Americans and their leaders have always had a thing about firearms. Some presidents were serious hunters, some were duelists, some were collectors, and a few just kept a special gun at the bedside.
The guns of the presidents tell a surprising story about the men who held the office. Here are the documented firearms owned and carried by U.S. presidents, from flintlock saddle pistols to a million-dollar revolver, with the myths sorted out from the facts.
George Washington’s Lafayette pistols
Washington owned a pair of flintlock saddle pistols given to him by the Marquis de Lafayette around 1778. He is believed to have carried them at Valley Forge, Monmouth, Yorktown, and the Whiskey Rebellion.
Their story did not end with him. They later passed to Andrew Jackson, which means two presidents carried the same guns. In 2002 they sold at auction for $1,986,000, one of the most expensive guns ever sold, and they now live at the Fort Ligonier museum in Pennsylvania. Washington owned other guns too, including a bronze-mounted English flintlock said to be a gift from General Edward Braddock in 1755, which is now held by the Smithsonian.
Thomas Jefferson and the famous air rifle
Here is one worth correcting. The story goes that Jefferson bought air rifles and sent them west with Lewis and Clark. The records don’t really back that up.
The famous Girandoni air rifle that traveled on the expedition was acquired by Meriwether Lewis himself around 1803, not purchased by Jefferson. What Jefferson did own, and what sits in the Smithsonian today, is a North African jezail musket presented by a Tunisian envoy in 1805. He was a documented gun owner, just not in the way the popular tale claims.
Andrew Jackson’s dueling pistols
No president was more comfortable with a pistol pointed at another man. In 1806, Andrew Jackson fought a duel with Charles Dickinson, took a ball that lodged near his heart, and then calmly killed his opponent. He carried that bullet inside him for the rest of his life.
The dueling pistols and the story behind them are preserved at The Hermitage, his home outside Nashville. And as noted above, he also inherited Washington’s Lafayette pistols, a quiet thread connecting the first president to the seventh.
Abraham Lincoln, the rifle-testing president
Lincoln was a genuine firearms enthusiast and a good shot. In August 1863, inventor Christopher Spencer brought his repeating rifle to the White House, and Lincoln test-fired it himself on the grounds nearby.
The story goes that sentries came running to stop the gunfire before they realized the president was the one shooting. The test helped push the Army toward repeating rifles. He had a real mechanical curiosity, and he leaned on a reluctant Army ordnance department precisely because he had handled the new guns himself and seen what they could do. A gold-inlaid Henry rifle, serial number 6, is also associated with Lincoln and later received the NRA Collectors Society Gold Medal as an outstanding historical firearm.
Theodore Roosevelt’s arsenal
If any president deserves a chapter of his own, it’s Theodore Roosevelt. He was a hunter, a soldier, and a conservationist, and his guns are the richest collection in presidential history. He grew up sickly and asthmatic and rebuilt himself into an outdoorsman through sheer will, and his guns were the tools of that reinvention.
For his famous 1909 African safari he carried a Winchester Model 1895 in .405, which he called his “medicine gun for lions,” and a Holland & Holland double rifle in .500/.450 for elephant and rhino. These were the kind of big-bore rifles built for the largest game on earth.
He also owned an A.H. Fox shotgun he called “the most beautiful gun I’ve ever seen,” and a Smith & Wesson revolver presented to him the day he left to form the Rough Riders in 1898. That revolver sold at auction in 2022 for $910,625. Back home at Sagamore Hill he kept a dedicated gun room and a pearl-handled Browning automatic by his bed. Few presidents have ever been so thoroughly, or so cheerfully, armed.
The shotgun presidents: Cleveland and Eisenhower
Grover Cleveland was a passionate waterfowl hunter, and his gun proves it: a Colt 8-gauge shotgun, reportedly the only 8-gauge Colt ever made, gold-inlaid and one of a kind.
Dwight Eisenhower preferred a Winchester Model 21 20-gauge, a gift engraved with his five stars and the line “To a straight shooter from a friend.” He shot quail and skeet at his Gettysburg farm. Both guns now reside in the NRA’s sporting arms museum.
The 20th-century commanders: Truman, Kennedy, Reagan
Harry Truman kept the Colt 1911 he carried as an artillery officer in World War I; it’s held by his presidential library. John F. Kennedy, as a senator in 1959, ordered a presentation-grade M1 Garand through a marksmanship program for the grand sum of $164 plus shipping. It later sold at auction for $149,500.
Ronald Reagan was presented with a handmade flintlock long rifle in the Oval Office, a nod to the frontier imagery he loved. Modern presidents have mostly stepped back from the gun room altogether. Security and politics reshaped the relationship, and the Secret Service now carries the firepower, which is why almost every gun on this list belongs to a president born before 1900. Even Ulysses S. Grant fits here, with an engraved, pearl-gripped Smith & Wesson presented to him in 1870. Like Eisenhower’s and Reagan’s guns, it was a presentation piece, a sign of how the presidential firearm had shifted from a working tool to a token of respect.
What the guns of the presidents tell us
Look at the collection as a whole and a pattern emerges. The early presidents carried guns to war and to duels. The frontier-era ones hunted. The modern ones mostly received their guns as gifts and honors, the firearm becoming a symbol rather than a tool.
It is a small, sharp lens on how the country itself changed. I have spent time with auction records and museum catalogs chasing these guns down, and the paper trail is half the fun. If you enjoyed this, see the 14 guns that changed the world and what the Wild West outlaws really carried.
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Which president owned the most valuable gun?
George Washington's Lafayette saddle pistols sold for $1,986,000 in 2002, and Theodore Roosevelt's Smith & Wesson revolver brought $910,625 in 2022. Both rank among the most expensive firearms ever sold at auction.
Did Abraham Lincoln really shoot guns near the White House?
Yes. In August 1863, Lincoln personally test-fired Christopher Spencer's repeating rifle on the grounds near the White House. The test helped push the U.S. Army toward adopting repeating rifles during the Civil War.
What guns did Theodore Roosevelt own?
Among many, a Winchester Model 1895 in .405 he called his "medicine gun for lions," a Holland & Holland double rifle for big game, an A.H. Fox shotgun he called the most beautiful gun he had ever seen, and a Smith & Wesson revolver that later sold for over $900,000.
Did Jefferson send air rifles with Lewis and Clark?
Not exactly. The famous Girandoni air rifle carried on the expedition was acquired by Meriwether Lewis himself around 1803, not purchased by Jefferson, despite the popular story. Jefferson did own other documented firearms, including a North African jezail now in the Smithsonian.
Which president fought a duel?
Andrew Jackson fought several. In his 1806 duel with Charles Dickinson he took a ball near his heart but still killed his opponent, and he carried that bullet inside him for the rest of his life.
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