Police seize one of 'biggest ever arsenal of firearms' in east London

[Mortblanc]

Just 30 ???

Sounds like the bad guys are not really trying.

TH there are places where you can rent full auto firearms and shoot them on the rental range over here. You might find a Thompson on one but they are scarce. There never were many floating around in civilian hands in spite of what the gangster movies portray.

Back at the start of WW2 the U.S. government sent all of them they could round up to GB for use by the Commandos. I understand that at the Diapee (sp) Raid the Commandos had every one of the weapons in tow, a total of 50.

I got my hands on a Thompson while I was in the service. There were still a few being secreted about for show and tell although they had long been out of the TOE.

The 1928 Thompson with rotary mag filled weighs nearly 25 pounds and thumps along quite sedately. Much more of a load than I want to carry and that was much of the reason it was rotated out of the inventory and replaced by full auto versions of the M1 carbine and our sad version of your Stein gun.

The one I had was an M1 Thompson which was the stripped down military model that used stick magazines. I carried it one patrol and ditched it. Way too heavy along with maps, comm gear, rats and such.

Still good for laughs and giggles. However, full auto gets boring quickly and very expensive, especially at $0.50 per shot. (about 10 pounds for a 30 shot mag in your money)