The Thompson submachine gun or Tommy gun was named after inventor General JT Thompson. The gun was originaly nicknamed the trench broom as it was developed for trench warfare in WW1. It was introduced to the streets of Chicago on September 25, 1925 by southside gangster Frank Mc Erlane. Mc Erlane was a member of the southside Saltis gang who were allied but not part of the Capone mob. Ironically enough he got the gun from northside hoodlum Dean O'Bannion shortly before his death. The Saltis gang was locked in a turf battle with fellow southsiders the Spike O'Donnel gang and the had already made other attempts on his life. On that September morning Spike was standing on 63rd talking to the cop on the beat when a car pulled up and a full side of almost a hundred bullets slammed into the building. But the assassins sped off leaving their hit a failure as O'Donnell survived. The police were baffled by what kind of weapon could have been used. The Capone mob joined the machine gun parade in April of 1926 when he poured almost a hundred rounds into a Austin Ave. beauty shop owned by Pearl Hruby. They were trying to get her boyfriend James "Fur" Sammons who was wounded in the attack. The shop was on Austin just south of Cermak in the heart of Capone's Cicero territory. About three blocks from Capone's "playhouse" at 16th & Austin. Shortly after that the Capone mob turned their chopper loose with more deadly results. In April Spike O'Donnell was once again the target when Al ...