Thank You Col. Cooper

Michael Bane reports that LTC Jeff Cooper has passed away. If you don't know, Cooper can easily be considered the founder of all our modern handgun techniques, not to mention his work with combat rifle techniques. In his books he, often eloquently, described and codified the how, what, when, who, and why of shooting, melding both the art and the science of the many shooting genres. Most modern training courses, if not all of them, take something in varying degrees from LTC Cooper's writings and Gunsite, one of the first and still among the best of the "modern" firearms training programs.

In the gun world, this man is a legend.

Here's a link to The Jeff Cooper Bibliography, which should give interested shooters some idea of what to read by the Colonel. Here's one of my favorites of his sayings:

The rifle is a weapon. Let there be no mistake about that. It is a tool of power, and thus dependent completely upon the moral stature of its user. It is equally useful in securing meat for the table, destroying group enemies on the battlefield, and resisting tyranny. In fact, it is the only means of resisting tyranny, since a citizenry armed with rifles simply cannot be tyrannized.

The rifle itself has no moral stature, since it has no will of its own. Naturally, it may be used by evil men for evil purposes, but there are more good men than evil, and while the latter cannot be persuaded to the path of righteousness by propaganda, they can certainly be corrected by good men with rifles.

Godspeed, Semper Fi, and thank you, LTC Cooper.

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