Did you know that the stormtroopers in the epic film Star Wars were mostly left handed? That is because of how the weapons are constructed. Their weapons are based on a real weapon, essentially the Sterling L2A3 9mm SMG (sub-machine gun) a military weapon developed in the late 1940s in the UK and adopted by the British and Canadian Armies in the 1950s. The magazine is on the left-hand side of the stormtroopers weapons. This construction caused it to hit the stormtroopers in the chest. Therefore they have to switch grip of the weapon, which made them look like left handed stormtroopers. The curved left entry side mounted magazine was removed and replaced with a much smaller version, and that was as much as it was modified for the film.