That said, what would you say is the most influential innovation in handguns from the past 20 years?
If your world began in 1995, then you missed out of a lot of things that happened previous to 1995. The semi conductor revolution of the 1980's really changed business and manufacturing.
I'm going with something that is not actually the gun it's self but something that has brought the education and availability of firearms to it's highest peak as any other time in history. The computer via the internet.
I like this. From the late 80's to the mid nineties, what personnel computers there were, were stand alone. You created a file, saved it to a floppy disc, and handed it off to someone. Technical data packages were on paper.
The internet allowed us, the shooters, to compare data and opinions. It is of course not perfect, primarily because I am always 100% right in all things, but hardly anyone agrees with me on anything
, but at least we are free to exchange information, good or bad, without Corporate filtering . In the past, you sent a letter to the editor and these Corporate Magazines filtered that information to keep their advertisers happy. Thus, what the public saw in the mass media of the day, was cleansed of any negative information, actually cleansed of any objective information. As anyone has figured out, what is in print is primarily the creation of Corporate Advertising Bureaus and is designed to get you to buy. What is in print is inevitably positive, always supportive, regardless of what actually happened was true or not. I do remember the sales campaign for the Bren 10. It was oh, so positive and wonderful in print, even though the pistol was a failure in practice. Dr Martin Fackler used to rail against this, politely though and without gales of anger, but it was evident he was frustrated with the mis information about the stopping power of bullets and cartridges presented in the popular media. I just looked for the article that I have where he points out that Cops and Soldiers were being killed, because the performance information in print magazines, was so false. Agencies were actually influenced in their buying decisions by what they read in Gun Magazines, but Gun Magazines are not objective, and their articles are simply Corporate Ads in a paid medium. Good guys died because of the mis information. In fact, still are.
Gunwriters are still shills of the gun industry, but now, we can tell each other about our woes and travails with crappy firearms. We can compare notes. We can tell each other what has worked, and not worked. This is very important and if you read the print media, totally frustrating for them. They are not in control of the message or content anymore and they are mad about it.
That more than anything else, is the biggest change in the last 20 years.