Las Vegas Mob Museum

Al Capone--CEO of the Chicago Organization from 1925-1931.

The Mob Museum in Las Vegas is a must-see destination for anyone who wants to understand the extent of underworld influence in the United States. Every dollar spent on consumer products and/or services in America has a hidden mob tax built into it. The cost of hijacking, extortion, labor racketeering, theft, payoffs, protection, and influence peddling are all factored into the final price of doing business. The main reason the underworld exists is to make large amounts of tax-exempt money for its members who disdain holding a regular full-time job where people have to work for a living. Gangsters consider working people "suckers."

National and international crime organizations have woven their way into the fabric of our economy, our law enforcement agencies, and our hallowed halls of government. When politicians take campaign money from lobbyists--over and under the table--it is given with the understanding that the government official will vote in a certain way on their issues. The underworld considers these people "stooges."

Politicians roundly deny it, but they are addicted to the life blood of politics--dirty money. When we hear about the "deep state," organized crime should be its synonym. "We're even bigger than U.S. Steel," boasted racketeer Meyer Lanksy before government officials.

The Mob Museum at 300 Stewart Avenue in Downtown Las Vegas.

My wife and I enjoyed our visit to the Mob Museum. We saw a ten foot section of the actual St. Valentine's Day Massacre wall, replete with bullet holes and many other gangland artifacts including a Thompson machine gun. The museum also offers two interactive law enforcement workshops.

The first workshop was on use of force. We were outfitted with a police utility belt and a 9 mm firearm which shoots electronic impulses that sound and feel real. First, they checked us out on the use of the gun and police procedure, then we did a full-scale video simulation of a convenience store robbery. The goal was to make the thief drop his gun. I was slow on the trigger and the bad guy shot me.

Next, we had a simulation with a real person in a confined space. The guy had a gun and an indignant attitude. He turned and started running. My wife virtually shot him in the back. She felt terrible afterward; the pretend gunman gave her a dirty look which made her feel worse. Knowing when to shoot or not is a split second decision that could result in the death of a suspect or your death. What a sobering object lesson in use of force!

Fred "Killer" Burke on his way to Marquette Prison.

The other workshop was a crime lab where I used a stereo microscope to match crime bullets with test bullets--the science of ballistics. That was right up my alley as I was researching for my new book project on Detroit's Purple Gang.

The first scientific crime lab in America was established at the University of Chicago in response to the rampant mob warfare in Chicago and the St. Valentine's Day Massacre in particular. Investigators were able to match the bullets from the St. Valentine's Massacre to test bullets fired from two Thompson machine guns belonging the Fred "Killer" Burke placing him at the scene. The same "choppers" were used in the assassination of New York mafioso Frankie Yale and the Milaflores Massacre in Detroit which cut down three men.

We also were able to do some DNA matching which doesn't help me on my current project but was fascinating nonetheless. I passed on the simulated cadaver investigation exhibit, but my wife--a former nurse--was all over it. I can recommend both workshops. The rest of the museum tells the narrative of organized crime in America and internationally.

Gangsters have fascinated Americans since the early 1930s when Hollywood produced the film Little Caesar with Edward G. Robinson, followed closely by Scarface with Paul Muni and real-life former gangster George Raft. Warner Brothers Pictures specialized in the crime genre that launched the careers of James Cagney and Humphrey Bogart. Later actors to benefit from this public fascination with the mob are Marlon Brando, Frank Sinatra, Robert Deniro, Joe Pesci, Ray Liotta, Al Pacino, and many others. With the advent of cable television, the popularity of crime films and true crime programming continues today and shows no signs of abating.

"I'm innocent. I didn't see nothin'."

America's first television event was the Kefauver Crime Committee Hearings in 1950. Most of America had never heard the word mafia before. Now, those lucky enough to own a television set were able to see the United States Congress question real-life gangsters. The homily, "Crime doesn't pay" was the government's mantra, but apparently many Americans never got the message. Corporate crime is alive and well.

https://fornology.blogspot.com/2018/02/kosher-nostra-detroits-purple-gang.html

The Thompson Submachine Gun--World War I era "Trench Broom" Becomes Prohibition-era "Street Sweeper"

Thompson Submachine Gun and black jack on display at Detroit Historical Museum.

In the early years of Prohibition in America, the weapons of choice for the underworld were fists, black jacks, brass knuckles, tire thumpers, stilettos, hand guns, sawed-off shotguns, and rifles. With the first attempt on Al Capone's life on January 12, 1925, members of the late Dion O'Banion's North Side Gang--Bugs Moran, "Schemer" Drucci, and Hymie Weiss--had sworn a blood vendetta against Capone and his organization for assassinating their boss.

The trio raked .45-caliber bullets along the side of Capone's car with a weapon new to the streets--the Thompson submachine gun. Capone survived the attack. When he looked at the perforated driver's side of his Cadillac touring car and the damage done to the buildings in the line of fire, Capone remarked, "I need to get some of those." Big Al hastened to equip his arsenal with machine guns.

The press dubbed the weapon the "tommy gun," and it changed the rules of gangster warfare. The automatic weapon was co-invented by Brigadier General John T. Thompson in 1918. The first commercial models were made by the Colt Manufacturing Company in 1921, too late for World War I. The United States Army declined to adopt the weapon and law enforcement showed little interest in the weapon because the police were afraid of innocent civilian casualties.

Police were slow to recognize the impact these guns would make on their streets.

With the military and law enforcement markets closed to Thompson, he and several investors started the Auto-Ordinance Corporation in New York. They manufactured 15,000 of the guns in 1923 selling each for $175 with a 20-round clip or a canister drum that could hold up to 50 .45 cal rounds for an extra $50. Later on, 100-round drums became available.

Auto-Ordinance wholesaled the submachine guns to firearm retailers across the country and directly to the public through mail order. All the seller required was a purchaser's name and address. Because this hybrid weapon was entirely new and in a class of its own, it didn't fall under existing gun laws. Anyone could legally purchase as many submachine guns as he could afford.

Nobody planned for this military weapon to be available to civilians--much less fall into the hands of outlaws--but business is business and a sale is a sale. The weapon soon became a status symbol for gangsters. Once the government instituted strict controls in the late 1920s, black market guns sold for as much as $2,000 each. The only people who could afford them were gangsters. Attempts were made to etch out serial numbers or stamp small Xs over the serial numbers, but crime science developed an acid wash that could bring out the obscured numbers.

The Thompson machine gun--also known as the chopper, the Chicago Typewriter, the Trench Broom, and the Street Sweeper--changed the rules of gang warfare. The original assault weapon was light weight (under ten pounds) and portable; it came with a 20-round stock box clip or with an available canister drum holding 50 .45-cal cartridges; the gun had a 500 yard range with a rate of fire between 600 to 750 rounds per minute; and the muzzle velocity was 935 feet per second.

The original models were hard to control and next to impossible to aim accurately, but as weapons of mass murder and mayhem, the tommy gun had no rivals. The underworld was fascinated with its new plaything. The weapon's compact size allowed it to break down small enough to be carried in a violin case. The chopper became the signature weapon of several major crime syndicates and was involved in some of the most infamous murders of the Prohibition era.

Link to Detroit's Purple Gang post: https://fornology.blogspot.com/2018/02/kosher-nostra-detroits-purple-gang.html