How Many Presidents Have Owned Guns?

Many presidents have owned firearms: from the nation’s early leaders like President George Washington, to former Presidents Ronald Regan and George W. Bush.

Over time, the relationship between presidents and their guns has shifted, as has the culture surrounding gun control and gun violence across the U.S.

Overall, a total of 29 presidents either owned or are strongly linked to firearms, according to a Newsweek analysis, though for a few, like John Tyler and Zachary Taylor, records are unclear.

As vice president and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris made headlines recently for saying she owned a Glock, Newsweek decided to take a closer look at all the presidents’ guns.

George Washington

The nation’s first president owned a firearm, according to Mount Vernon. He carried a set of flintlock pistols with him in the Revolutionary War and his correspondence reference pistols purchased, lost, captured and received as gifts.

John Adams

Adams reportedly owned firearms, and like Washington had a set of flintlock muskets which he used in the American Revolution according to reports and the biography John Adams by David McCullough.

Thomas Jefferson

Jefferson owned firearms, and was an avid collector, according to his personal records, correspondence and his biography Thomas Jefferson: A Life. The National Rifle Association (NRA) reported that the nation’s third president wrote extensively about his fondness for shooting and the right to bear arms.

James Madison

Madison owned firearms and was a veteran in the Revolutionary War.

James Monroe

Monroe owned guns and was a soldier during the American Revolution. He was known to have been wounded in battle and carried a pistol during the war, according to a report from Big Think.

John Quincy Adams

John Quincy Adams is not widely known for owning or using guns. He did participate in early American diplomatic missions and likely had some access to firearms, although there is no strong documentation confirming personal ownership​, according to the Rutherford Institute.

Andrew Jackson

Jackson famously owned multiple guns and was known for his love of dueling and frontier life, having participated in several duels throughout his life, according to the Rutherford Institute.

Martin Van Buren

There is no evidence to suggest that former Van Buren owned a firearm.

William Henry Harrison

Harrison owned guns, according to Grouseland, a home of the shortest-serving president which is now a museum. A spokesperson told Newsweek Harrison had a rifle made by John Small. They added, “The lore is that there was a gun in every home on the frontier, even in the pulpits!”

John Tyler

It is unclear whether Tyler owned a gun. The Mercyhurst University Hammermill Library told Newsweek that as he was a hunter, the country’s 10th president probably did own firearms. The Sherwood Forest Plantation houses some of Tyler’s artefacts, but they don’t have any of Tyler’s weaponry as the plantation was taken over by Union soldiers during the Civil War, and any weapons were taken by them.

James K. Polk

There is no recorded evidence of Polk owning or using guns, according to a report from the Rutherford Institute.

Zachary Taylor

Taylor used firearms during his military service, but it is unclear whether he owned his own, according to his presidential library.

Millard Fillmore

There is no notable evidence of Fillmore owning or using guns, according to the Rutherford Institute.

Franklin Pierce

Pierce likely owned firearms during his military service, according to the Rutherford Institute.

James Buchanan

Buchanan, and his niece Harriet Lane, both owned firearms, according to Buchanan’s presidential library. They both used them at Wheatland Farm, where Buchanan lived.

Abraham Lincoln

Lincoln owned guns, according to his presidential library. The 16th president “used a rifle as a boy,” “carried a musket while serving in the Illinois militia in the 1832 Black Hawk War,” and “was given at least one rifle while serving as president.”

Lincoln had a “gold-mounted, heavily engraved Henry rifle that was presented to him as president by the New Haven Arms Company in Connecticut,” which is at the Smithsonian. The library also told Newsweek that Lincoln test-fired a Spencer on the grounds of the White House.

Andrew Johnson

Johnson likely owned guns, but there is no specific record that attaches him to gun ownership, according to the Rutherford Institute.

Ulysses S. Grant

Not unsurprisingly, the commanding general of the Union Army during the Civil War owned firearms, according to the director of his presidential library.

Rutherford B. Hayes

According to his curator of artifacts at the Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Library & Museums, Hayes was “a bit of a curator.” The museum has his “1860 Colt Revolver and his 1864 Smith & Wesson Revolver, both of which Hayes received during his service during the Civil War,” and “several rifles from the Civil War that are attributed as being part of [the] Rutherford B. Hayes Collection.”

He also kept his grandfather’s flintlock musket as well as his father-in-law’s flintlock musket.

James A. Garfield

Garfield owned guns and was a keen hunter, according to a number of diary entries which were shared with Newsweek by a park ranger at the James A. Garfield National Historic Site. on September 5, 1872, the former president wrote in his diary that: “After breakfast went out to the post with Colonel Moore and amused ourselves by shooting at a mark at long range. My shots averaged the best of any of the party.”

Chester A. Arthur

There is no strong evidence that Arthur ever used guns, according to a report from Big Think.

Grover Cleveland

Cleveland was a hunter, and is known to have owned firearms, according to the Rutherford Institute.

Benjamin Harrison

Benjamin Harrison was a hunter, and is known to have owned firearms, according to the Rutherford Institute.

William McKinley

Records are unclear over whether McKinley ever owned a gun. According to the Executive Director of his presidential library, McKinley was a Civil War veteran, so he would have known how to use a gun, but the 25th president was not outdoorsy, so it is unlikely that he was a hunter.

Theodore Roosevelt

Former President Theodore Roosevelt owned multiple firearms. His presidential library told Newsweek in an email that he “was an avid hunter and while there’s no official inventory, most historians estimate he owned around 100 firearms during his life.”

According to the library, he owned rifles, of which he was “particularly fond of Winchester rifles and favored them for big-game hunting. His Winchester Model 1895 lever-action rifle in .405 caliber, which he called his “medicine gun” for lions, is one of the most famous.”

He also owned shotguns, “including high-quality doubles made by manufacturers like Fox and Parker. He used these primarily for bird hunting,” and “a variety of handguns, including revolvers and semi-automatic pistols, some of which he used during his time as a Rough Rider and while serving as a New York City police commissioner.”

William Howard Taft

There is no evidence that former Taft owned firearms, according to the Rutherford Institute, though the above photo shows him using a rifle post-presidency. Taft is known for his judicial career, and is not associated with military service.

Woodrow Wilson

There is no notable evidence that Wilson used firearms, according to the Rutherford Institute. He is better known for his academic and political career.

Warren G. Harding

There is no notable evidence of Harding owning a gun, according to the Rutherford Institute. He was an outdoorsman who enjoyed golf.

Calvin Coolidge

Coolidge may have had access to firearms, but there is no significant record of gun ownership beyond what was typical at the time, according to the Rutherford Institute.

Herbert Hoover

There is “no definitive evidence” Hoover “ever personally owned a gun,” a spokesperson for the Hoover Presidential Foundation told Newsweek in an email.

“However, Mrs. Hoover did own guns and was quite a good shot, and we have a number of her firearms in our museum collection,” the spokesperson said.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Franklin D. Roosevelt owned a gun, according to his presidential library. An archivist at the library told Newsweek that he “received his first gun on his 14th birthday from his father.”

Harry Truman

Truman owned a gun, as was confirmed to Newsweek in a statement released by the National Archives Public and Media Communications staff.

Dwight D. Eisenhower

Eisenhower owned a gun, as was confirmed to Newsweek in a statement released by the National Archives Public and Media Communications staff.

John F. Kennedy

Kennedy was a firearm enthusiast, and a lifetime member of the NRA, according to the Rutherford Institute.

Lyndon B. Johnson

Lyndon B. Johnson owned a gun, as was confirmed to Newsweek in a statement released by the National Archives Public and Media Communications staff.

Richard Nixon

There is no evidence of Nixon using or collecting firearms, though he may have had access to them for security purposes, according to a report from Big Think.

Gerald Ford

Ford owned guns and enjoyed hunting. He had military experience, serving as a Navy officer in World War II, but his primary links to guns were recreational, according to the Rutherford Institute.

Jimmy Carter

Records are unclear over whether Carter owned a gun, but a statement released by the National Archives Public and Media Communications staff to Newsweek said that in his book, An Out Door Journal, the former president chronicled his hunting and fishing adventures, indicating that he may have owned firearms.

Ronald Reagan

Reagan “owned at least one gun for much of his life starting in the mid-1930s,” the Ronald Reagan Library told Newsweek. “In the late 1940s he wore a gun and shoulder holster, due to threats he received during labor disputes in the film industry. He later had guns at this California ranch. Some secondary sources also allege that after he was wounded in the March 1981 assassination attempt, he began keeping a gun in his briefcase when he traveled.”

George H. W. Bush

Bush owned guns, according to the Rutherford Institute. Bush was a member of the NRA, though he resigned his membership in 1995.

Bill Clinton

There is no evidence that Clinton owned guns and he has no reputation as a gun owner, according to a report from Big Think.

George W. Bush

George W. Bush owned guns and is an avid hunter, according to the Rutherford Institute and photographic evidence.

Barack Obama

Obama is not known to have owned or used guns, and said back in 2016 that he had never owned a gun, according to CNN.

Donald Trump

Trump is a documented and licensed gun owner.

Joe Biden

Biden is not known to own or use firearms, and his political career has been marked by his gun control measures, according to a report from the Rutherford Institute.

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