America has lost a great resource.
America lost a national treasure Monday, but most Americans will never know it.
Yet many of those Americans may be alive today because of John Dean “Jeff” Cooper, who died Monday afternoon at the Sconce, his beloved home near Gunsite, the shooting training center he founded about 10 miles north of Chino Valley.
Most people who know anything about guns and shooting know who Jeff Cooper was. They rightly called him “The Gunner’s Guru.” He was the world’s foremost expert on small arms (rifles, shotguns and handguns).
I’ve missed his fiery essays during these last years of his illness. You can bet my daughter will be learning his four rules. (In fact, she should know them already, but since we haven’t been to the range yet we only review them now and then.)
There is, of course, his apocryphal gunfighting rule. A footnote in the aforelinked article is classic Cooper:
Shortly after that interview with the top-drawer IPSC fellow, I wrote the item that Cooper published in Gunsite Gossip, to wit: “How do you tell the difference between a martial artist and a gamesman? Ask what kind of gun he carries for self defense. If he names a gun – any gun – 9mm, .45, .25, whatever – if he names any gun or caliber, he is a martial artist. But, if he says, ‘Huh?’ he is a gamesman.”
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