Why wouldn’t Glock make a compact 9mm? Because they don’t have to. The Austrian gunmaker’s American arm is selling everything Gaston’s mob makes. OK, maybe not the Glock 36 single stack .45. But as borepatch.blogspot.com reports from a chance encounter with a Glock marketing maven, the Austrian armorer has a year’s worth of production—some 1.2m guns—on backorder. That’s with its current factories running at 100 percent capacity. In other words, even if Glock wanted to make the handgun that everyone and their mother would buy, they can’t. Not in sufficient quantities to meet demand. Not without slowing production on other models already in production. In financial terms, what would be the point of that? Why spend the money to design, test and re-tool if you don’t have to? Only one factor could change that short term: a huge military contract. Or a desire to promote the brand. Watch this space. And hope for a change. So to speak. [h/t Thomas Paine]