Transcripts For CSPAN3 American Artifacts National Firearms Museum 20240712

Visit to the nras National Firearms museum in fairfax, virginia to see its collection of guns and learn about the role firearms have played over the course of American History. Welcome to the nra National Firearms museum, im jim supica Museum Director. We are going to go through the museum, take a look at the history of americans and the firearms. We will start with the earliest precolonial days go up to current times and will look at the role firearms have played in terms of the settlement and expansion of america, the rose firearms have played in military and the sporting and personal shooting rolls. Well see the guns of champions, the guns of president s and heroes and will see some great pieces of art, firearms engraving on a steel canvas. The National Firearms museum is at nra headquarter in fairfax, virginia. Now the museum has existed itself for nearly 80 years and we have been in this location for about 15. Were custodians of about 7,000 firearms that have been donated or lent to it us for 75 years. We have about 3000 on display here in about 1000 more at the nra National Sporting arms missouri in springfield, missouri. What i want people to come away with the museum with, beyond the wow thats a lot of cool guns, but its an understanding of that unique relationship between americans and their firearms and the very integral role that firearms have played in the history of america. We have Phil Schreier senior curator. Here at the National Firearms museum and we are starting in the robert e. Peterson gallery. Mr. Peterson was a magazine publisher and had one of the finest, if not the finest firearms collection in the country. What you see is the peterson gallery, which has been called the finest single room of firearms anywhere in the country. Out of the 2011 firearms that mr. Peterson left, the museum, as jim said, picked what we can display in equaled above 425 guns. Perhaps one of the finest that he donated was the grand royal wind chester model 20 once considered the finest wind chester side by side shotgun every manufactured. It was made for john am all in a villain industries, which owned when chester western at the time. Its the finest engraved in late 21 existence and it commemorates mr. Owens favorite laboratory retriever, king buck. Its just a wonderful piece. In contrast to the traditional carving graving is a relatively new style of engraving. Now this is called the lino engraving, its only been widely done in the last 30 or 40 years and when i say widely done, its been very few people who have mastered it. Instead of a three dimensional carving of this steele, this type of engraving is actually done by hand prize seeing literally hundreds of thousands or even millions of tiny individual docks into the steel varying indepth angle and pressure and creating the incredible scenes that you see on these shotguns for example, this gargoyles scene off the riverside of this regime shotgun. Thats all done with hand pressed docks in the bolinas style. Any oakley can be considered the First American female superstar. She was an entertainer, she was discovered one frank butler, an exhibition shooter, was traveling town to town and hed always do some introduction to the show and challenge the best shooters of the town he went through to a shooting contest. One town they went to they bought out this 15 Year Old Girl and she shot side by side and actually beat him. He came back a year later, married her and from then on they traveled as exhibition shooters and any became the star of little miss sure shot. Here we have a beautiful shot gone. It has a plaque on the side of it that says, to any oakley, little messy, from colonel william f. Cody. Of course that buffalo bill. From the date in the location of this, london 1890, we can guess what the occasion of this presentation might have been because at that time, and he was touring with the wild west show in london and europe and she had run out of gunpowder for her shots shelves so buffalo bill lent her some of his gunpowder. Well, it was a different type and it blew up her shotgun. So this may have been, im sorry i blew up your shotgun gift from buffalo bill to any oakley. One of mr. Petersons interests in addition to the finest engraved guns made anywhere in the world, our cutting guns. Designed, invented by doctor Richard Jordan get lee back in 1861. He kind of saw it as a contribution to mankind not only just to the war effort but to mankind. If he came up with the super weapon that could kill so effectively, so rapidly in people would just cease to want to go to war against anybody that was armed with such again. The get lean gun was a series of barrels that were aligned and allowed the user the operator to just handle and fire the gun just as fast as they could rotate that handler keep the gun fed. It was air cold by the spinning of the multiple barrels and minister peterson had a collection of ten of them that we have on display in right now we are pretty certain that ten gatling guns is the largest collection of gatling guns anywhere in the world in public display and as we will see very shortly a gatling gun that literally wrote itself into the pages of American History on july 1st, 1898. The peterson gallery we have one of my favorite artifacts in the museum. This particular exhibit is by harrington and richardson. It was made in 1876 for the philadelphia centennial exposition. This was considered by many to sort of be americas forced entry into the field of a worlds fair type of event. Countries were invited from all over the world, manufacturers were exhibiting their finest layers and 8chan are put together this beautiful exhibit cabinet would won an award at the affair to exhibit their product a line of rim fire, spur trigger revolvers from the very fanciest finishes they could apply to it. This particular piece not only has these wonderful little decorated revolvers in it, but it is also the only surviving exhibit that is still intact from that 1876 philadelphia centennial exposition. We do have some fascinating oddities, curios, curiosities from the peterson collection and they are in this glass tabletop display case. The centerpiece here is a sundial gun. That served as a time please. You could load a blank powdered charge into the little can in there and adjust a magnifying glass so that a certain time of day, that charge would fire, youd hear that, you know it would be time to go back to the house for lunch or whatever event they were times for. You also have it here, some of the early attempts at repeating firearms. There is an 18 shot pepper box revolver from the mid 1800s here. There is a four barrel flint lock thats arranged to where there are two barrels on top that can be fired and then the entire cluster can be rotated to have more shots. There is a harmonica style gun, which was an early competitor for the revolver for repeating handguns were instead of a rotating cylinder there is a bar with successive charges in it that can be slid from one round to the next as successive shots are needed. There are a number of firearms incorporating blades including this beautiful gold plated double barreled pistol here with the ivory grips that came out of russian royalty, a nephew of the czar. There is a long knife or short sword here with the flint a lock pistol mounted on it. That was actually for bore hunting. It was tradition in europe to hunt the bore with that type of long knife and the flint lock pistol was attached to it for the coup de grace. A couple of odd looking guns here. This one with the giant v. Spring and the flat lock over here with the circular device on it are not actually guns, they are gun powder testers. These were made to test the power of black powder that was made an individual batches and you had to be sure that the powder level of the powder was neither too much nor too little for its intended use. The museum as it opened in 1998 features 15 different galleries exhibiting over 3000 firearms. We laid the galleries out in kind of a Chronological Order so that the average visitor could come through and see the whole development, evolution of firearms and how it apply to American History in our own heritage. In this case, we have actually one of the oldest guns on display in america, one of the oldest guns in the world actually, its called a hand cannon. Its just a gigantic iron tube with a poll that runs from the muzzle to the breach and little perpendicular where you can prime and fire the gun. This was excavated from a site and a castle in canada bird germany in it was there in the year 13, 50 15 53. Not only is it the oldest gun in the world, its probably one of the oldest guns on display in america and its one of the worlds first guns, which, in effect were actually from the law that we moved down to the shoulder size. Jim has a spectacular piece that not only is smaller but displays the wheel lock mechanism. Well just as simple as the hand cannon was that phil just showed you, a successor that fall soon after was complicated. When people ask me what is in the nra museum, there is always two guns that i discuss as bookends that illustrate the span of the guns that we have here. This is one of them. This is a real lock, a very complicated firearm. They came over on the mayflower with pilgrim john aldrin. When i explain what we have in the museum, i say we go from one of the very first firearms on the northeastern American Continent and we go through to a revolver that was recovered from the ashes of the World Trade Center and everything in between. As we said early, we try to design and build the museum with display cases, galleries, that were evocative of the time period in which the arms were used. Here we are used in our colonial house, something that you would find in williamsburg attempting to find the story and the early colonial period and the war of independence, 1775 to 1781. We are looking right now add a painting, which we actually had to go to London England to find. Its call a shot heard round the world and its one of the most beautifully rendered illustrate of discussions of the very first shots shot at lexington dream in the morning of april 19, 1775. Along with the flint lock rifles and muskets that surround the painting, this kind of tells the story of that very First Encounter with the british that misty morning in april. The question that a lot of people have that i have is that one saying that the british were coming and lined up on Lexington Green and captain parker looked at his man and said, dont fire on this fire upon, but if they need to have a war, let it begin here. In 300 red coated british regulars under the charge of mayor john came from the word of cambridge, those shot was fired and the American Revolution began. Why wasnt that morning any different from any of the others . The truth that we dont find in the history books in high school or Elementary School is that general gauge, commanding pit cards Army Regiment given him written orders that morning to go from cambridge to this place, concord via lexington and remove all stems of muskets, ammunition, powder, shot and ill tell hurry. They were after guns that morning. That was the line in the sand. That was the point of no return. Thats what started the war for independence and thats what led america on its path that we still are traveling down the day of freedom and liberty and how firearms play that role in not only acquiring our liberty but maintaining it ever since. When were talking about purely american firearms and american innovations, we take a lot of Different Things and can be brought to the table for conversation. One of the earliest is what we now call the american long rival, its uncoiled a pennsylvania kentucky but truly its american long rifle because immigrants from europe brought from all corners of europe, brought them rifle making skills and began to set up shops in literally every colony and eventually every state in union and manufactured guns. You can look at these long rifles that we have right here and just by looking at the curvature of the stock, tell exactly what county and what state these long rifles are from. They are truly works of american folk art and are very valuable just in that their own right today. Perhaps one of the most historically significant guns in the collection, in my opinion, is this wonderful little air rifle right here. Originally, this gun was designed by an italian for the Austrian Army to use against napoleon. How one ended up in the hands of the court of discovery or what we saw the loosened clock exposition from 1803 to 1806 is a mystery, but we do know they had a gun very similar to this one right here. The reason why we play so much historical value on this particular firearm is because in the journals of the lewis and clark expedition, lewis writes about this gun not once but 39 separate entries and each entry is pretty much similar to the one before. He says something along the lines of today we met the men dans. One of the encasing and the unfurling of the regimental national colors. We walked in under five and drum. I introduced myself and the meant to the chief tins of the tribe. Presented them coins bearing the likeness of jefferson back in washington. In two hands, collapsed in friendship, but then i demonstrated the air rifle. To which they all found to be a wonderment and amazement. That is the key, every single time he meets a new tribe of indians, he demonstrates the air rifle. We also have to read into this that never during the trip did he ever allow the indians to actually gain access to the or know how many he had in the way of supplies, provision or armor men. The indians, when they saw this literally almost a repeating rifle, fire great accuracy with tremendous effect and power almost and and in lee fire, they were amazed. Nobody had ever seen anything like that. They were very cordial, not knowing whether there was just one of these guns or 39 of them. It was kind of the idea of peace through the perception of superior firepower and its what led to 39 members of the core of discovery from st. Louis to the cascades and the Pacific Ocean in those three years and back without having been overwhelmed and attacked and wiped out by any of the bands of native americans in the western plains. This air rifle was able to present such intimidation that they were happy to be hosts and to move them on to the next tribe to the west. The kentucky rifle was the first Truly American rifle. The american long rifle, it was perfect for the woods of the eastern u. S. As the American West change from kentucky, tennessee and ohio to the great plains and the rocky mountains, a different type of rifle was needed and thats where we see the introduction of the plains rifle. Now, this time, st. Louis was the gateway to the west and this is where a lot of the trappers and pilgrims and settlers would buy their supplies to make the trip and this is where the hop and brothers had the rifle shop. They created the planes rifle, which was a shorter barrel. It was a larger caliber than the american long rifle to deal with a larger game in the American West, bison, elk, the big bears. It was a handier length to be carried easier on horseback. This represents the hawker shop. This gentleman is rifling the barreled to put a spin that will increase its range and accuracy. Hell walk back and forth 20 miles to rifle a single barrel. In the early 1800s, one of the main focuses of effort in firearms design was to try to develop an effective repeating rifle and sam colt is the guy who really came up with the first widely adopted repeating firearm, but it was not success at first try. It was a matter of try, try again. He created a revolver with the revolving cylinder of holding five rounds that could be advanced as fast as you can hawk the hammered pull the trigger. He was looking for financial backing for his New Invention demonstrating it to his father to try to get the financial backing but it said that the revolver blew up while he was demonstrating it, which discourage the financial backing. Now it said that cold went back to doing a number of things to earn his living. There is a report that he would tour county fairs dressed in a turban building himself as doctor colt of kolkata, demonstrating nitrous oxide to the crowds. Eventually he got back to the Manufacturing Business and patterson, new jersey and came up with these, what are now called colt patterson revolvers. They look unusual to us, they have a folding triggered that drops down where that hammer is cocked. They also were a miserable failure. He had gone out of business, given up on these but a man in the u. S. Who had served as a texas ranger had used these revolvers in texas and felt they were exactly what the military needed for the wars and skirmishes along the texas mexico border. He came back to colt and ask him to make 1000 of these and southern to the government and needed to be bigger, heavier and more powerful. His name was sam walker and this colt became known as the walker model. As you can see, it was a big heavy revolver pushing almost five pounds in weight. It took a very heavy powder charge. Two powerful for the meddlers at the time and out of the 11 hundreds of these that are made only about 10 to survive and a number of those are found with cracked or broken cylinders. He shorn the cylinder, came out with a goon model and from that point on the Colt Firearms Manufacturing Company was off on a road to success and establish itself as an iconic american firearms manufacturer. This crazy little contraption is a lathe that was designed by thomas blind shirt and installed in the Springfield Armory in massachusetts in the early 1800s. This is one of the first machines that started the American Industrial movement, the Industrial Revolution. Its a stop making machine in a works just like you would copy a key at a Hardware Store today. This is the beginning of interchangeable and mass produced parts. We see this in the gun industry. We dont see this in any of the other industries burgeoning in america and especially in new england during the 1800s. It really manifested itself with this rifle right here. A hauls breach loader made right here in virginia, what is now unfortunately West Virginia up at Harpers Ferry. The halls becomes not only one of the First Military adopted preached floating firearms in the United States, but it also is one of the first guns to begin the use of manufacturing process is that see the development of interchange ability of parts and yes, eventually Assembly Line production. So that one colt got that letter jim was talking about from sam walker, the texas ranger, asking for thousand guns which he didnt even have a factory to make them in, he turn to the one guy in new england that could do something about it, eli whitney junior. The son of the gentleman who invented the cotton gin. Whitney had a factory north of new haven, connecticut and he was able to turn out all 1000 colt walker pistols for the u. S. Government and a six month period of time because he used every single part on this into change a biloxi, this mass production part not only for the wood but for the medal as well. That is really where the Industrial Revolution begins in this country and spreads to the rest of the world. Samuel colt takes nine single action 1851 model Navy Revolvers to the Crystal Palace in london in 1851 and displays them before Prince Albert and the rest of the attending audience was absolutely a gas, shocked really, to see nine guns being torn apart, reassemble without any care to the gun that they previously came from. Everything up until this time had been hand fitted in file. Now you can have something roll off a machine, make dozens of them per hour or what and have quite a stop at the end of the day. In the past these things would take weeks, if not months to manufacture. In december of 1970 Franklin Roosevelt tells the nation that the dark storm clouds and have broken over europe are going to soon dark in our shores. All of our present efforts, we must have more ships, more guns, more planes, more of everything. We must be the great arsenal of democracy. For us, this is an emergency as serious as wart self. Now america must become the arsenal of democracy, he says. A year before pearl harbor, not only do we make 5 million am one grants, 5 million colt nine a one revolvers and thats just a firearms. We make enough to arm in a quid the 16 million men and women we put in uniform and millions of our allies to defeat fascism in europe in 1945 and in the South Pacific as well. It was this Industrial Revolution and that gives us the capability to almost a century later maintain the freedom that americans have so fought for in the intervening years. Now, on american artifacts, the second part of our visit to the nras National Firearms museum in fairfax, virginia. We join Museum Director jim supica in the civil war gallery. We are entering the civil war galleries of the National Firearms museum. On my left, represents the union and on my rights, the confederacy. This first exhibit case weve seen numerous examples of the carving that the union was using. This was a time of rapid advance and firearms design going from the traditional muzzle loaders to breach floaters, eventually to repeating rifles. One of the most interesting and historic firearms in this case is this little car being. Its a slant reach sharps and its one of the actual sharps car beams that john brown used in his raid on Harpers Ferry. One of the events that initiated the civil war. This exhibit illustrates the manufacturing might of the north, where they could turn out thousands and hundreds of thousands of well fitted, well manufactured firearms are ready to go to work. In the back you see a barrel rifling, that was used by smith and western from the civil war clear up of the time to world war ii. This manufacturing capability was certainly one of the north s strength in the civil war. The south on the other hand did not have the industrial my that the north had. As we talked earlier, the new england and Connecticut River valley was balm of dozens of gun manufacturing, in fact, in 1861 model springfield, so many were needed by the union army at one time that 33 different manufacturers returning out the identical same rifle for approaches for the u. S. Army. The confederates were left up to their own to procure and manufacture firearms and a few places Harpers Ferry virginia where they actually had possession of it. Richmond had a factory down along the james river and a few down the north carolina, georgian, texas. They could hardly supply the needs of the confederacy. They got most of their guns either from being captured in battle from the yankees or imported from overseas. In fact, the finest infantry rifle in the world in 1861 was the british and field and the confederate bought a quarter of 1 million of them. They were by far the most favored long arms of the civil war era. At the end of the day, when the war came to a conclusion in 1865, generally wrote general order saying after four years of service, on surpassed by courage and fortitude, the army north of virginia has been compelled and yield over resources. The war could have gone on for literally years and asked his man to take to the mountains and conduct a Guerrilla Campaign but it came to its conclusion after lee wrote those orders and after the many victory parades and testimonials, a number of Union Officers got together and tried to evaluate what exactly had happened during those four years. Once the numbers were being crunched, which took a long time to actually evaluate, there were over 650,000 casualties in the american civil war. When you look at outright dead in the battlefield at the end of the battle, there were 75,000 confederates and 150,000 dead union soldiers, thats gunshot artillery bayonet wounds on the battlefield. Two to one, yankees over confederate in that regard. By 1871, a lot of officers were beginning to realize that it was a near run thing winning that war. The confederates had been resourced on every single level except for accuracy and marksmanship and there they held a two to one advantage over the north. So they felt if the National Emergency ever came about again, there was a need to increase the marksmanship skills of the standing army. Not only would that pay dividends on the battlefield with marksmanship, but it also cuts down on the amount of training and time needed to doctrine eight soldiers into marching ship. If we had a nation of riflemen, we would stand a better chance to survive the next National Emergency. Many years before clemons issued his wonderful novel, tom soy are , where tom encourages his friends to find the fun, the gentleman that form the National Rifle association of america in 1871 felt that we could increase marksmanship by making it a competition out of it. They organize the association to promote the branches of the Armed Services and also within civilian shooting clubs throughout the country. If we make this a combination, we make marksmanship a skill, itll be something that a lot of people want to participate in. By 1876, shooting competitions where the largest spectators forward in the history of the country to that time and that was the birth of the National Rifle association and to the state remains one of our primary aims and objectives to promote marksmanship throughout not only on forces but the civilian populace as well. We move into the gallery showing the firearms of the American West. On the far side of this cabinet we have the guns that are traditionally thought of as the guns that won the west, the wind chester rivaling rifles and the colt revolvers along with other colts. The colts in with chester werent the only guns in the American West. On this side of the case we see the edge of the manufacture that played a significant role, the Whitney Kennedy and marland rifles. The ramming ten handguns, certainly the ramming ton single shot rifle. Rolling block played a major role with the buffalo hunters along with the charge but also the smith and western revolvers. Is not often recognize that in the period from 1870 to the turn of the century, smith and weston was actually turning out even more revolvers than cold was at the time. Both were very popular but there are also numerous examples used in the west. Theyre more win hubert and the other manufacturers were well represented. Our newest exhibit added the National Firearms museum is a set of artifacts very proud to have on loan from cycle more hill, Theodore Roosevelts home place. Its currently undergoing a complete restoration. While they are working on that, they lend to us the firearms and numerous other artifacts from roosevelts home. It is going to show you a little bit more of what we got from the National Parks service in sag more hail. Back when the museum is being designed in the mid 90s, we want to take a corner of the museum and focus on the life of Theodore Roosevelt, were 26 chief executives was an outdoorsman conservationist and we felt as our like members the nra as well, that we ought to put a little tribute to him together here. We decided to replicate the library from sagamore hail almost on a one to one scale. His daughter, ethel said that library was not hard to meet of the house. It is where the roosevelt family gathered every evening to read to each other and to tell each other stories of the day. Where theodore had barrister cases of books against the wall, we traded those in four gun cases. These are real gun cases on the fourth floor study of the house but it was this room, the library, that was literally the oval office in the summer white house in 1902 to 19 oh wait. Out of the 10,000 artifacts at sagamore hill, we are very fortunate to have 115 original priceless treasures from Theodore Roosevelt home on display here. This is the working desk of the president from 1902 trying tina white. From his African Safari of 1909 in 1910. Seen with one of the seven lions that he shot. The rhinoceros horn. The safari was not just for trophies, to decorate his house. It was done under the auspices of the smithsonian institution, and museum of natural history. My favorite piece is the gambling gun. You see this model. Here 1895. This is one of four guns, that actually accompanied him to cuba. One of the most important guns, in the military history is here, and its lost for over 114 years. The first machine gun ever used by the United States army in military combat. It is an 1895, automatic rifle. It was called the potato bigger. A seven millimeter mueller. This case, the specific gun was donated by louisa and civil cain, the sisters of woodbury cain. They happen to be the granddaughters of john jacob faster. They gave their older brother, the first machine gun ever used in military combat by the United States army. And this we are very fortunate to have on display, the Brooks Brothers tunic, a stetson hat and cavalry saver. Its interesting to know that when a United States president leaves the white house, he is referred to as mr. President for the rest of his life. There are two exceptions. Generalize and how are, he requested to be called general eisenhower until his death. And one one of the reporters was gathering roosevelts baggage in may of 1909, when he was leaving to go to sag more here hill. And he said we will miss you mister president. And he said no howard taft is your president , i am now just colonel roosevelt. And that is the way he stayed for the rest of his life. He preferred to be remembered as a colonel commanding the first regiment called the rough riders. Its a wonderful opportunity for the National Fire arms museum to be the custodian of these treasures. In fact a number of firearms, that his six children enjoyed using, his son theater junior. And second son kermit. Major in the British Expeditionary forces. And the United States and world war one and world war ii. Died in alaska 1943. Sun number three archie roosevelt, was given 100 disability from wounds received twice. The only soldier in American History, to received 100 disabilities in both world war ii one and world war ii. And the youngest clinton roosevelt, a pilot for that he was shot down by the germans in 1918. The perhaps one of my favorite stories is of this wind chester model, if you look closely, theres a silencer on the end of that. The president s third son, and his father like to take it out across the state early in the morning, and dealing with farm its with it. You can imagine someone today strolling across the lawn with a silencer on a rifle, it was quite a difference the hundred years has made. It is hard to think of a better transitional figure, from the 19th century to the 20th century, and we move in to the gallery covering the 20th century here, with a focus on the evolution of the rifle. It began in the latter part of the 19th century. The Mueller Brothers use this, to develop their full action rifle. And we pay homage here to other fame are famous firearms designers. And john moses browning, the greatest firearms designer that ever lived. More to a modernday designer, william roger. And his first inventions shown at the top here. This is a lever action rifle. You could turn into a semi automatic rifle. When he went seeking a job at the armory, instead of a resume he brought in this rifle and was hired on the spot. One of the great leaps forward in the design an evolution of firearms, happened in the 18 eighties. When we moved from black powder, to smokeless powder. At this point you usually would put the powder down the muzzle, at that was black powder. Left a residue called fouling in the barrel. It would restrict sometimes the barrel. And the breach loaders were so important, and with breach floating arms smoke list powder let you fire more rapidly, because the gun wasnt backed up with that fouling residue. I remember that someone was living at they would allow you to fire any jack and reload easier. These arms go from 1202 rounds a minute. With the development of smoke with powder, america found itself involved in the first world war, in april 1917, with new types of firearms that they had never before used. By the second world war, the efforts of john c grand in the Springfield Armory, the rand rifle, was the only semi automatic infantry rifle that was standard issue to the military in any country in world war ii. The United States armed all of our guys, with the am one rifle. Weve having 5 million of them during the war. Pat and called it the best rifle ever devised. It played a key factor in our victory over fascism. Were moving into the galleries that show firearms of the competition. Starting with the shotguns, that are used in traps, and sporting clays, moving to the firearms of the olympic competitions, including a number of guns that have won gold medals for the u. S. In the land picks, and gold medals that were one with them. We are into some of the finance specks of this, and you look at this kid room, its not what i wanted it to look like, i had the clean skin cap and the bedspread, but i wanted the covered wagon nightlife, but she was sure the night light would set the house on fire. We have the original coney island shooting gallery. This was established early in the 20th century, and has gone from steam power, to electric power. This is one of the most popular galleries in the National Firearms Everybody Loves movies and in here we have over 120 guns from 80 years of hollywood films beginning with the very first revolver that was used by john wayne in his first credit and rolled and going through modern oscar winner such as the hurt locker and no country for old men. There are classics here like the leverage action rifle used by john wayne in stagecoach and true grip and dirty harrys model 29th smith and weston 44 magnum revolver. When you talk about famous movie lines, a famous lines in movies, go ahead make my day. That 44 magnum is probably the most widely recognized firearm on earth. Certainly made extremely popular by a whole series of dirty harry films as some of the firearms, like the one you see in front of it, are just rubber dummy guns. These are the guns that you see falling down the stairs being thrown into the river, great sound editing helps make that sound like those are actually metal and wood hitting the cobblestones. All of these guns are really firearms manufactured by walter cold smith and west and so there are a lot of great pieces, Bruce Wilson Mel Gibson both used the same and die hard and in lethal weapon. We have one of the prop guns made out of rubber from star wars. Tom salika is a very generous benefactor to the museum. Not only his latest guns from his personal collection but guns that he used in a number of his films like quickly down under, cross fire trail. We have three of the guns that he had made his commemoratives from because of his magnum pei series. Again, a gatling gun, this particular one was used in 1939 carry, grandstand jaffrey film. Of course, next to that is a original not volleyed on that was used by richard with mark in the movie the alamo with john wayne back in 1960. One of my favorite westerns of all time is the wild one , wonderful western starring Robert Reiner and the cast of characters goes on and on. Truly one of the real stars is this browning water cool felt machine gun. In fact, pack and paul went through a quarter of 1,000,030 odd six blanks using this gun in the final scene of the great shoot at the mexican general apaches headquarter south of the border. If you look at the animal box here you can still see some of the fake blood splatter for morneaus and ben johnson. That splashed up on the animal boxes during that final scene. Theres a kind of postings out with a hollywood gun, for some of that grew up in a house that was in firearms friendly as a kid, there were no guns in the house, it was through the movies and televisions that i gain my love and admiration of firearms, what they meant to American History especially all the military and cowboy films also numbered with. This helps establish a connection we grew up admiring, most of us before we had an opportunity to handle or fire real firearm of our own. In a hunting galleries of the National Firearms museum, we have our largest rifle and our largest shotgun. The rifle on exhibit is a four bore rifle, now that is a rifle that throws a quarter pound of lead with each shot. This particular rifle was used by stanley on the expedition to find doctor livingston in africa. Across from it, we have the shotgun exhibit and on the bottom of this display case is a massive shotgun. Now this was a punt gun, this was not fired from the shoulder, this was praised in a small boat and it would be loaded with up to a pound of alleged shot and it was used for market hunting. It would be used to harvest up to 100 waterfalls for a single shot. As america became more aware the needs of conservation, this type of firearm was banned but for a number of years in the 1800s, this type of gun would provide water fowl for sale, to markets and to restaurants. One of the last galleries in National Firearms museum is dedicated to Law Enforcement and its here that we have the other gun that i believe brackets or firearms stories here at the museum. This is far from one of the most impressive guns to initially look at. Its very beaten up, finishes for a top of it and the steel is twisted. But this is a gun that is carried into the World Trade Center by new York Police Officer Walter Weaver on september 11th, 2001. Officer weaver never came out, but the revolver was recovered from the ashes. He had been a very strong supporter of the nra. And enthusiastic member. His family wanted us to have it, and displayed here. We display it with great pride in a place of honor. As a reminder of those who put their lives on the line to serve and protect. This is the story of america and their guns, that we brought you here with a newfound appreciation and understanding of the role of firearms that they play throughout our nations history. The firearms led the industrial growth of our country. It was the ability to create firearms and a mass scale, that allowed us to manufacture anything at all during world war ii, and to help stop fascism in its tracks. It played a huge role in the development of the nation, and teaching men women and children have to shoot to defeat themselves. So the nation would be better on the field of battle as well. It is a seminal part of our American History. Tonight on American History tv beginning at eight eastern a look at why june is lgbtq pride month. All right how we all doing today. Welcome to class. Today we have a special lecture here, doctor jeff, you may have a class with him, he is the chair of the history and Political Science here at the