The Austrian engineer and businessman Gaston Glockwho developed one of the world’s best-selling pistols, passed away today at the age of 94, Austrian news agency APA reports.

He became a billionaire and a legend thanks to the pistols that bore his name, while according to Forbes his net worth was $1.1 billion in 2021.

He laid the foundations of his empire in the 1980s when the Austrian military was looking for a new, innovative weapon. Until then the Glock company manufactured military knives and equipment such as curtain rods. With the help of firearms experts, he developed the Glock 17, a lightweight semi-automatic pistol made of high-strength polymer. Its revolutionary design stood out from the competition and earned Glock its first fat contract. Within a short time, the Glock pistol became a worldwide success.

“Grab a Glock and throw away that nickel-plated frat gun,” he used to say Tommy Lee Jones in a scene from the 1988 movie “On the Run” (US Marshals). Glock pistols have been widely used by police in the US and beyond, and have been referenced in songs by American rappers such as Snoop Dogg’s ‘Protocol’ and Wu-Tang Clan’s ‘Da Glock’.

In 2003 US soldiers found ousted Iraqi president Saddam Hussein in his underground hideout near Tikrit with a Glock pistol in his possession. They later handed the gun over to then US President George W. Bush, according to a New York Times report.

Gun control advocates have criticized Glock for the proliferation of its guns, which have been used in many crimes. A former Marine armed with a 45-gauge Glock killed 12 people in a California bar in November 2018. In June 2015, a far-right gunman killed nine African-Americans with a Glock at a church in Charleston, South Carolina.

Gaston Glock has systematically avoided responding to his critics and in 2000 refused to sign an agreement with other arms manufacturers with the US government to limit gun ownership in the US.

At the age of 70, in July 1999, he was attacked with a sledgehammer by a former wrestler who had been hired by a broker who managed the Austrian businessman’s assets. Gaston Glock received seven blows to the head, but survived. Broker Charles Evert and perpetrator Jacques Pesser were convicted of the attack and jailed.

His marriage to Helga Glock – with whom he had three children (two sons and a daughter) – ended in divorce in 2011 after 49 years. The tycoon then married his second wife, Catherine, 52 years his junior.

He owned a mansion and equestrian center in the Austrian state of Carinthia, where he occasionally hosted a host of celebrities.