Rat-A-Tat-Tat!

Rat-A-Tat-Tat!When the Thompson submachine gun was introduced in 1921, military-weapons experts acclaimed it as a triumph of American ordnance technology. Police officials marveled at its size and firepower and predicted that it would either kill or cure the country's gunmen, rioters and "motorized bandits." Five years later, a Collier's writer described it less approvingly: "This Thompson submachine gun is nothing less than a diabolical engine of death ... the paramount example o...