Did the Tommy gun "redeem' itself?


While we were working on American Gun, we had something of a debate over some of the phrasing in the section regarding the Tommy Gun. Not to get too arcane, but the question can be (over-simplified) as:

Did the Tommy Gun "redeem" itself in World War II?

I think the answer clearly is no. It didn't redeem itself, because it had nothing to redeem. Yes, it had been used by gangsters during Prohibition, but that didn't make the gun evil. The Mausers in the Spanish-American War* weren't evil either, even if they were used to kill American soldiers. The same can be said for every rifle, pistol and machine gun int he book.

No weapon is evil. It's the people using it. Or, in some cases, not using it.

The Thompson sub-machine gun, in all its various incarnations, was an excellent tool, certainly one of the best weapons of its kind of its time. But it was neither righteous nor evil; it was simply a gun.

* 1898, by the way. Not 1890