It’s Not a Store, It’s a Theme Park

That’s what I thought after spending a couple of hours in the flagship Bass Pro Shops store in Springfield, Missouri, where we are spending the Thanksgiving holiday with my oldest daughter and her husband. The place is huge; this is one small corner. Click to enlarge:

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The store features wildlife, both stuffed and living. I wouldn’t want to catch this fish:

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We checked out the guns, as I am thinking about buying a revolver. The gun inventory was substantial, but not unusually so:

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The highlight of the visit was the National Rifle Association’s National Sporting Arms Museum:

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The museum has a large collection of rifles, shotguns and handguns spanning several hundred years of history.

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There were lots of historic firearms, including rifles and shotguns that belonged to Teddy Roosevelt, Grover Cleveland and Dwight Eisenhower. But my favorite historical item was the rifle–the very firearm–that NRA President Charlton Heston held over his head and vowed that it would have to be pried from his cold, dead hands:

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Inspiring. If you have any interest in firearms at all, I would encourage you to pay a visit to the NRA’s Sporting Arms Museum. If you like, you can buy a boat or a fishing rod while you’re at it.

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