Tommy: The Gun That Changed America

This is a well written book that even someone without any specific interest in guns could get into - it describes the mechanics and history of the 'gun problem' we have today in the US.

The author was very knowledgeable with her research in the history of the Thompson Sub Machine Gun. It was hard to put down once you start reading it!

Very entertaining. Nice reference list for further reading

Blumenthal is such a good writer! In this true story of the ill-fated Thompson machine gun and how it changed gun politics in America, the author keeps an unbiased narrative of invention, attempts to sell the gun to the military, and how gangsters eventually get their hands on the guns first. Written for teens and adults, you'll find this riveting.

I thought that this would be a history of this iconic firearm. Well, it is ... sort of ... but it starts out with a bit about how the gun was developed, then explains how it was used by prohibition-era gangster, then it goes on to very briefly ... VERY briefly ... gloss over the importance of this firearm in WWII. Finally, it goes into how this gun was largely responsible for launching gun-control legislation, and discusses modern day school shootings that had nothing whatsoever to do with the Thompson. If you want to buy a book that starts out being interesting, but then morphs into a morality story, this is for you. Otherwise, it's a waste of money.

I read this in less than a day. It put some meat on the bones of names I'd heard but not known much about: "Baby Face" Nelson and John Dillinger, and one I'd never heard of, Dean O'Banion. It was also a lesson in government failure: the failure of the army to adopt the Gatling gun and later the Tommy gun and the repeated failure of Hoover's early FBI to capture criminals who weren't even hiding out.The author has a noticeable pro-gun-control agenda. (But as she writes, the book was started as an attempt to write a story about the Sandy Hook massacre, so it is to be expected.)

If you're looking for information on Mr. Thompson and his weapon, you'll get some. If you're looking for how this weapon was used by the Army and Marines in combat, you'll get very little. If you're looking for an anti-Second Amendment propaganda, you've hit the bullseye.

An odd little book that doesn't know whether it wants to be a book for adults or a book for kids. It's certainly an adult subject, and even one reviewer on the dust jacket of "Tommy: The Gun that Changed America" admits that the content is "grisly".Yet it possesses all the trappings of a child's book -- thin, generously-spaced content that doesn't go into much depth; over-sized pictures on every other page; and an author's bio that describes her as "a critically acclaimed children's nonfiction writer". One reviewer even assertively uses the term "youth" at least four times in describing the audience for "Tommy".So you have to ask yourself: what is it about a "killing machine" that makes this subject an appropriate topic for pitching to the kiddos, especially in this day and age? And, as other reviewers have pointed out, the author makes some very tenuous connections in "Tommy" to the Sandy Hook shootings and other atrocities that really aren't appropriate nor historically accurate. If "Tommy" purports to be a youth book, why did the author feel it necessary lapse into a protracted and clinical discussion of gun policy in America?In short, the focus of this book is as diffuse as the gun it purports to document. Not a definitive history. And definitely not a book for today's kids.