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Remembering the Colonel
Jeff Cooper, 5/10/20 - 9/25/06
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The Colonel is dead. John Dean "Jeff" Cooper, the last of the old guard gun writers, passed away September 25 at his home in Paulden, Arizona. Col. Cooper was one of the original Guns & Ammo writers--from the very first issue published in the summer of 1958, in fact. "Cooper's Corner," was one of the magazine's most popular and features.
Cooper was born in May 1920 in Los Angeles, California. He received a master's degree in history and that background always showed through in his writing. One of the other great influences on his life and avocation was his service in the Marine Corps from 1941 to 1955. He served on the battleship USS Pennsylvania in World War II and what he referred to as "the clandestine services" during Korea.
Later, when he was assigned to the Marine Corps training facility in Quantico, Virginia, he developed a strong interest in the Model 1911 .45 pistol, of which he was one of the country's most noted authorities and staunchest supporters. He considered the 1911 "the most efficient combat sidearm yet devised by man."
Cooper was also a .45 ACP devotee but conceded that it wasn't the end-all of defensive pistol cartridges. "The .45 ACP cartridge has almost enough power," he wrote. "No conceivable cartridge can have 'enough' for all conceivable circumstances." This belief led him to help develop the Bren Ten pistol, a semiauto that fires the potent 10mm Auto cartridge.
Cooper's devotion to defensive pistol craft motivated him to found the American Pistol Institute in the mid-1970s. The facility, known to thousands of students across the country as Gunsite, was the training ground where he and a cadre of instructors taught Cooper's Modern Technique of pistol fighting to civilians, law enforcement officers and military personnel.
The technique incorporated a two-handed Weaver stance, a large-caliber handgun (preferably a semiauto and, of course, preferably a Model 1911) and quick acquisition of the sight picture. The technique also stressed firearms safety, compressing the so-called 10 Commandments into four simple rules: all guns are always loaded; never let the muzzle cover anything you are not willing to destroy; keep your finger off the trigger until your sights are on the target; and identify your target and what's behind it.
He eventually sold the Gunsite operation in 1992 but continued to live on the property.
His expertise on guns extended well beyond handguns, as elements of his Modern Technique were also adopted in defensive shotgun shooting. He also pioneered and advocated a rifle technique and design he called the Scout Rifle. This concept, which called for a low-power scope to be mounted forward on a rifle's fore-end, led to the development of several rifles--including models from Steyr and, more recently, Ruger.
His firearms knowledge and expertise aside, Col. Cooper was at his core a philosopher, and his monthly columns in Guns & Ammo weren't always strictly gun-related. One recent column included a passage on the things a "young male of 21" should know, these requirements ranging from knowing the Federalist Papers and de Tocqueville to understanding geography, botany agriculture and economy, to managing a motorcycle and being comfortable in at least one foreign language. Readers wrote in for months about just that one passage--both pro and con--and it was an indicator of what an effect he had on the people he reached with his words.
But guns, love and defense of country, and fighting the good fight are what he will be remembered for, and these things and these ideas brought out some of his most powerful writing.
"Weapons are the tools of power," he wrote back in 1979. "In the hands of the state, they can be the tools of decency or the tools of oppression, depending on the righteousness that state. In the hands of criminals, they are the tools of evil. In the hands of the free and decent citizen, they should be the tools of liberty. Weapons compound man's power to achieve whatever purpose he may have. 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 of 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."
Cooper was the author of several books, including The Art of the Rifle, Another Country, Fireworks, To Ride, Shoot Straight and Speak the Truth, C Stories and Gunsite Gossip.
Col. Cooper is survived by his wife, Janelle, and by three daughters and five grandchildren.
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