Heroes and Villains Alike

There are few weapons throughout history that are as distinctive as the Thompson, and even fewer with such complicated reputations. This is the story of the Thompson on both sides of the law.

Brief overview

The Thompson was one of the first submachine guns (smg) ever designed and adopted in mass. Designed in 1918 by John Thompson and manufactured by the Auto-Ordnance company, it was adopted by the Army and many state police forces. It is a straight blowback, heavy cludge of a gun by modern standards, but it was innovative for the time. As seen in this 1920’s poster it was heavily marketed to law enforcement as a means to curb the rise of interwar gangs

Criminal Reputation

Unfortunately for Auto-Ordinance, the Thompson also became infamous among the gangs it was built to fend off. Thompsons were used by many mafia installations like Al Capone’s Chicago Outfit. One of the most pivotal events for public perception was the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, where 7 were gunned down in a mob hit by 2 Tommy Guns, or Chicago Typewriters as they were later dubbed. The budding Hollywood scene ran with this new mafia symbol with a rash of crime films like Little Ceasar and the 1932 Scarface where the Thompson made a front-and-center appearance on the box art

The unifying appeal of this gun was the large capacity drum magazine and it's easy of disassembly, allowing it to be concealed in the almost cliche violin case. The social view of guns like this were so strong that in 1934, the National Firearms Act was passed in an attempt to curb mob crime.

New Name, New Face

Starting in 1941, a series of changes were made to the military models of the Thompson. The drum mags were replaced with standard double stack, single feed box mags, and the front grip was ditched for a simpler block. There measures were cost saving, but also changed the look of the gun significantly. These changes were adopted as the M1A1

Pictures from the European and Pacific fronts began making their way back to the states during the course of WW2. Seeing our boys fighting evil with the new Thompson M1A1 gave the civilian populace a more nuanced look at the once disdained Tommy. Pictured below is a famous image of Marine Sgt. John W Bartlett firing a Thompson M1A1 (Okinawa, 1945)

While the practical days of the Thompson are long gone, and new production in its original form illegal, its civilian use is all but over. Its legacy lives on in spite through our movies, tv, and games, showing us both the good and evil that it once represented.

Thank you for your time and I hope you learned something today. Follow for more and let’s get a conversation in the comments below. See you next time

All photos used from wikimedia and imfd. I own none of the photos.

--@roofcore