similar products of varied quality
and/or varied cost (example: guns manufactured by Glock, SIG, and Hk),
one of these products actually represents the best value. For the private buyer, value is (rightly so) irrelevant unless he personally chooses to make it a priority in his spending. For a government-funded purchase, value needs to be everything. For the entity funding the government (you and me), to allow anything less is wasteful and self-defeating.
I am
not saying Glock represents the best value in firearms. I don't believe that's true. What I'm saying is that value exists and is measurable, and as such, I want it to be considered when the government buys things with the money I give them. After all, America is $16 trillion in debt. It doesn't take a financial expert to realize things should probably change at some point.
