St. Louis Police pull trigger on Tommy gun sale as part of $1.2 million deal

By Chris Eger

St. Louis is trimming its time capsule of 30 Thompsons of several different models including both rare Colt-made commercial models and later military versions. (Photo: Christian Gooden/St Louis Post-Dispatch)
The St. Louis Metro Police Department is parting with most of its huge and historic Thompson submachine gun collection in a move to get a good deal on new duty guns.
Twenty-seven of the city’s 30 Tommy guns will be sold to Midwest Distributors for $22,000 a piece, the St Louis Post-Dispatch reported. All told, the Kentucky-based firm will pay $618,500 for the transferrable .45 ACP s sub guns and some other surplus weapons. This is on top of $597,000 paid by Minneapolis-based Bill Hicks & Co. for 1,748 used Beretta handguns currently carried by the department.
The money will go to offset the cost of new Berettas at $450 a pop to equip every officer with as well as a quantity of AR-15s to be used as patrol rifles.
“The original reason to sell the weapons was to purchase new duty weapons, and we did so well on the sale, we will be able to purchase rifles as well, by our own actions without using any budget money,” SLPD’s purchasing manager, Carol Shepard, told the

Source: Guns.com