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Neither did we ’til this morning when we clicked over to Cleveland.com, but it’s true.

The Tommy Gun, or Thompson submachine gun, was the creation of General John Thompson, an army guy who developed a few other guns along the way, though none as powerful or infamous as the Tommy Gun.

With WWI still in the distance, Thompson imagined a gun that would be lightweight and capable of laying waste in a spree of bullets. According to the PD, he called it a “trench broom,” meaning one could unleash fire across a swath of ground in one grand, violent motion. In 1916, Thompson formed Auto-Ordnance Co. to make the weapon he had dreamed up.

This article appears in Jul 27 – Aug 2, 2011.

Vince Grzegorek has been with Scene since 2007 and editor-in-chief since 2012. He previously worked at Discount Drug Mart and Texas Roadhouse.

2 replies on “Did You Know the Tommy Gun Was Born in Cleveland?”

  1. Yes. As a matter of fact I did. I read it on Wikipedia a couple of years ago. Awesome, ain’t it?

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