Guns have been integral to our country since November 15, Why then? Of particular interest are the following:. Grover Cleveland owned a rare Model Damascus-barreled Colt 8-gauge shotgun. Theodore Roosevelt spoke softly and carried a big stick, and he practiced what he preached.
Enter his Frederick Adolph. The double rifle was originally commissioned by a wealthy Chicago businessman who drowned in while on an Alaskan hunt. Adolph presented the. Roosevelt never used the rifle in Africa, so the rifle sat on display at the original Abercrombie and Fitch in Manhattan. Dwight D. Eisenhower loved to play golf, but he was also an avid hunter and, in particular, a quail hunter.
John F. Kennedy was known for his sizable gun collection and enjoyment of shooting. Plus: A few photos of not-quite-presidents that are too good to not include.
Below, she checks her aim with her friend Nancy Cook. Vice President Joe Biden shoots to thrill, Years before his famous hunting accident , future Vice President Dick Cheney visits the shooting gallery at the Texas State Fair, Rick Perry gives it his best shot, Library of Congress.
Harry S. Truman Library and Museum. Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library and Museum. As it happens, a few Commanders in Chief were known to be packing during their time in office or at other points in their lives. Here are a few of them. George Washington was presented with a matched pair of saddle pistols, with Damascus steel barrels, by a young French soldier who had volunteered to fight on the American side during the Revolutionary War.
The soldier was Gilbert du Motier, the Marquis de Lafayette, later author of the "Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen," a highly influential political treatise on both American and French democracies. Washington carried these pistols and others; he had a few throughout the war and then for the rest of his life.
After his death, the guns eventually found their way into the collection of President Andrew Jackson, who gave them back to the Lafayette family. Thomas Jefferson believed in the freedom to bear arms, and was amply stocked. Among his collection was a matched pair of matchlock dueling pistols made by Honore Blanc, a French gunmaker who pioneered the idea of standardized parts. In that era, guns were often one-off affairs or were handmade; Blanc reasoned that consistency and better quality of product could be achieved by making the same parts and creating guns from them.
Jefferson advocated the same ideas to Eli Whitney - inventor of the cotton gin - who created the first modern factories. Mass production in America, therefore, was made possible in part by Jefferson's French dueling guns. He was also known to pack a matchlock pocket pistol.
In , Ulysses S. Andrew Jackson was one of the most colorful characters to ever inhabit the office. He was also a certified gun nut, with an extensive collection of long arms and pistols. This included numerous matched sets of dueling pistols. Including Washington's. His presidency featured one attempt on his life; both pistols of Richard Lawrence, the would be assassin, misfired. Jackson wasn't amused, and beat Lawrence with his cane until the nearby crowd restrained him. Lawrence was prosecuted by Francis Scott Key yep, the guy who wrote the national anthem and was found to be incompetent to stand trial, eventually dying in an insane asylum.
Jackson also killed one Charles Dickinson in a duel in Dickinson, a skilled shot, hit Jackson in the chest. The ball lodged in Jackson's lung, which he carried for the rest of his life. Jackson's shot also hit Dickinson in the chest, but proved fatal. Martin Van Buren, Vice President under Jackson and later elected president himself, also carried and bore.
Van Buren wore a brace of pistols while presiding over the Senate in case anything got out of hand. Theodore Roosevelt carried an FN M, or Model , in his pocket and when at home - it's not like they had holster mounts at the time - kept it in his nightstand.
TR being TR, a little ostentatiousness was requisite, so his wore mother-of-pearl grips. The Bull Moose was always packing The Model was a John Browning design, just like the , but was a purpose-built concealed carry pistol. It's striker-fired, so no hammer to worry about you silly fanboys didn't think Glock came up with that, did you? It was also the first semi-automatic pistol to employ a slide.
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