The National Rifle Association will open a new museum next month inside Bass Pro Shops’ flagship store in Springfield, Mo., the Associated Press reported on Monday.
According to The Springfield News-Leader, The NRA’s National Sporting Arms Museum will display nearly 1,000 artifacts, dating from the 1600s to the present. The opening will take place Aug. 2, and the museum will be open daily, with free admission.
Among the items on display will be “the guns of Annie Oakley, Napoleon’s double-barrel flintlock fowler, President Grover Cleveland’s 8-gauge Colt shotgun and a Girandoni air rifle similar to one used by Lewis and Clark during their 1804-1806 expedition,” the News-Leader reported.
“When people are taught by the story of history, it sticks in their minds,” Stoney Roberts, who will be running day to day operations at the museum, told the newspaper. “They learn to love it, and they learn to live some of the great things that we’ve learned from history. This is part of delivering that kind of love of history.”
