Brad Meltzer reveals, in the New York Daily News, that Ronald Reagan while serving as President was another American who habitually carried a concealed handgun.

[T]here I was, on my tour of Secret Service headquarters. The agents had taken me into a small museum they have on the premises. It’s a room lined with photos of Presidents and archival exhibit cases filled with Secret Service artifacts. A newspaper with a “Kennedy Dead” headline. A replica of Lee Harvey Oswald’s rifle. The pistol used to try to kill President Gerald Ford. They even have the actual car door from the limo when Reagan was shot.

It was an eerie keepsake for sure. But not nearly as eerie as the next detail they told me. We were talking about Reagan and that day he was shot. Then one of the agents offered this secret: When Reagan was President, he carried his own gun.

I couldn’t believe it.

“It’s true,” they said. A .38. Reagan used to hide it in his briefcase and take it on Air Force One.

Whatever you think of Reagan, you have to admit, he had a black belt in badassery.

The Daily News illustrated a Smith & Wesson Bodyguard, but the article does not make clear that anyone identified the particular model or caliber preferred by President Reagan.