Gangster Guns
- Episode aired 1999
IMDb RATING
8.8/10
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Featured review
My Gun Is Quick.
This interesting episode focuses on the 1920s and 1930s, the period when gangsters were most notorious. They seem to have sprung fully blown from Uncle Sam's head when prohibition was passed. The result was the bootlegging gangs of Chicago and elsewhere. In the 1930s, with Prohibition behind us, the Great Depression generated more criminal activity, mostly in the South and Midwest, with glamorous figures like Bonny and Clyde -- the motorized bandits who robbed banks, like the outlaws of old.
The talking heads make some valuable observations. Roger McGrath of UCLA mentions that during the 20s and 30s street crimes were nowhere near as popular as they are today. His parents would walk through Central Park at night to visit someplace in Harlem without a thought given to danger.
One talking head proposes a curious model of society. He's "a great believer in politeness." Everyone is polite to everyone else -- as long as no one knows whether the person he's being polite to has a pocket gun. In other words, a society is good to the extent that everyone may be packing heat.
Those small caliber pocket guns he's talking about where the first to be used by gangsters, cheap and easily concealed. Later, progress and the rational market led to larger caliber automatic weapons like the Tommy gun and the BAR. There being no gun laws at all, anyone could buy any gun he liked.
The talking heads make some valuable observations. Roger McGrath of UCLA mentions that during the 20s and 30s street crimes were nowhere near as popular as they are today. His parents would walk through Central Park at night to visit someplace in Harlem without a thought given to danger.
One talking head proposes a curious model of society. He's "a great believer in politeness." Everyone is polite to everyone else -- as long as no one knows whether the person he's being polite to has a pocket gun. In other words, a society is good to the extent that everyone may be packing heat.
Those small caliber pocket guns he's talking about where the first to be used by gangsters, cheap and easily concealed. Later, progress and the rational market led to larger caliber automatic weapons like the Tommy gun and the BAR. There being no gun laws at all, anyone could buy any gun he liked.
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- rmax304823
- Apr 5, 2015
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