Excerpts from Jeff Cooper’s writings – Jeff Cooper Legacy Foundation

EXCERPTS FROM JEFF COOPER’S WRITINGS 4/28/2025

April 28, 2025 Greg Moats Comments 0 Comment

The Countess and our daughters recently spent a delightful week in Bermuda. While there they were treated to an opinion by the Chief of Police that while violent crime is rapidly increasing, there is nothing for the citizen to worry about because there are no guns on the island. Fancy that! We might point out that there were no guns in ancient Rome either, but when I was there (I was much younger then), I always went abroad at night with an armed guard. It is all a matter of what you consider to be important.

Jeff Cooper’s Commentaries Vol.8, No.6 June 2000

I find it wearisome to hear people describe the attack on the USS Cole as one of “terrorism.” We are free to use whatever words we wish to describe whatever we wish, but the attack on the Cole was not a piece of terrorism, it was an act of war. Terrorism may be described as homicidal coercion – an attempt to change national or political behavior by threat of force. The men who attacked the Cole were not attempting to coerce the United States, they were attempting simply to kill Americans – for theological, rather than political, reasons. It may be true that no recognized nation has declared war upon the United States, but Islam has officially described us as The Great Satan, and thus made us military adversaries in a Jihad or Holy War. …

EXCERPTS FROM JEFF COOPER’S WRITINGS 4/4/2025

April 9, 2025 Greg Moats Comments 0 Comment

“The society of late twentieth century America is perhaps the first in human history where most grown men do not routinely bear arms on their persons and boys are not regularly raised from childhood to learn skill in the use of some kind of weapon, either for community or personal defense – club or spear, broadsword or long bow, rifle or Bowie knife. It also happens to be one of the rudest and crudest societies in history, having jubilantly swept most of the etiquette of speech, table, dress, hospitality, fairness, deference to authority and the relations of male and female and child and elder under the fraying and filthy carpet of politically convenient illusions. With little fear of physical reprisal Americans can be as loud, gross, disrespectful, pushy, and negligent as they please. If more people carried rapiers at their belts, or revolvers on their hips, It is a fair bet you would be able to go to a movie and enjoy he dialogue from the screen without having to endure the small talk, family gossip and assorted bodily noises that many theater audiences these days regularly emit. Today, discourtesy is commonplace precisely because there is no price to pay for it.”

Samuel Francis

As Heinlein put it,

“An armed society is a polite society.”

Jeff Cooper’s Commentaries Vol.1, No.1 June 1993

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Guns & Ammo Throwback (From 1975): Jeff Cooper vs. Terrorism

January 10, 2025 Lindy Comments 0 Comment

January 04, 2025 By Lt Col. Jeff Cooper

So here we are in the “Age of Extortion!” Our local friendly felons have finally discovered what has long been taken for granted in what we used to call “more backward countries” — that crime does pay, in millions. All you need to do is threaten to do something terrible and people will throw money at you. You don’t need any particular talent or skill to get rich this way, and you don’t need education or training. The only requisite is nastiness, and that is no rare quality.

We can speculate at length upon why this foulness has come upon us so strikingly at this point in our history, but I doubt that any incontrovertible conclusion will result. My own suggestion is simply overpopulation. Like rats, we get testier as we get crowded. By simple arithmetic, if the proportion of goblins to people in our society remains constant, doubling our population doubles the number of goblins. And they reinforce each other as their numbers rise.

Continue Reading @ Gunsandammo.com

Excerpts from Jeff Cooper’s writings 1/5/2025

January 6, 2025 Lindy Comments 0 Comment

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In my opinion, neither money nor greed (cupiditas) is the root of all evil. The root of all evil is envy. The non−coper hates the coper, and thus the non−shooter hates the shooter. I see no other explanation for the pointless and irrational activism of the gun grabbers on the political scene. They know that their machinations can have no effect upon crime. Guns have no effect upon crime, but they do make all men equal, as the saying goes. This puts the coper on top, and infuriates the non−coper.

– Jeff Cooper’s Commentaries Volume Nine Vol. 9, No. 3/15/73

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Among the other signs of times we discover that coping is unfashionable. As far as I can tell, today’s young people are taught not to handle problems but rather to call for help. This is very bad race conditioning. As a boy I led a privileged life, but I nonetheless often got into jams beyond reach of assistance. I never called for help, and my father would have sneered at me if I had done so. At age seventeen while driving alone I blew a tire. I had never seen a wheel changed but I figured the matter out by myself. This is not to boast but only to point out that young men should be expected to cope.

-Jeff Cooper’s Commentaries Volume Ten Vol. 10, No. 3/14/73

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Could it be that the essence of liberalism is fear? It occurs to us that those who are considered “conservative” tend to be people who can cope with circumstances, while those who cannot cope tend to be of the “liberal” persuasion.

The pious man properly fears God, but on the political scene the winner fears only the state. It may be that the loser looks to the state for protection against the winner, and only eventually discovers that he has identified the wrong enemy.

Jeff Cooper’s Commentaries Volume Eleven Vol. 11, No. 12 5/6/75