Of Tommy Guns and the Red Baron

Here's a couple of interesting pieces I've come across recently...

Yesterday James at Hell in a Handbasket posted this link, to a Washington Post article on the Thompson submachinegun. The article discusses not only the Thompson's iconic reputation among firearm aficionados, but it's status as a totem of that very American art form, the gangster movie:

The thing looked great in a movie star's hands, particularly if he had a pug-beautiful New York toughie's face, a Camel dangling from the corner of his mouth leaking a filigree of smoke, dead calm eyes and a fedora a-tilt on his carefully oiled hair. The movies had discovered the power of the cool Bad Man, and then the bad-but-finally-good guy who finds redemption in the last reel. The tommy was one of the stations of the cross on the way to this spiritual deliverance.

From Cronaca, home to many links of historical interest (including the piece on the Little Big Horn I referenced yesterday) comes this fascinating look at the death of the Red Baron. Credit for downing the German ace has long been accorded to Australian anti-aircraft gunners, but a new study by neuroscientists indicates that lingering psychological after effects from a head wound incurred almost a year before his death may have played a strong role in von Richthofen's demise.