Role of firearms have played over the course of American History. Welcome to the nra National Firearms museum. Im jim supica, the museum director, we will take a look at the history of americans and their firearms. We will start with the earliest precolonial days and go up through current times. We will look at the role firearms have played in terms of the settlement and expansion of america. The role firearms have played in military and sporting and personal shooting rolls. We will see the guns of champions, the guns of president s and heroes and we will see some great pieces of art. Firearms engraving on a steel canvas. The National Firearms museum is at nra headquarters in fairfax virginia. The museum has existed itself for nearly 80 years and we have been in this location for about 15. We are custodians of about 7000 firearms that have been donated to us or lent to us over the past 75 years. We have about 3000 on display here and about 1000 more at the nra National Sporting arms museum in springfield missouri. What i want people to come away from the museum with, beyond wow that is a lot of cool guns which is very important to us, but it is in understanding of that unique relationship between americans and their firearms. And the very integral role the 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 Peterson gallery. Mr. Peterson was a magazine publisher and had one of the finest firearms collections in the country. What you see is the petersen gallery which has been called the finest single room firearms anywhere in the country. Out of the 2011 firearms mr. Petersen left, the museum picked what we could display which equals about 425 guns. Perhaps one of the finest that he donated was the grand royal when chester model 21. It is considered the finest when chester side by side shotgun ever manufactured. It was made for the owner of when chester at the time. Only 21 in existence and commemorates his favorite labrador retrievers, king buck. It is just a wonderful piece. In contrast to the traditional carved engraving is a relatively new style of engraving. This is called bully no engraving and it has only been widely done in the last 30 or 40 years. When i say widely done, there have been very few people who have mastered it. Instead of a three dimensional carving of steel, this type of engraving is actually done by hand pressing literally hundreds of thousands or even millions of tiny individual dots into the steele very indepth, angle and pressure and creating the incredible scenes you see on these shotguns. For example, this gargoyle scene off of the reverse side of this shotgun. It is all done with hand pressed dots. Any oakley can be considered to be the First American female superstar. She was in entertainer, she was discovered when frank butler, an exhibition shooter was traveling town to town. As an introduction to his show, he would challenge the best shooters of the town he went to to a shooting contest. This one town they want to, they brought out a 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. She became the star, little miss sure shot. Here we have a beautiful shotgun. It has an inlaid plaque on the side of it that says to any oakley from colonel cody, that is buffalo bill. We can guess with the occasion of this presentation might have been because at that time, annie was touring with the wild west show in london and europe and head run out of gunpowder for her shots shells. So buffalo bill lent her some of his gunpowder, it was a different type and blew up her shotgun. This may be a im sorry i blew up your shotgun gift from buffalo bill to annie oakley. In addition to some of the finest ingrained guns and the world are gambling guns. Invented by doctor richard gabbling of south carolina. He saw it as his contribution to mankind, not only the war effort. If he came up with a super weapon that could kill so effectively and rapidly, then people would cease to want to go to war against anyone that was armed against such a gun. So the gatling gun was a series of barrels that were aligned and allowed the operator to just crank the handle and fire the gun as quickly as they could rotate the handle or keep the gun fed. It was air cooled by the spinning of the barrels and mr. Petersen had a collection of ten of them that we have on display. Right now we are pretty certain that ten gatling guns on public exhibition is the largest collection of gatling guns in the world on public display. As we will see shortly, i gatling that literally wrote itself into the pages American History in 1888. We have one of my favorite artifacts in the museum in the petersen gallery. 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 first entry into the field of a worlds fair type of event. Countries were invent invited from all over the world and manufacturers were exhibiting their finest wears and age and our exhibited this beautiful cabinet which one and award at the fair to exhibit their room fire spur trigger revolvers. Showing the fancy 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 expedition. We do have some fascinating oddities and curiosities from the petersen collection and they are in this glass tabletop display case. The centerpiece here is a sundial gun. That served as a timepiece. You can load a blank powdered charge into the little cannon there and at just the magnifying glass so at a certain time of day, the charge would fire and you would know it was time for whatever event they were time for. You also have hear some of the early attempts at repeating firearms. There is an 18 shot pepper bomb revolver from the mid 1800s. There is a four barrels flint log which is arranged to where there are two barrels on top they can be fired and the entire cluster can be rotated to have two more shots. There is a harmonica style gun which was a early competitor for the revolver for repeating handguns. Instead of a rotating cylinder, there is a bar with successive charges in it that can be slid from one round to the next and successive shots if they 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 short here with a flat lock pistol mounted onto it. That was actually for bore hunting. It was tradition in europe to hunt the board with that type of long knife and the front locked pistol was attached to it for the coup de grace. A couple of odd looking guns here, this one with a giant the spring. This flint lock over here with the circular device on it are not actually guns, they are gunpowder testers. These were made to test the power of black powder that was made in individual batches and you had to be sure the deep our level of the powder was needed to much nor too little for its intended use. The museum is it open in 1998 features 15 different galleries exhibiting over 3000 firearms. We laid the galleries out in 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 and our own heritage. In this case, we have one of the oldest guns on display in america. One of the oldest guns in the world. It is called a hand cannon. It is a gigantic iron tube with a hole that runs from the muzzled to the breach with a perpendicular hole in the event where you can fire the gun. This was excavated from a sight at a castle in germany. It was thought to have been left there throughout the year 13 50 to 13 53. Not only one of the oldest guns in the world, the probably one of the oldest guns on display in america. One of the worlds first guns which in effect, were actually cannons. He was from the large that we move down to the shoulder size guns, and jim has a spectacular piece that not only is smaller, but displays the we la mechanism. Just as simple as the hand cannon was as phil showed you, a successor that followed soon after was complicated. When people ask me, what is in the nra museum . There are always two guns that i discuss as bookends that illustrate these type of guns we have. This is one of them. This is a well lock a complicated firearm. It came over on the mayflower with pilgrim john all done. 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 required from the ashes of the World Trade Center, and everything in between. As we said earlier, we try to design and build the museum with display cases, galleries that are evocative of the time during which the arms were used. Here we are in the colonial house. You might find at williamsburg. It tells the story of the early canal colonial period and the war of independence, 1775 to 1781. We are looking right now at a painting, which we actually had to go to London England to find. It is got it is one of the most beautifully rendered illustrated descriptions of the very first shots fired at lexington in the middle of april 1775. Along with the muskets that surround the painting, it tells the story of that very First Encounter with the british, let misty morning in april. It is a question that a lot of people have. I had as a little kid growing up. Why was it that when misty morning in april with 70 minutemen answer the call of paul revere a night before saying the british were coming, lined up on lexington green. He looked at his men and said, do not fired unless fired upon. But if they mean to have a war, let it begin here. Then 300 rate red coated british regulars under the charge of major john on the road from cambridge. A shot was fired. Why was it that morning was any different from the others . We do not find in the history books and high school or elementary school, is that general gauge commanded pit currents army regiment, had given him written orders that morning to go from cambridge to go to concord via lexington and remove all stance of muskets ammunition powder shot and artillery. They were after the guns that morning. That was the line and the sand. That was the point of no return. That is what started the war for independence, and that is what led america on its path that we still are traveling down in the day of freedom and liberty and how fire arms played that role and not only acquiring our liberty, but maintaining it ever since. When we are talking about purely american firearms and american innovations, we take a lot of different things. It can be brought to the table for conversation. One of the earliest is what we call the american long rifle. Sometimes its called a pennsylvania or kentucky. But immigrants from europe brought from all corners of europe, brought with them rifle making skills and began to set up shops in literally every colony and eventually every state and union and manufactured guns. You could look at these long rifles that we have arranged 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. They are very valuable just in their own rights today. Perhaps, one of the most historically significant guns in the collection in my opinion, is this wonderful little air rifle right here. Originally, the skin was designed by an italian for an Austrian Army to use against napoleon. It ended up in the hands of the core of discovery, the lewis and Clark Expedition of 19 oh 3 18 or three to 1806 as 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 attorney 39 separate entries. Each entries pretty much similar to the one before. He says something along the lines of, today, we met the man at the headwaters of the missouri river. I had the men parade before them and their class a uniform, ordered the on casing and unfurling of the regimental and national colors. We walked in under fight and drum. I introduced myself and the men to the chief tons of the tribe, presented the presence of points in the lightness of jefferson back in washington. Two hands clasped into friendship. Then i demonstrated the air rifle, to which they all found to be of wonderment and amazement. There 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 indians to gain access to the to know how much he had in the ways of supplies and provisions for armor. When indians saw this repeating rifle, firing great at curious accuracy with effect and power, almost unending lee fire, they were amazed. Nobody had ever seen anything like that. They were very cordial. It was their one or 39 of them . It was kind of the idea of peace through the perception of superior firepower. It is what led the 39 members of the court of discovery from st. Louis to the cascades and the Pacific Ocean and those three years without having been overwhelmed, attacked and wiped out by any of the bands of native americans in the western prairies. 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 changed from kentucky tennessee and ohio, to the great plains of the rocky mountains, a different type of rifle was needed and that is when we see the introduction of the plains rifle. 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. This is where the hockey and brothers had their rifle shop. They created the planes rifle which was a shorter barrel and a larger caliber to deal with the larger game of the American West. The bison elk and big bears. It was a handier length. Could be carried easier on horseback. This represents the hawken shop. This gentleman is rifling the barrel. Cutting grooves in it to put a spin on the bullet to increase range and accuracy. He will walk back and forth 20 miles to rifle a single barrel. In the early 1800s, one of the main focuses of effort and firearms design was to try to develop and effective repeating rifle. Sam cole is the guy who 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 a revolving Cylinder Holding five rounds that could be advanced as fast as you concoct the hammer and pull the trigger. He was looking for financial backing for his new invention. Demonstrating into his father to try and get the financial backing, but it said that the revolver blew up while he was demonstrating it with, which discouraged the financial backing. It is said that colt went back to doing a number of things to earn his living, others report that he would tore county fairs dressed in a turban building himself as doctor kolkata, demonstrating nitrous oxide to the crowds. Eventually, he got back into 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 trigger that knocks down when the hammer is cocked. They also were a miserable failure. He had gone out of business, given up on these, but a man of the u. S. Mounted rifle 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 cold and asked him to make 1000 of these for sale to the government, they needed to be bigger, heavier and more powerful. His name was sam walker. And this cold became known as the walker model. It was a big, heavy revolver, pushing almost five pounds in weight. It took a very heavy powder charge, too heavy at the time. Out of the 1100 of these that were made, only 10 survived and a number of those are found with crafter broken cylinders. He shortened the cylinder, came out with this model and from that point on the cold Firearms Manufacturing Company was off on a road to success and established itself as an iconic american fight firearms manufacture. This crazy little room contraption is was designed by thomas and installed in the Springfield Army massachusetts in the early 1800s. This is one of the first machines that started the American Industrial movement, the Industrial Revolution. It is a stop making machine. It works just like you would copy a key at a Hardware Store today. This was just the beginning of interchangeable and mass produced parts. We see this in the gun industry. We do not see this in any of the other industries burgeoning in america, especially in new england, generally during the early 1800s, but it really manifests itself with this rifle right here. A hauls breach loader. Right here in virginia, what is now west virginia. The halls becomes not only one of the First Military adopted breach loading firearms of the United States, but it also is one of the first guns to begin the use of Manufacturing Processes that see the development of interchangeability of parts and yes, eventually Assembly Line productio