what kind of gun was used to kill jfk

Firearms have shaped the history of the globe, from the surprising history of the M16to the classic Brown Bess musket that helped free America from British rule.

brown bess musket
The Brown Bess was the gun that (probably) fired the "shot heard 'circular the world."

Of course, there are darker moments where firearms have changed history.  Firearms used in assassinations have inverse history just as much equally those wielded on the battlefield.

We wanted to take a look at some of these weapons out of a respect for history, and a respect for the power, and danger, of firearms in the wrong hands.

These are all fascinating firearms, both because of and across their utilise in assassinations.

At the end of each entry, we'll tell you where you lot tin get your ain.  Whether yous're only taken with a particular firearm or are building a slightly macabre drove, we've got yous covered.

Abraham Lincoln – Philadelphia Derringer

The assassination of President Abraham Lincoln past John Wilkes Berth is arguably the most famous assassination endeavour in American history.  The story of what happened is familiar to most of us.

At apex on April 14, 1865, Booth learned the President would be attending the play Our American Cousins at Ford's Theatre that evening.  As an role player who'd performed at the theatre before, Booth was familiar to the staff and knowledgeable virtually the theatre'due south layout and must accept seen this as the advantage he needed to successfully accept up artillery against Lincoln.

Program at Ford's Theatre the Night of Lincoln's Assassination
Program at Ford's Theatre the Night of Lincoln's Assassination

That evening, Booth arrived at the theater to find that the guard assigned to the door to the President'south box was gone.  Once through the outer door Booth wedged the door close past wedging a stick between it and the wall. He then waited exterior the inner door for the line that got 1 of biggest laughs of the show.

Subsequently the line was read Booth opened the inner door, stepped into the box, and shot Lincoln in the caput from behind.  Lincoln was laughing when he was shot.

Ford's Theatre Box Where Abraham Lincoln Was Shot, April 14, 1865
The box in which Lincoln was shot is busy and arranged to match the way information technology was the evening he was assassinated.  Note the rocking chair, which was brought in particularly for President Lincoln.

A wounded Lincoln was examined past a couple of physicians in the audience before being moved across the street to a first-floor sleeping accommodation in the home of tailor William Peterson. Though Lincoln was conspicuously dying, he did not appear to be in hurting.  He passed at 7:22 the following morning. He was the get-go American president to be assassinated while in role.

Artist's Rendering of the Lincoln Assassination
Creative person'south Rendering of the Lincoln Assassination

Booth's exact motives confronting Lincoln are unknown, but he was a vocal Confederate sympathizer.

The Murder Weapon

Berth used a .44 caliber Philadelphia Derringer to kill Lincoln.

John Wilkes Booth's Philadelphia Derringer
Berth's Philadelphia Derringer

Less than 6 inches long, the gun seems very small in comparing to the potentially massive impact information technology had on the course of history.  The petite size of the Philadelphia Derringer made information technology a popular choice for curtained cocky-defence force. Information technology also made it easy for Booth to hide the gun as he made his fashion to assassinate the President.

It was likewise a risky choice, though.  The Philadelphia Derringer just held a unmarried shot, and Booth would non have had fourth dimension to reload for a second attempt before he was subdued.  He but had one chance.

Portrait of John Wilkes Booth
Portrait of John Wilkes Booth

The Philadelphia Derringer was originally sold in pairs, but Berth apparently only had ane Derringer on him the evening of the assassination.  The ane Berth used to murder President Lincoln is now on brandish at the Ford's Theatre National Historic Site. The location of the other is unverified, though Ripley's Believe It or Not claims to take information technology in their museum in St. Augustine.

Though the Philadelphia Derringer was a very common gun, with xv,000 guns produced, Booth's Derringer was rather unusual.  While most derringers feature rifling with a clockwise twist, Berth's had a counterclockwise twist.

This, along with the forest pattern, pit marks on the butt, and a scissure in the forestock came in handy in 1997, 132 years subsequently Lincoln's death.

After a career criminal claimed that in the late 1960s members of his gang had stolen the Derringer and replaced it with a fake, the FBI was called in to cosign the gun.  By comparing these features in historical photos with the actual gun, the FBI was able to ostend that the pistol at Ford's Theatre is the real deal.

Booth Derringer During FBI Inspection
Booth Derringer During FBI Inspection

The Philadelphia Derringer hasn't been in production since 1868, so if you want i of your ain you'll have to go with a replica.  Pedersoli makes a loftier quality but affordable Philadelphia Derringer reproduction ($450).

Pedersoli Philadelphia Derringer Replica
Pedersoli Philadelphia Derringer Replica

Jesse James – .44 Quotient Smith and Wesson Model 3

Jesse James may non have been the political figure that some of the others on this list are, only his bump-off was nevertheless a political scandal.

By 1882, James's notorious gang, the James-Younger gang, had all merely disbanded.  James moved to Missouri with his married woman and two children, intending to give up on crime.

Thinking he and his family needed protection, James invited the Ford brothers, Charley and Robert, some of the few people James trusted, to alive with them.

Robert Ford and Jesse James
Photo Purported to Exist of Robert Ford (Left) and Jesse James (Right)

What James didn't know was that the Ford brothers had already secretly negotiated James's capture with Missouri Governor Thomas T. Crittenden.

The Ford brothers allowed themselves to become part of the James family'south daily routine, biding their fourth dimension until an opportunity struck.  One jump forenoon, all the same, Robert believed that James had become suspicious that the brothers were going to betray him. While James stood, unarmed, on a chair to clean a dusty picture, Robert pulled his gun and shot him in the back of the caput.

Woodcut of Jesse James Assassination
Woodcut of the Assassination

The murder quickly became a national awareness and the brothers fabricated no attempt to hide their part in it.  They surrendered themselves to law enforcement and were charged with first-degree murder, indicted, and sentenced to hang.  Two days after they were pardoned by Governor Crittenden.

Robert Ford with S&W revolver used to kill Jesse James
Robert Ford

The public saw this equally a clear sign that Crittenden had conspired to murder a private denizen, causing a major political controversy.

The Murder Weapon

The gun nearly widely believed to be the murder weapon is a .44 caliber Smith & Wesson Model 3 revolver, which was reportedly given by Ford upon his release to one of the jailors as thanks for his kind treatment.  Like both James and Ford, the gun has had a tumultuous history.

Original Smith & Wesson Model 3
Original Smith & Wesson Model 3

Erstwhile after 1904, E. Stanley Gary purchased the revolver from the son of the jailor and had it etched with the words "Bob Ford killed Jesse James with this revolver at St. Joseph, Mo., 1882." In 1952 the gun was purchased from Gary's manor by a Smith and Wesson collector, who lent information technology to a Jesse James museum in Missouri in 1967.

Robert Ford's S&W Model 3
Ford's Model 3

The revolver was stolen from the museum in 1968 and vanished until 1993 when the gun was put upward for auction by an anonymous American dealer via an auction house in Sussex.  The gun sold for $160,000. The gun then came up for sale again in 2003 and sold for $350,000, breaking the Western historical firearms tape.

If you lot desire one of your own, but don't take hundreds of thousands of dollars to spend, Taylor's and Visitor's New Model No. 3 Frontier ($1,094) is the choice for you.

Taylor and Company Smith & Wesson Model 3 Replica
Model 3 Replica

John Lennon – Charter Artillery Secret .38 Special

This is the most recent bump-off on our list, and the simply i where the perpetrator is yet alive.  Despite the glory victim, it's also the least dramatic.

On the evening of Dec 8, 1980, John Lennon was returning to his home at the Dakota in New York City with his wife, Yoko Ono.  Mark David Chapman waited in the shadows of the building.

John Lennon and Yoko Ono
John Lennon and Yoko Ono

Seconds after Lennon passed, Chapman pulled a gun and fired five shots at Lennon's back.  The outset missed, but two bullets striking the left side of Lennon's back and two hit his left shoulder.   He was pronounced expressionless upon arrival at the hospital.

The nearly unusual aspect of the bump-off was Chapman's reaction.

The building's doorman took the gun from Chapman, after which the assassin simply took off his hat and jacket to show that he wasn't carrying whatever more weapons and saturday on the sidewalk.  The doorman asked if he knew what he'd done, to which Chapman calmly replied, "Yes, I just shot John Lennon."

Crowds outside of the Dakota after Lennon Assassination
Crowds gathered exterior of the Dakota afterwards news of Lennon's assassination broke.

When the police arrived, Chapman made no endeavour to resist or flee.  He appeared to be reading The Catcher in the Rye , a volume that would characteristic heavily in the following courtroom proceedings.

Chapman was sentenced to a life in prison without parole.

The Murder Weapon

Marking David Chapman used a Charter Arms Undercover .38 Special ($350), the but firearm on our list still in production today.  Chapman's Cloak-and-dagger, in detail, does non have the marked history of Booth's Derringer or Ford's Model three.

Charter Arms Undercover .38 Special
Lease Artillery Cloak-and-dagger .38 Special

Similar to the Derringer, the Undercover is petite, with only a 2" barrel, making it ideal for concealment.  The obvious advantage is that the Undercover is a revolver, assuasive Chapman to make five shots.

The Hole-and-corner, released in 1964, was Charter Arms' first firearm and stood out from other revolvers in a couple ways.  First, the design avoided the employ of side plates, allowing the gun to burn high loads safely. The Clandestine likewise included a unique safety device for the firing pin.

Archduke Franz Ferdinand – FN Model 1910

The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand is probably the about well-known assassination worldwide and is more often than not considered the firsthand cause of World War I.

The bump-off plot, which was part of a larger revolutionary conspiracy, actually went wrong in and then many means that the Archduke was only able to exist murdered through sheer coincidence.

Archduke Ferdinand and his wife
Archduke Ferdinand and his wife, Julia, in their auto in the motorcade.

Six different assassins were placed around in different positions along the Archduke's motorcade's route in Sarajevo.  The outset two, ane with an explosive and i with a gun, failed to act.

The tertiary assassin, further down and beyond the street, threw a bomb at the Archduke'southward car, but it bounced off, and instead detonating under the adjacent car in the procession.  It wounded at least 16 people, but the Archduke was unscathed.

The assassinator realized he would be discovered, so he swallowed a cyanide pill and jumped into a nearby river.  Withal, the pill was ineffective and the river was but a few inches deep. He was pulled from the river and beaten by the crowd before law enforcement took him into custody.  The motorcade sped away likewise fast for any of the other three assassins to act.

The Daily Telegraph Reports Ferdinand's Death
The Daily Telegraph Reports Ferdinand's Death

The Archduke's party arrived at their destination at the Boondocks Hall and decided to cancel the rest of their plans in favor of visiting the victims of the bombing at the infirmary.  Meanwhile, Gavrilo Princip, the fifth assassin, and organizer of the plot decided to position himself at the first of the route to the side by side stop of Ferdinand'due south original agenda.

When the Archduke'due south party left the Town Hall, the driver began to drive the party to the side by side planned terminate, rather than to the infirmary.  It was only because of this mistake, which required the car to stop and contrary downwardly the street, that Princip was able to line upward a pair of shots at the Archduke and kill him.

Trial of Ferdinand's Assassins
The Trial of the Assassins; Princip is third from the right in the front row.

The showtime shot hit the Archduke in his jugular, and the second hit his wife in the belly.  Both were fatally wounded and died within moments.

Murder Weapon

Princip used a Fabrique Nationale Model 1910 pistol, designed past John Browning.  Princip's Model 1910 is now on display at the Museum of Military History in Vienna, Austria.

Gavrilo Pricip's Model 1910
Princip'south Model 1910

This pistol is different from other Browning designed firearms of the time considering Colt, who'd manufactured Browning's other firearms for the United states, was non interested in the Model 1910.  Therefore, this gun was only sold in Europe, past FN.

Our American readers may still recognize the Model 1910, though, considering it'due south one of the start firearms used past James Bond.  The gun briefly makes an appearance in Dr. No , and is used with a suppressor to shoot Professor R.J. Dent.

A well-nigh identical version was sold in the US starting in 1955 by the Browning Artillery Company as the Browning Model 1955.  The Browning version differed from the FN version only in markings and grips. The Browning Model 1955 stopped being imported to the Us in 1968.

For those of you looking for your ain Model 1910, at that place doesn't seem to be a dandy replica on the market.  That doesn't mean you're out of luck though.

The Browning Model 1911 (starting at $600) has a similar compact size and feel to the FN Model 1910, and comes from the same designer, only has been updated for a more modernistic audition.  Like the Model 1910 that killed Archduke Ferdinand, the Model 1911 is available chambered for .380.

Terminal Thoughts

Guns have shaped the world in a number of means, from allowing settlers to tame the wild west to be the weapon of selection for assassins murdering presidents. Firearms have and will continue to have, a tremendous impact on our lives.

What other assassinations have turned the class of history? Let us know in the comments!

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Source: https://www.pewpewtactical.com/guns-used-in-assassinations/

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