Think that the idea of a tactical flashlight is new? Think again...

dwarven1

Lonely Mountain Arms
Joined
Mar 13, 2005
Messages
27,861
Likes
2,415
Location
Starksboro, VT
Feedback: 33 / 0 / 0
If you think that "tactical" flashlights - a flashlight mounted on a long arm - are a modern invention, think again. The following is excerpted from a story I just read: The Fifth-Dimension Tube, by Murray Leinster, published in the January 1933 edition of Astounding Stories.

Tommy inspected his surroundings with an infinite care. As the darkness deepened he meditatively taped a flashlight below the barrel of the sub-machine gun. Turned on, it would cast a pitiless light upon his target, and the sights would be silhouetted against the thing to be killed.

You can tell that it was written before NFA 1934, too... a civilian owns a "sub-machine gun". [laugh]

Anyway, I thought it was interesting that the idea of a flashlight secured to a firearm was written about some 77 years ago.Heck, for all I know Tom Swift had one on his Electric Rifle, too - which was written some 15-20 years before the story I quote above! I may have to re-read it to find out...

I wonder when the first production firearm-mounted flashlight was manufactured.
 
(That's where Taser gets it name :Thomas A Swift's Electric Rifle)

Do you have a source for that? I've read most of the Tom Swift books and I don't remember EVER seeing Tom's middle name.


OK, a quick Wiki search leads to this:

Taser is an acronym for a fictional weapon: Thomas A. Swift's Electric Rifle.[11][12] Taser is a registered trademark. Tom's middle initial is not found in any of the books. The 'A' was added by Jack Cover to make it more pronounceable than "TSER", on the model of laser and maser. I

So I need to raise the BS flag on Mr Cover for tampering with an American icon.
BS-Flag.gif
 
I was at a family gathering over the weekend, and my uncle told a story of taping a flashlight on his 22 to shoot rats on the farm when he was a kid.
 
This is the first tactical flashlight I ever saw..... [rofl]


 
Last edited by a moderator:
Back
Top Bottom