Jeff Cooper.

“Remember the first rule of gunfighting... "have a gun."”


“The will to survive is not as important as the will to prevail... the answer to criminal aggression is retaliation.”


“The police cannot protect the citizen at this stage of our development, and they cannot even protect themselves in many cases. It is up to the private citizen to protect himself and his family, and this is not only acceptable, but mandatory.”


"Weapons compound man's power to achieve; they amplify the capabilities of both the good man and the bad, and to exactly the same degree, having no will of their own. Thus we must regard them as servants, not masters - and good servants to good men. Without them, man is diminished, and his opportunities to fulfill his destiny are lessened. An unarmed man can only flee from evil, and evil is not overcome by fleeing from it."

When driving in our current urban battle zones, remember that when a car
stops suddenly in front of you and two people get out simultaneously, you go
to Condition Orange. This is particularly true if you have rear-ended the
car in front of you slightly with your bumper. This is a pre-planned
car-jacking technique. Bear it in mind!

From Chechnya via Time magazine:
"They are simply afraid of us. We saw it in their eyes during battle. They
have very strong weapons - but not very strong spirits."
As always, it is the man, not the gun, that wins.
    Jeff Cooper    From Jeff Cooper's Commentaries
    Vol. 4, No. 11
    September 1996


I have often preached that the proper antidote to fear is anger, and I see
no reason to change my opinion on this. However, there is another mental
condition that serves as well or possibly better, and that is concentration.
I have discussed this matter at great length with people who are in a
position to know, and I am not without experience of my own, and I can state
positively that when you find yourself facing deadly danger, your ability
to concentrate every mental faculty upon doing what needs to be done to save
yourself leaves no room for fear. If it happens that return fire is the best
solution to your danger, you are fortunate, because if you have organized
yourself properly your total preoccupation with your front sight and trigger
control will have become automatic; and therefore you cannot fear your
enemy's bullet since you are simply too busy concentrating on hitting him.


'This fashionable buzz word "sensitivity" is beginning to gall. I do not see
sensitivity as the necessary attribute of a considerable man. We may search
through history for manifestations of sensitivity in the great without
particular success. Pericles, Xenophon, Socrates, Caesar, and so on down
through Washington, Napoleon, Roosevelt, and Churchill were not distinguished
for sensitivity. Thinness of the skin seems to be one of the paramount
troubles of the age.'


A recent report from Africa informs us that a Bantu hunter of our
acquaintance was recently set upon after dark by an armed robber. Our friend
cut him down neatly and went on about his business. Naturally, I am not going
to furnish any details about the nationality or locality of our friend. In
cases like this, the less the authorities know, the better. Years ago in our
Balsas expedition we were forcefully informed by our permit issuing
authorities in Mexico City that if we had occasion to knock off a bandit, we
were by no means to report the matter. Just get the body out of sight in the
bushes and get on with your business.


Note that the state of Louisiana has opened the season on "car jackers" -
under proper controls, of course. The consensus of the legislature was that
if someone chooses to approach a driver, gun in hand, that is sufficient
reason to assume that he is a legitimate target. One commentator wailed that
this amounts to no less than "a license to kill." Well, sure. Car jackers
are not yet an endangered species, but it is high time that we made them so.


More than two thousand years ago Aristotle opined that most of the human
race has essentially the soul of a slave. A recent Associated Press poll
recorded that fifty-four percent of those questioned seemed willing to trade
liberty for security. The sad fact is that one cannot trade the one for the
other. You can surrender your liberty, but what you get in turn is never a
significant increase in your security.


Following is a sentence passed by Judge W. Wyatt McKay of Trumbull County,
Ohio, via Mike Royko:
    When you slithered out of your hole that day, and you spewed your venom
    all over this defenseless 12-year-old girl, you made this court's top 10
    hit list. In a way, the best sentence this court could give would be no
    sentence at all, because if you left this courtroom I don't think you
    would be alive 10 minutes. You are nothing but a weed, a weed among
    wheat... And when we have a weed, it's my job to eradicate the weed,
    because if you don't you will choke the wheat. Therefore, I'm going to
    take you off the streets for just as long as I possibly can. It means
    you aren't even eligible for parole until you're 92. That leaves only
    one more count, aggravated robbery... You stole this little girl's bra
    as a souvenir, probably to brag about it to your friends later on. Well,
    I'm going to give you a souvenir of Trumbull County justice. And that
    is, you will receive a maximum sentence of 10 to 25 on the aggravated
    robbery for the stealing of that bra. And I hope that if you last 25
    years in prison that you remember that you remember that souvenir."
   
    Get this scum out of here!
    From Jeff Cooper's Commentaries
    Vol. 1, No. 9
    October 1993