With more than 90 guns per 100 citizens and a constitutional right to bear arms, the United States has a close history with guns.

A new book, American Gun, details the 10 firearms that have the biggest stake in American history.

The author is Chris Kyle, a legendary Navy SEAL who died in April as a result of gunshot wounds when a Marine veteran with post traumatic stress disorder turned his weapon on Kyle at a Texas shooting range.

As a Navy SEAL sniper, Kyle holds the record for the most confirmed kills in American military history, with 160, but he perhaps killed as many as 255. The insurgents in Iraq placed a bounty on his head and called him the Devil of Ramadi.

Kyle was working on a book about the guns that defined America before his death, and it has now been published posthumously.

These guns were wielded by revolutionaries, carried across the frontier, and loaded in the trenches. They hold as much of a piece in American history as any other advancement in technology.