The buttstocks on these early Thompsons were readily removable via a pushbutton. To get the gun back in action one need only swap magazines and squeeze the trigger. There were separate fire selector and safety levers on the left side of the gun while the bolt locked to the rear on the last round fired. The Thompson fired from the open bolt via a pivoting hammer. Both of these weapons were externally identical. The subsequent 1928 version employed a heavier bolt assembly and a subsequent rate of fire of around 650 rpm. The original 1921 Thompson sported a rate of fire of around 900 rounds per minute and weighed more than 10 lbs. However, because a Thompson submachine gun cost $175 new ($200 with the optional compensator) - nearly $3,000 today - sales were tepid. Prior to 1934 automatic weapons could be freely purchased over the counter in America. With no handy wars to drive sales of the Thompson, the enterprising general marketed his weapons to Law Enforcement and civilian customers. The original prototypes were ready for field testing mere days after the 1918 armistice. The original Thompson gun was contrived to get American Doughboys up and out of the fetid trenches defining the First World War. Though John Taliaferro Thompson did not technically design the gun bearing his name, it was his force of personality ultimately bringing it to life. The Tommy Gun with its stubby 10.5″ barrel, Cutts compensator, drum magazine and graceful forward handgrip is inextricably linked with 1930s-era organized crime. As America’s most recognizable professional criminal, the weapons he wielded defined his persona. Each time he was captured or forced to leave in a rush, the cops ended up with a few of his guns. He lost a pile of them when he fled the Little Bohemia Lodge in April of 1934. Throughout it all, Dillinger burned through a prodigious arsenal of weapons. After shootouts, jail breaks, and girlfriends wooed and lost, John Dillinger ultimately found himself in Chicago where he met his gory end outside the Biograph Theater at the hands of Purvis and his fellow G-Men. Bureau of Investigation, the precursor to today’s FBI. However, with ill-gotten wealth and fame came the suffocating attention of Melvin Purvis and the U.S. In a one-year span Dillinger and his gang robbed a dozen banks, becoming both infamous and wealthy in the process. A month after his parole from the Indiana State Prison, he robbed his first bank, making off with a cool $10,000. ![]() He learned how to rob banks from the associates of Herman Lamm and cemented friendships with gangsters the likes of Pete Pierpont and Homer Van Meter. It was in jail Dillinger made the friends who would eventually facilitate his meteoric criminal career.
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