The Army wants their guns back

[tark]

It is my sad duty to inform one and all that one of the finest U.S. Military small arms museums will be closing for renovation and won't re-open until the fall of 2022. And why is that sad?

Because roughly 1200 of the 1225 firearms on display will be removed and parceled out to other museums, or put into storage. This decision is set in stone and is irreversible. The Army wants their guns back. The director did tell me we are keeping guns that have ties to the Island, so obviously we will keep R.I.A. manufactured 1903 serial # 1. We will also keep Model Shop M-1 Garand, serial # 2 and General ( of Gettysburg fame ) John Buford's cavalry saber. I'm hoping we can keep the only 1892 Krag carbine in existence. The army only made two, one was lost, we currently have the only one left. Those ARs you see in the third pic date way back to the beginning, when Gene Stoner was still at Armalite. They have the old ( Very early) duck billed flash suppressors, with no F/A, no fence around the mag release and no speed bumps for the lefties. In picture # 5 you can see three FG-42s at the top. Those go at auction for about a third of a million dollars. One first model and two second models. The latter two appear to be unfired. There are only 26 in these guns on the ATF registry. Pic # 6 shows some T-44s, and a couple of H&R FALS An M-15 (or it would have been) is also there Tag # 6852.. Below it is an M-14 carbine. Yes the army made a few. Finally a pic of Buford's saber.

I'm posting a few pics of the museum as it stands now. It will all be gone, starting next month.

 

[.455_Hunter]

What other museums?

The only one I can think of that comes close is (was?) at APG with Dr. Atwater.

Is this a "get the icky guns" out of public eye move? Remove the objects of American imperialism?

 

[JT-AR-MG42]

I 'liked' your post because of the pictures of our Military history that you have shared over the years.
The reason for your post, not so much.
And I feel for your personal sense of loss.

JT

 

[BigBore44]

Not liking this post. I refuse. Put them in storage? Yeah right. That’s a great idea. Let’s put them in storage instead of a humidity controlled museum with 24hr surveillance that allows citizens to gaze upon American exceptionalism and historical significance.

I’m truly sorry @tark. Not just for your loss. But for everyones.

 

[P89DCSS]

https://www.arsenalhistoricalsociety.org/

 

[Demi-human]

May the renovations be quick and beautiful!
May the firearms come back, in pristine condition.

God save Tark, curator and protector of “our” museum, and also the historical society. Protect them from the onslaught of today.

 

[NIGHTLORD40K]

This seems incredibly short sighted and inefficient. Not to mention wasteful, considering the cost in taxpayer dollars to move the inventory around.

Got an Email address for the guilty party@Army I can complain to for wasting public resources? It might not matter, but it would make me feel better.

 

[MEHavey]

1200 of the 1225 firearms on display will be removed and parceled out to other museums

Tark... is Rock Island losing those weapons permanently... or just til the renovations are done?

 

[Waveski]

I do not trust the motivations behind the decision to 'repo" those artifacts.

 

[Speedo66]

There is a very nice arms museum at West Point, just outside the entrance, that is open to the public.

Hopefully, some of yours will be going there, and not leaving the gov’t, so to speak.

 

[daniel craig]

There is a very nice arms museum at West Point, just outside the entrance, that is open to the public.

Hopefully, some of yours will be going there, and not leaving the gov’t, so to speak.

They do shoots too!

 

[BreechFace]

This is terrible. Why doth me think the governments end game isn’t to remember history of firearms but to wipe it out of existence? Oh, probably because of the revisionist history we have going on all over in this country.

I hope this is not the case, all of those firearms should be returned to the museum after renovations.

 

[tark]

Tark... is Rock Island losing those weapons permanently... or just til the renovations are done?

They will be gone for good. I suspect a lot of them will end up in the army's new national museum at Ft. Belvoir in Virginia.

There is a very nice arms museum at West Point, just outside the entrance, that is open to the public.

Hopefully, some of yours will be going there, and not leaving the gov’t, so to speak.

The guns will never leave government hands. They will never be sold to the public. The museum at West Point is the army's oldest museum. We are the second oldest.

 

[tark]

This seems incredibly short sighted and inefficient. Not to mention wasteful, considering the cost in taxpayer dollars to move the inventory around.

Got an Email address for the guilty party@Army I can complain to for wasting public resources? It might not matter, but it would make me feel better.

I wish I did, NIGHTLORD40K but the decision has been made.

I’m truly sorry @tark. Not just for your loss. But for everyone's.

I will be helping in the renovation, and I'll still be working there as a volunteer. But we all lose when something like this happens. We have over twenty guns that bear serial #s of 2 or 1. Now they will be scattered in the wind. We can only hope that most of them will at least end up on display somewhere, so the public can enjoy them. I can't think of any small arms museum that wouldn't give their left hand to have an FG-42 on display. Don't know if West Point has one. Same for APG. Well, maybe they will have one now.

 

[I6turbo]

Sad to see. Probably a part of the long march to destroy the history and culture of what was once the United States of America.

 

[CapnMac]

And none of it is as simple as it appears on the surface, or at first glance.
There's huge debates among musea over how to best preserve history, with a separate set of debates on how to 'communicate' (for want of a better term) that history to "the public" (knowing that 'the public' encompasses a wide variety of researchers, academicians, history buffs, and the casual visitor, too). Those debates much resemble a well-tossed bowl of spaghetti, too.
Neither private nor public musea represent either a zenith nor a nadir, too--which does not aid in the debate.

Ian McCollum recently stirred this pot a bit, which got some curators and researchers in a tangle.

 

[WestKentucky]

And none of it is as simple as it appears on the surface, or at first glance.
There's huge debates among musea over how to best preserve history, with a separate set of debates on how to 'communicate' (for want of a better term) that history to "the public" (knowing that 'the public' encompasses a wide variety of researchers, academicians, history buffs, and the casual visitor, too). Those debates much resemble a well-tossed bowl of spaghetti, too.
Neither private nor public musea represent either a zenith nor a nadir, too--which does not aid in the debate.

Ian McCollum recently stirred this pot a bit, which got some curators and researchers in a tangle.

I have watched some of Ian’s videos addressing what “belongs in a museum” and I got lost on the entire debate. Seemed like the “curators” that were on camera were flakes of a sort that I didn’t understand.

As much as I disagree with them removing a wonderful display of artifacts, I also disagree with wasteful spending. It would be hard to argue that multiple government owned and operated museums housing millions of dollars worth of inventory in any genre that the general public lacks interest in. Sadly I believe firearms falls into this category. I can’t argue against what they are doing, but it is a shame that the technical innovation history is going to be further hidden and less accessible. My hope is that a lot of weapons end up in Smithsonian or similar museums so that they can be enjoyed and can sit there silently proclaiming that the gun itself doesn’t run out into the street and commit the atrocities that regularly get blamed on inanimate objects and the companies who built them.

 

[Dudedog]

Any chance it might help if we wrote our Congress critters? Sounds like the decision is final so probably not.
Who made the decision? (not that it matters but...)

 

[.455_Hunter]

I suspect a lot of them will end up in the army's new national museum at Ft. Belvoir in Virginia.

That would be the best outcome- at a publicly accessible museum facility outside of main base security perimeter. Much better than the Ark of the Covenant warehouse.

 

[WestKentucky]

I’m not so sure about being outside of the gates. They are after all military property and are targets for theft both for monetary reasons but also for destructive reasons. The machine guns should probably either be deactivated by removing internal parts or be housed on a military installation.

 

[tark]

I’m not so sure about being outside of the gates. They are after all military property and are targets for theft both for monetary reasons but also for destructive reasons. The machine guns should probably either be deactivated by removing internal parts or be housed on a military installation.

Every weapon (OK, every firearm ) In the Army's museum system is deactivated. None of them will fire. The Army is very strict in this regard. They are also very strict about inventories. They are done every three months. Usually the deactivation involves removing a spring or a firing pin, whatever it takes to render the weapon inoperable. Sometimes this results in an atrocity being committed. Rod bayonet 03 # 8181, next to #1 in the case, was rendered inoperable by grinding off the last 1/2" and the tip of the firing pin. I pray that wasn't done to #1, but it probably was.

 

[12Bravo20]

That is sad to hear that. Most of my family is from the Rock Island area and quite a few that did not serve in the military during WWII worked at the arsenal instead.

 

[tark]

Any chance it might help if we wrote our Congress critters? Sounds like the decision is final so probably not.
Who made the decision? (not that it matters but...)

To be honest, Dudedog, I'm not sure who's decision it was, and I don't want to know. I can tell you this much, the decision was made two years ago. It was supposed to take place last year but Covid delayed things.

 

[tark]

Sad to see. Probably a part of the long march to destroy the history and culture of what was once the United States of America.

I doubt this decision was part of any "evil democratic plot to destroy our culture." Let's not start any conspiracy theories, guys. The decision was probably made by someone in the Army's Museums chain of command, or possibly a panel of D.O.D. people. Esper, who was Sec. Def. under President Trump probably signed off on it. I don't know and like I said, I don't want to know.

 

[U.S.SFC_RET]

"The only one I can think of that comes close is (was?) at APG with Dr. Atwater."
That museum has been shut down in APG and most if not all of the small arms are kept at Fort Lee, Virginia.