Presidents and firearms

Coyote3855 said:

First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt reportedly carried a revolver when traveling. I know she wasn't a president and perhaps not an enthusiast, but an interesting tidbit.

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Tommygunn said:

The Spencer was called the "horizontal shot tower" and the Henry was "the damn Yankee rifle that could be loaded on Sunday and fired all week," a statement made by the Confederate Guerilla leader Mosby.

The Spencer was certainly issued officially ..... Brevet Major General George Armstrong Custer's cavalry regiment were issued Spencer rifles, then carbines as they became available. In fact, after the Civil War, Custer's 7th Cavalry was issued Spencers up until @1873 when the myopic army replaced them with single-shot Springfield Trapdoors.

A book I recently obtained, THE FIRST WINCHESTER, details the use of the Henry Rifle in the Civil War. Included are several photos of some of those rifles, notable because their owner's name was either embossed on the receiver (usually an officer) or even scratched on non-professionally, often an enlistee. These men purchased their own Henry rifles, and apparently had a very high regard for them.

The Henry served well, but the Spencer was a more robust design, even though it held half the rounds the Henry did and required manually cocking in addition to cycling the lever.
I once had the opportunity to examine a Spencer that was owned by former Confederate General "Fighting" Joe Wheeler, who rejoined the U.S. Army after the war.

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DocRock said:

What is it with the Henry propagandists?

They attempt to steal the Confederate quote about the 7 shot Spencer rifle that damn Yankees "load on Sunday and shoot all week". And they attempt to supplant the Spencer as the rifle Lincoln personally shot on the White House lawn. The Spencer was purchased by the Union government and issued to troops and was actually used in combat on several occasions. The Henry was never purchased by the federal government, was issued in limited numbers to state raised troops and in private purchases, and saw very limited combat use in the Civil War.



https://the-american-catholic.com/2...-christopher-spencer-shows-lincoln-his-rifle/

How times have changed! On August 18, 1863, Christopher Spencer, inventor of the revolutionary Spencer repeating rifle, was able to walk into the White House and show one of his rifles to President Lincoln.


The concept of a repeating rifle was not new, and examples of such weapons had been produced since at least 1779. However, teething problems with the new technology made them impracticable as mass weapons until shortly before the Civil War. Benjamin Tyler Henry developed the famed Henry repeating rifle in 1860. Although never officially adopted by the Union army, this rifle was highly thought of enough by Union cavalry troopers that thousands of them purchased them privately, and they were equally prized when captured by Confederate troopers. The rifle could fire off 28 rounds per minute, compared to a rifled musket that could barely manage three rounds per minute under ideal conditions.


The Spencer repeating rifle was developed by Christopher Spencer in 1860. A seven shot weapon, it could manage 20 shots a minute and proved durable under battlefield conditions. By the end of the War, most Union cavalry and mounted infantry units had Spencers and their firepower was often devastatingly effective on the battlefield.
War department conservatism is often blamed for the fact that the Spencers were not more widely used during the War, especially by the infantry, but the truth is that the ability to supply Spencers to replace all of the Union rifles and rifled muskets simply did not exist during the War, and supplying the ones that could be manufactured to units cavalry and mounted infantry was a wise choice since they greatly magnified the combat power of the most mobile forces that the Union had.


Spencer’s meeting with Lincoln was the result of Lincoln’s test firing in July of 1863 of two Spencers that had been marred by technical difficulties. Spencer, a consummate salesman, wanted to remove any concerns that Lincoln had about the reliability of the Spencers. After their meeting, during which Spencer stripped one of his rifles down to its component parts, Lincoln agreed to participate in a firing of a Spencer on August 19, 1863. The test firing was so satisfactory, that Lincoln had another test firing the next day on August 20, 1863, inviting John Hay, one of his two secretaries, to participate. Hay was enthusiastic for the weapon, recalling that the Spencer was “a wonderful gun, loading with absolutely contemptible simplicity and ease with seven balls and firing the whole readily and deliberately in less than half a minute.”


In later years a myth developed that the meeting with Lincoln was the reason why the Union army purchased Spencers. Such was not the case, the Army having already received 7500 Spencers and having placed a large order for more prior to Spencer’s meeting with the President. However, I am sure that Lincoln’s favorable opinion of the Spencer helped smooth over any remaining resistance to the new-fangled repeater.

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DocRock said:

Why is it so hard for people to understand the relationship between the seven days in a week quote and the repeating rifle that actually saw combat in numbers and held....seven shots? The seven days a week quote, attributed to any number of Confederates, was about the Spencer.

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Skeptic13 said:

I believe that Henry actually took the lever action repeating rifle to Lincoln during the Civil War to see if the President was interested in purchasing it for the Union Army. Lincoln loved it but when the army ordinance folks got a hold of it all they could do was find reasons not to adopt it.

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SwampWolf said:

At last count, there's been eight former Presidents who were National Rifle Association members.

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AlexanderA said:

Most of them were NRA members because it was politically useful to them, not because they were gun enthusiasts.

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Tommygunn said:

"we don't want another type of ammo in the supply line, especially one useful only for a small number of specific guns."

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GEM said:

I don't trust a politician being progun unless they have a history of training and perhaps competition (not shooting skeet or a duck). Handguns preferably. They they should have a CCW or LTC in their state if needed to carry. However, it's not a guarantee, the Giffords were Glock 19 fans until her shooting. However, I can see why she switched, even if I don't agree.

Go to the range or match rather than the golf course.

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WestKentucky said:

I’m pretty sure that Trump said at least a couple times that he had a carry permit.

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George P said:

Ike used to go to the GA quail plantations on a regular basis; JFK was an NRA member; both Bush were hunters, mostly quail.

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WestKentucky said:

I’m pretty sure that Trump said at least a couple times that he had a carry permit.

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Speedo66 said:

George H. W. Bush was an NRA life member if I recall correctly, he resigned his membership while president when La Pierre made his infamous comment about Federal agents.

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Jim Watson said:

...... As the saying goes, that ship had already sailed.
Only Spencer and Henry repeaters, but there were about 50,000 Burnsides, 17,000 Gallaghers, 20,000 Maynards, 30,000 Smiths, 20,000 Starrs, 100,000+ Sharps. All with their own ammo.

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daverich4 said:

In God We Trust was not added to currency until 1956.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_God_We_Trust

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