No one uses Tommy guns anymore.  Today's thugs sling lead at one another with their plastic wonder-guns across playgrounds and parks, with poor accuracy and less style.  Desperados, the demented, and the depraved appear to have settled on the ubiquitous black rifle as their favorite fashion firearm.  Even Chicago, America's Free Fire Zone, hasn't seen anyone mowed down with the fabled Chicago Typewriter in decades. 

It is a puzzlement.

After all, the Tommy is an all-American weapon, an iconic symbol of American independence and ingenuity.  General Thompson intended it to sweep trenches clear of enemy soldiers, but the Germans, rather inconsiderately, threw in the towel before development work was complete.  Yet the general persevered, in due course bringing forth the Thompson Model 1919: genuine American walnut and intricately tooled, highly polished steel.  Able to carry up to 100 rounds of .45 ammunition and spit them out at the rate of 600 per minute (1,200 in early models). 

One hundred lumps of lead just less than half an inch in diameter loosed in a few seconds – an outlaw's dream weapon.  As the saying goes, the Thompson made the '20s roar.  Public Enemy Number One, John Dillinger, used it (ineptly), as did Bonnie and Clyde (although Clyde favored the much more powerful BAR); "Baby Face" Nelson; and, of course "Machine Gun" Kelly.  It starred in the Kansas City Massacre (which left a two-bit thug and the officers transporting him dead), failed to kill Capone at his headquarters in the Hawthorne Hotel (ten cars, a Tommy in every car, and still they missed him), and helped make Capone boss of Chicago with the St.. Valentine's Day Massacre.  Service in World War II, Korea, and even Vietnam cemented its reputation as a pre-eminent man-stopper, the weapon any savvy warrior would chose for vicious close-quarters combat.  It even had its own television show: the exuberantly violent Untouchables.  (The Thompson was the star; Robert Stack and Co. were just there to carry it around.)

It had looks.  It had power.  It had fame, and it was style.  It has disappeared, abandoned for a contraption of plastic and alloy that fires a round only half the size of the .45.  Have the 'bangers and jihadists lost their minds?

The grim truth is that the Thompson, like its contemporaries the BAR and the Lewis gun, is a one-dimensional firearm.  It was designed to end violent confrontations swiftly and decisively.  It is an instrument of war and of law enforcement, with few benefits to offer the civilian shooter.  It's not a hunting rifle (although a WWII vet once told me how he used one to hunt deer in Germany), and a .45 pistol is more convenient for personal defense.  In addition, the Thompson is heavy, high-maintenance, expensive, and rare.  Military surplus models, being true sub-machine guns, are also subject to special licensing requirements and hefty fees.  Like the Scotch Capone once smuggled in from Canada, the Thompson is not for those with faint hearts or thin wallets.

In many ways, today's black rifle, or, to use its proper name, the modern sporting rifle (MSR), is the antithesis of the Thompson.  It is lightweight, requires only moderate maintenance, and can be manufactured and sold at a reasonable price.  It is capable of exquisite accuracy and is almost infinitely flexible.  Adjustable stocks allow the rifle to be lengthened or shortened according to the size of the shooter or the situation.  Changing to a different caliber means changing out the barrel and some internal parts rather than buying a whole new rifle.  Indeed, an MSR can be configured to hunt most anything in North America, from paper targets to prairie dogs to wild boar to deer and elk.  (I don't know whether anyone hunts bear with an MSR.)  Needless to say, it can also stop a home invasion cold.  Perhaps most importantly, pulling the trigger fires just one bullet, rather than the torrent a Thompson would unleash.  Yes, pulling the trigger rapidly will fire the rifle rapidly, but rapid fire is seldom accurate fire.  Few of us have the skills of Ed McGivern, who could empty a revolver in less than a second and hit the target with each shot.

Rather like the musket of our Revolutionary forbears, the MSR performs two basic functions reliably and well.  It can put food on the table and defend home and hearth.