Genitron.com started out as a private project in 2005 between two Information Technology professionals, father and son, who are also avid firearms enthusiasts and gun collectors. We became frustrated by corporate policies where we were employed that allowed our co-workers to browse the Internet for golfing, fishing, camping and other general sporting content, but restricted us from viewing websites of our own interests such as Beretta or Colt, MidwayUSA and even the NRA; websites considered by corporate as having "unacceptable" content.
So, we decided to develop a private database website that would collect and aggregate information from various handgun manufacturers, and make it available to us through an obscure domain name that would go under the corporate screening radar. When our co-workers with similar interests got word of our private access, they asked us if they could use it as well, and we let them. This worked well for us for the first few years, but as the website collected more and more information, and word spread about Genitron.com, it became more and more popular with other professionals whose corporations restricted access to their interests as well. Eventually Genitron.com was getting a national reach just by word-of-mouth. The website name was popping up on firearms forums and then in some online firearms related articles.
We're sure that you can see where this is going... Eventually by 2010 the website was so popular that it was discovered by the companies that provide website and domain blacklists to corporations, and our website joined the ranks of Beretta, Colt and the NRA. Ironically, because of the website's popularity we all lost our private path to it through the corporate firewalls.
Instead of looking at this as a setback though, we realized the potential of our website's popularity. We decided to monetize our information by taking on some industry advertising, and made Genitron.com its own business.
We have been at it ever since, collecting information on all types and models of 20th and 21st century handguns. Old and new. In production and out of production. We developed ranking and comparison algorithms. We even developed handgun operation training animations which are used by many military and law enforcement organizations, as well as many NRA certified trainers.
We haven't looked back since 2010. Instead, we managed to create a business where our IT skills and our firearms interests merge. What else could we ask for?
So, now you are looking at our third-generation website, which is now fully responsive to not only the computer desktop, both Apple and Windows, but also to all mobile devices; Apple iOS and android tablets and smart phones.
Our handgun animations have also been converted from FLASH to cross-platform HTML5, which now allows them to be viewed on Apple and all other mobile devices as well.
Additionally, we are now allowing users to register and create accounts, free of course, which will give you the opportunity to rank guns in our database and leave personal comments. We hope this will add another dimension of information that will be of interest to our users.
While we have always allowed users to create private gun lists, until now those lists have been restricted to just one browser. Now that you can have a user account on our website, your private handgun list can be stored on our server, so you can view it from any device anywhere simply by logging in.
So, please enjoy our latest website design. Give us any feedback, good or bad, through our Contact page to help us tune our website to best fit our visitors' needs and interests.