86 years ago today, on February 2, 1934, the first murders were committed in Massachusetts using a fully automatic weapon. Sadly, the victims were the first police officers to be killed in the line of duty in the sleepy Boston suburb of Needham. At the center of the case were a stolen Tommy gun, a pair of brothers, and a ragtag assortment of followers. Before it was all over, the Millen-Faber gang would be tied to at least five murders, a long string of robberies, and an attempted jailbreak. Three of the crew would be sentenced to death, and the shocking spectacle of military grade weapons being used on the streets of a quiet Boston suburb would stoke the already raging debate about gun control and the 1934 federal firearms act.
Continue reading The Millen Gang Machine Gun Murders (episode 170)
