Why not John D. Pedersen?

Followers of Wyoming's Legislature will note that there's a bill in the current legislature seeking to designate Freedom Arm's .454 Casull pistol the state firearm.  For those who don't know, Feedom Arms is a Wyoming company and its signature product is a really huge revolver.  

The move has been subject to some criticism, partially based upon its timing, and partially based upon the logical question as to why we need a state firearm. To raise that question doesn't make a person anti firearm by any means, it's just a logical question.  We seem to have run through all the logical state things that a legislature might be expected to designate and now we're on to items that seem to be a bit off the beaten path.  Having said that, Utah designated John Browning's M1911 pistol as their state firearm some years ago.

That move might actually make more sense than the one being pondered down at the legislature.  John Browning was an inventive genius and is generally regarded as  the greatest firearms designer of all time.  The M1911 pistol was one of his greatest designs, by all accounts.  And he was a Utah native.  Essentially, Utah was honoring one of their native sons who made a massive contribution to the firearms design and even to the nation's defense.  The .454 Casull, whatever its merits, pales to a ghostly shade of white in comparison to Browning's designs.

But why not take a page from Utah's book?  If we're going to designated a state firearm, perhaps we should designate something  designed by John D. Pedersen?

Pedersen wasn't born here, but he ranched here for many years, being one of the early ranchers in Teton County, one of the locations that out of state folks regard as emblematic of Wyoming.  The Pedersen ranch was in Jackson Hole, and to a lot of people that defines their mental image of Wyoming.

In addition to being a rancher, Pedersen is the most prolific and most successful of any Wyoming inventors, holding more patents than anyone else.  In addition to ranching, he was a firearms designer.  And his designs were firearms designs, here's an example of one such patent here.  Note that his address is given as "Jackson Wyoming."

Now, Pedersen isn't as famous as Browning, and that's in part due to. . . well. . . Browning.  They were contemporaries of each other, Browning was a giant.  Pedersen was an inventive genius however.  And some of his designs did to on to be well used, apparently.  The pistol depicted in the patent referenced above competed, unsuccessfully, for Army acceptance against Browning's M1911.  Pedersen is responsible for one really famous, albeit stillborn, design, that being the "Pedersen Device", an implement that, when inserted in the M1903 Springfield bolt action rifle converted into a light semi automatic rifle.  Okay, that idea is kind of weird, but it was inventively weird.  It also apparently went nowhere as the Army bought a bunch during World War One, when the invention was patented, but the war ended before they were used, so nobody will ever really know if it was a good idea or not.

Be that as it may, Pedersen is mostly forgotten to Wyoming.  Right now the Legislature is pondering adopting a "state firearm" that would seem to be sort of a one off proposition. If we're going do do that, why not honor somebody who was a prolific Wyomingite and fairly well known in his day?