Thompson sub-machine gun.

Although it is nearly 20 years old, the movie "Millers Crossing" is a truly great one and is being shown on British TV tonight (FILM4 at 23.10).
I fired a Tommy on a range in Las Vegas last year and Albert Finney's use of one in this movie is almost as exciting. He give's it some serious welly in the dark and in the rain, and I can smell the cordite, the hot metal and the burnt gun oil everytime I see this movie. Heaven's knows what a Tommy would have been like when fired without either a flash supressor or a recuperator, since Finney's gun has both and it still manages to light up the sky brighter than Coney Island !
BG

 

when i was at the imperial war museum i saw what looked like a thompson but really it was a copy (make in china) called a thampson.

 

I think Thompsons are not used nowadays.

 

Not by modern militaries.

 

Gangsters in hats and sharp suits use them - usually the pre-ww2 variety with a drum magazine.

 

I love that picture!

 

They are widely held in many US public firing ranges. I fired off two mags. per gun from both an MP40 and a Tommy when I was in Las Vegas last year. I still have the target, which is a life size picture of Osama bin Laden. Man, did I shred that mutha !
BG

 

Tompsons was widely used in EX YU battlefields in this last unfortunate war for all of us.It was moustly used by para-military formations and TO forces (teritorial defense) ,usualy robbed from some old military warenhause.Interesting but Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) newer destroyed old weapons.I was in warenhause in belgrade with tompsons,MP40 ,KAR98,Mosin-nagant rifles ,but majority of that was later,Yugoslav copy of those weapons (excluded tompsons). But i think that PPS-43 is best SMG from WW II

 

bos , i too loved albert finnys work with the tommy gun in millers crossing a cohen brothers classic... also tom hanks in spr and road to perdition , the huge flashes (and lack of recoil ) in movies is caused by fireing blank catridges ...in real life combat if the troops could see the huge muzzle flash as depicted in the movies , takeing out enemy mg nests would have been oh so much easier,,, in real life an mg that is murdering your guys is almost always a real bitch to spot ..it is never a clearly marked dark horizontal slot with a softball sized fashing strobe light as seen in virtually all war movies... the flash is very tiny and the slit is always very well hidden ...nachine gunners want to live too , after all...
another pet peave about tommy guns in movies ...why do bad guys always insist on shooting up all the mirrors and whisky bottles behind the bar but neglect to spray the guys lieing prone on the floor ...ah no boss we didnt get bugsey but boy we sure did spill tons of whiskey and break lottsa glass ...heres an idea when shooting up a rivals house instead of spraying the walls and lamps and furniture how about blasting at floor level around the window openings and then walking it up 2 feet and down to floor level for the whole house ..note ignore all hanging pictures ,lamps ,crockery ,beds ,mirrors ,racks of bottles and anything higher than three feet from the floor ...which is all of the above..targets will not be clinging to ceiling or to sides of walls ...think LOW!!!

 

I believe there are pictures of militants using Thompsons during the Bosnia conflict in the late 90s.

 

Back in 95 I saw there broomhandles and MP40, but no tommygun.