"Spray and Pray"

I am about half-way through The Gun: The AK-47 and the Evolution of War, and thought I'd take the opportunity to put down some of my impressions while they are still fresh in my mind. The author, CJ Chivers, builds his book by telling the story of the long struggle to design and build a successful machine gun. The first true example of the species is generally held to be the Gatling Gun which was the creation of an American inventor named Richard Gatling. The story moves on and introduces other men who would leave their mark on the history of automatic weapons. Hiram Maxim and John Thompson are two of the most prominent, and it is General Thompson's device that concerns me here.

The Thompson submachine gun, or "Tommy gun", has achieved an iconic status in American culture, largely by virtue of what happened during the first decade of the weapon's existence. General Thompson designed a gun that he envisioned to be a kind of "trench broom", that would give American infantrymen the tool they needed to break the stalemate on the Western Front. However, the war ended before his submachine guns were shipped to Europe and Thompson needed to adjust his marketing tactics to reflect post-war realities. The Thompson submachine gun was favorably received by various military officials, but few orders were forthcoming.

Thompson started what he called the Auto Ordnance Company and set about trying to sell his invention to military organizations, police departments, and security services. Again, orders were slow to materialize and Thompson soon realized that he would have to cast his net further if his firm was to remain solvent. Incredible as it may seem today, it was perfectly legal for a private citizen to own a fully-functional machine gun in 1921 America. So, that is the market segment that Auto Ordnance set it's sights on.

What seems blindingly obvious in hindsight was apparently not so apparent at the time. Mainly, that interest in a lightweight, portable, hand-held machine gun would not be limited to the law-abiding members of society. Gangsters, bank robbers, and even the IRA, quickly realized the weapon's deadly potential. And while the mayhem attributed to the Thompson submachine gun has been exaggerated over the subsequent decades, it did change the game, so to speak. Given the twin incubators of alcohol prohibition and the Great Depression, organized and not-so-organized crime exploded across the country. And General Thompson's invention introduced a new dimension to gun violence, one that no doubt distressed it's inventor.

One of the ads that Auto Ordnance used to try and sell the Thompson submachine gun is worth considering. The ad features an image of a cowhand in chaps standing on the porch of what I assume is a ranch building blazing away with a Thompson at a group of horsemen, a number of whom are already on the ground. The horsemen are either Mexican bandits, or Mexican cattle rustlers. Given the current atmosphere of hysteria concerning Mexican immigrants, it is striking to realize how little some things change. There really is nothing new under the sun...