Excerpts from the Writings of Jeff Cooper. July 2026
I find it strange and discouraging to note that the design and production of pistols, which once was the field of the United States industrial establishment, has been relinquished to the rest of the world. For most of my life a handgun was made in the United States or it was essentially inconsequential. Now, of course, we find that the American military service is armed with a weapon of Italian design. This is not to denigrate the Italians, who have indeed designed some wonderful weapons, but the art of the handgun has always been essentially an American concept, and to see us drop the subject in favor of the Europeans is not cheerful. We are by no means chauvinistic in this. We admire German and Italian cars excessively, and we are particularly fond of South African wines and Germanic rifles, but the art of the handgun has always been an almost exclusively American achievement, and it is indeed a pity to see that era vanish.
Jeff Cooper’s Commentaries Vol.1, No.8 July 1994
A lot of heated conversation has been flying these days in connection with the word “hero.” Research indicates that the word can mean almost anything one wants it to mean. It is really no longer possible to elevate anyone by referring to him as a hero. The most commonplace examples are entertainers. A hired entertainer is worth whatever the lord of the manor wishes to pay him, but the fact that he performs his entertainments well does in no way establish him as a hero. Thus no professional athlete can be correctly termed a hero for doing what he is paid to do excessively well. Expert, possibly. Hero, no. A true hero performs noble purposes of great difficulty at immediate risk of his life. Warriors and fire fighters may indeed be heroic, but hardly simple purveyors of amusement.
Jeff Cooper’s Commentaries Vol.1, No.8 July 1994
“Slavery in the modern world implies the absolute deprivation of the individual’s liberty, while possession of weapons and mastery of their use are means to the individual’s liberation. We do not perceive how a man may be armed and at the same time bereft of his freedom.”
John Keegan, in “The Face of Battle”
Jeff Cooper’s Commentaries Vol.1, No.8 July 1994
In our recent survey of the African battlefields, we discovered more positively every time that it was not Boer marksmanship that made the difference in those wars so much as Boer gun handling. Contrary to widespread belief, the Boers did not do significant damage at great range, but when they got into a firing position at a reasonable range, they shot carefully in order to hit rather than by volley in order to scare. It seems apparent that these men, while good shots, were not extraordinary shots. What matters is that when they came on to shoot they used their individual weapons purposefully rather than ostentatiously. Carefully aimed rifle fire at short range is overwhelmingly demoralizing. What happens, however, is as the range shortens improperly organized warriors tend to shoot carelessly. The difference is decisive.
Jeff Cooper’s Commentaries Vol.1, No. 8 July 1994
Family member and riflemaster John Gannaway recently cruised out to a silhouette match, which he entered more out of curiosity than anything else. Not to my surprise, he won, being the marksman that he is. I find in my wanderings across the world that the people who enter marksmanship competition are in large measure not qualified for the task. I have seen people shooting in police pistol matches recently who have obviously not been properly schooled. The problem is serious and is one result of the loss of doctrinal purity on the part of IPSC competitors.
Today the Israeli pistol salesmen are roaming the world and providing pistol training for those departments who will purchase their firearms. I have seen the results, and it is quite clear that Israeli pistol doctrine has little to recommend it apart from the fact that the Israelis teach it.
Who then can define proper pistolcraft at this time? At the beginning of The Movement it could be said that the best shots were those who were winning in practical competition. Since the loss of practicality in practical competition, who can say what technique is best? The original lifesaving technique was invented by Jack Weaver, perfected by Elden Carl and Ray Chapman, codified by John Plahn, and promulgated by me. Now, thirty years later, I do not see anything better being demonstrated worldwide. On the contrary what I see, in the main, is retrogression. It is, of course, presumptuous of me to claim that I know the answer, but looking around I certainly can say that I have seen a great many people who presume to know the answer and do not.
The important thing is to keep the seekers after excellence free of the public sector. Neither the police nor the military, are proper places in which to seek individual excellence. Many cops and many soldiers are very fine marksmen, but they are that regardless of their civil status. The sad fact is that individual excellence is a matter for development by the individual and it is not something that can be imparted in the mass. Ask any fighter pilot the next chance you get.
Jeff Cooper’s Commentaries Vol.3, No.8 June 1995
I had always thought that the injunction not to shoot “until you can see the whites of their eyes” was properly attributed to Dr. Joseph Warren at Bunker Hill. Now I find that Frederick the Great has supposed to have used the same caution several generations earlier. Be that as it may, it does raise an interesting point. Just how far away can one see the whites of the eyes? Check that out yourself sometime. Just what is the range at which you can see the whites of someone’s eyes?
Jeff Cooper’s Commentaries Vol.3, No.8 June 1995