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Zip guns were possibly more dangerous to the operator than the one being shot at.\u00a0 Sometimes the gun exploded in the shooter’s hand or it backfired, blinding the shooter.\u00a0 One person I spoke to personally bandaged four zip gun bullet wounds.\u00a0 He recalled that \u201cin one case when the gun was fired, the shell ejected back into the hand of the shooter and damaged his thumb.\u201d\u00a0 The second time the \u201crubber band powered bolt was being pulled back into firing position [and] it released accidentally, firing the bullet into the gang member\u2019s thigh.\u201d\u00a0 The bullet passed entirely through so the entry and exit point were bandaged.\u00a0 In another identical incident, the gun fired as .22 caliber bird shot was being loaded.\u00a0 It lodged into the stomach of another gang member across from him.\u00a0 Alcohol was applied to the many wounds, and fortunately no serious damage was done.\u00a0 Even though they were notorious for being inaccurate and dangerous, gangs still packed zip guns in their fights and ambushes.<\/p>\n
Some boys were very adept at making zip guns, even making them under the very noses of their teachers in shop class at school.\u00a0 The guns could shoot .22 caliber bullets, although nails and pins could also be used as ammunition.\u00a0 The New York Times<\/em> had an\u00a0 article on two brothers who were caught selling zip guns to a Bronx gang called the Bronx Sportsmen.\u00a0 At the moment of their arrest, the brothers admitted they were in the process of filling an order for twelve zip guns.\u00a0 Another boy they had sold a zip gun to – and who led the police to the gunsmith brothers – admitted to the police that he was intending to use the gun to kill a rival member of a gang.\u00a0 Unfortunately the article did not report how much they were planning on selling each gun for.<\/p>\n Obtaining ammunition for a zip gun was difficult but not impossible.\u00a0 If the person looking to buy the ammo looked old enough, bullets could be purchased at a sporting goods store, or, if that didn’t work, at amusement-arcade shooting galleries.\u00a0 One member from a Manhattan Upper East Side gang explained how he was able to get .22 caliber bullets at a shooting arcade without anybody noticing:<\/p>\n \u201cGetting bullets is the tough part.\u00a0 Nobody\u2019ll sell you no bullets.\u00a0 How\u2019d I latch on to them?\u00a0 Man, I\u2019ll tell you.\u00a0 You know them shooting galleries around Forty-second Street.\u00a0 Okay, you hang around until the dive is really hopping.\u00a0 Then you step up and hand out the bread for a couple of clips.\u00a0 Sure you have to shoot \u2018em but if you\u2019re hip, you fire real fast and slip a couple .22\u2019s into your mit.\u00a0 Sometimes, if you play it cool, you can get away with a whole clip.”<\/span><\/p>\n And now a brief profile on someone who was fixated with guns; this story paints an interesting picture on an individual basis…<\/p>\n ——<\/p>\n Charles B. was white, 5’10” tall, weighed 180 pounds and had brown hair and hazel eyes.\u00a0 Both arms were heavily tattooed, the left having a large cupid double doll, and an eagle with a flag and the year 1959 inscribed under it.\u00a0 His right arm had his name Charlie in script letters and another eagle with a notation “Death Before Dishonor” under it.\u00a0 He lived in the Lower East Side in Manhattan at 205 Allen Street, in an area that was a hotbed of gang activity.\u00a0 Allen Street and the streets around it was where a Puerto Rican gang called the Forsyth Boys hung out.\u00a0 Even though Charlie was white, this did not cause him any problems and he hung out a candy store on Forsyth between Stanton and Ludlow Streets.\u00a0 Supposedly he was a member of the gang, although he denied it.\u00a0 At the minimum he would have known who the members of the Forsyth Boys were and would have most certainly been familiar with the gang lifestyle.<\/p>\n The middle image is of a zip gun made from a toy gun<\/p><\/div>\n Charlie had a record for stealing a bicycle, breaking into parking meters, shoplifting from Macy’s department store, and disorderly conduct.\u00a0 He was also arrested for possession of not just a zip gun, but for stealing three rifles.\u00a0 He pilfered the rifles from a military cadet corps that he was a member of and where he practiced shooting at an armory in New Jersey.\u00a0 When it came to guns, Charlie just couldn’t help himself.\u00a0 He was obsessed with them and carried them “without any rhyme or reason.”\u00a0 When he was expelled from the University Settlement House, a spot where gangs and other youth from the Lower East Side liked to hang out, he returned and crashed a party while drunk and threatened everyone with a gun.\u00a0 He had to be subdued by guards.<\/p>\n In 1958 Charlie bought a .22 caliber rifle for $20 (a different one from the three rifles he had stolen from cadets), but unfortunately for him, his Mom discovered the gun.\u00a0 To make matters worse, his little brother found it on a couple of occasions and was caught playing with it, which infuriated his parents (understandably so).\u00a0 He had to get rid of it.\u00a0 But Charlie wasn’t about to obey his parents, so he used a hacksaw to saw off the barrel and the stock to make a sawed off rifle.\u00a0 This chicanery allowed him to hide the gun from his parents and little brother.<\/p>\n In February 1960, a boy who had originally lived in the Lower East Side and had moved to Williamsburg, made it known he wanted to buy a rifle.\u00a0 Charlie decided to sell his for $10.\u00a0 He met with some Puerto Rican boys on South Third Street in Williamsburg, and showed off the firearm, but a sharp-eyed policeman from the 92nd Precinct who was on foot patrol noticed the boys.\u00a0 Charlie spotted the policeman eyeing him while he was standing on the corner and so he ducked into a hallway at 363 South Third Street to escape his attention.\u00a0 The policeman saw that Charlie, who was a stranger in the neighborhood, had something hidden under his jacket.<\/p>\n When the patrolman entered the hallway, several of the Puerto Rican youths ran out a rear hallway entrance. He cornered Charlie and searched him after a brief struggle to escape.\u00a0 The sawed-off .22 caliber long rifle with one shell in the chamber and four in an attached clip was found inside Charlie’s right pants leg.<\/p>\n Charlie admitted to the police he was trying to sell the rifle for $10, and although the gang name of the boys he was trying to sell it to wasn’t in the report, this was in the epicenter of Phantom Lord turf, an exceptionally active gang from Williamsburg.\u00a0 In all probability he was trying to sell the rifle to the Phantom Lords who, according to their prior reputation,\u00a0 wouldn’t hesitate to use it on enemy gangs in the area, namely the Puerto Rican Hell Burners or the Italian Jackson Gents.<\/p>\n Click here to find out about James Smith of the El Savons’ gang was arrested with a zip gun and how much he paid for a switchblade.<\/a><\/p>\n —<\/p>\n On February 23, 2018, my book on the Mau Maus and Sand Street Angels, who were two Brooklyn youth gangs from the 1950s, has been completed.\u00a0 It took 15 years of research and writing to complete Brooklyn Rumble: Mau Maus, Sand Street Angels, and the End of an Era.\u00a0 <\/em>This book is roughly 6\u2033x9\u2033 and has 370 pages and includes a look at the characters in the Mau Maus and the details of a gang killing that happened in February 1959 in front of the iconic Brooklyn Paramount Theater (now Long Island University).\u00a0 If you want to buy a copy, click here and this link will take you to an online ordering page<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Fighting gangs from New York City in the 1950s used so many different weapons, and for the first part of this article I want to zero in on zip guns, a weapon that every gang owned at least one of, … Continue reading <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>