Ep. #048 - The History of Secret Service Firearms with Armorer Bill O' Rourke

Episode #048 - Please welcome USSS Armorer Bill O’ Rourke to the show. O’ Rourke has been with the Secret Service for more than 30 years as an armorer at the James J. Rowley Training Center (RTC). During his tenure, he’s seen extensive changes to the organization, including the transformation of RTC from a one-building structure to a multi-acre complex responsible for most Secret Service training. O’ Rourke has also been a part of several firearms changes in the organization – and he and his four-person team have personally every service weapon in use today.



Our conversation with O’ Rourke is a great look into a little known area of the Secret Service: weaponry. He talks about the transition from revolvers to automatic weapons, the changes in calibers and even how ammunition is tested. There’s a lot of science in ensuring that every weapon in the agency fires accurately every time.



Hosted and Edited by: Abel Trevino, Associate Producer and assistant editor: Starr Vazquez



This episode is sponsored by the United States Secret Service. www.secretservice.gov



Special Thanks to Bill O’ Rourke and Mike Kummer for their time and a great tour of the facilities; and Brandon Higbee for making the arrangements.



Music is “Nova Police” by Hermelin, found here: www.hermelin.bandcamp.com/track/nova-police



The music used in the podcast was altered from the original soundtrack by cutting specific sections of the music to create the intro and outro of the podcast. This work Attribution-Noncommercial-sharealike 3.0 United States (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 US), which license definition is located here: creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0



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