Jeff Cooper Quotes

Aggressiveness carries with it an incalculable moral edge in any combat, offensive or defensive.

One bleeding-heart type asked me in a recent interview if I did not agree that 'violence begets violence.' I told him that it is my earnest endeavor to see that it does. I would like very much to ensure - and in some cases I have - that any man who offers violence to his fellow citizen begets a whole lot more in return than he can enjoy.

The specific course you decide upon is, within certain parameters, less important than the vigor with which you execute it.

Your mind-set is your primary weapon

It is high time for society to stop worrying about the criminal, and to let the criminal start worrying about society. And by "society" I mean you.

The proliferation of state concealed carry laws has evidently reduced the rate of violent street crime to a considerable extent. When the goblins do not know who is armed and who is not, their professional enthusiasm declines. Now that Britain has made sure (insofar as any law can so insure) that everybody is disarmed, the streets arem given back to the bad kid with the baseball bat. We hope they are satisfied.

If I wasn't a trader, I would probably be in the film business in some capacity and writing in some other form. I went to NYU Film School and London Film School.

Not to our surprise, we discover that gun crime in Britain is up 10.9 percent since the disarmament of the private citizen.

Not long ago it was easy to tell who the bad guys were. They carried Kalashnikovs. Now it is much more complicated, but one thing is sure - any man who covers his face and packs a gun is a legitimate target for any decent citizen.

The perfect fight is one that is over before the loser really understands what is going on. The perfect defense is a counterattack that succeeds before the assailant discovers that he has bitten off more than he can chew.

What are we going to do if citizens are disarmed, and the government doesn't obey its own laws?

Anyone who appears to be triggered out of watchfulness and into action by your appearance must be explained. Anyone observing you carefully must be explained. Anyone whose behavior seems to be geared to yours must be explained. If the explanation does not satisfy you, be ready to take appropriate defensive action.

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

It appears that the murder rate inside prisons is ten times higher than that outside prisons. It must be due to all those Kalashnikov rifles that are issued to prisoners upon their incarceration.

We continue to be exasperated by the view, apparently gaining momentum in certain circles, that armed robbery is okay as long as nobody gets hurt! The proper solution to armed robbery is a dead robber, on the scene.

I am sometimes perplexed by people who refer to defensive rifles, or defensive rifle shooting. The defensive arm is the pistol, since you have it at hand to meet situations that you do not anticipate. If you have the luxury of anticipating a lethal encounter, you pick up a long arm, either a rifle or a shotgun, but in that case you go on to the attack. Thus rifle shooting is offensive, and pistol shooting is defensive. Of course, life does not always duplicate theory, and there are exceptions to everything, but nevertheless the rifle is not a defensive weapon in concept.

We thought everybody knew by now that barrel length has almost nothing to do with accuracy. I believe the myth of the superior accuracy of a long rifle dates from colonial days, when the only way to extend sight radius was to make the barrel as long as possible. It is interesting how long it takes a myth to die.

The rifle is a weapon. Let there be no mistake about that. It is a tool of power, and thus dependent completely upon the moral stature of its user. It is equally useful in securing meat for the table, destroying group enemies on the battlefield, and resisting tyranny. In fact, it is the only means of resisting tyranny, since a citizenry armed with rifles simply cannot be tyrannized.

Under any sort of attack, keep cool. And if you must shoot, shoot with precision.

It seems that the concealed carry policy now in effect in 30 states is unfair to goblins. They cannot tell who is armed and who is not, and when their intended victim shoots back it hurts their feelings - along with other things.

I think the works of W.D. Gann and Robert Prechter have inspired me more than anyone else. It was from their writings that I discovered cycles, patterns, and psychology dominate the market, and that the news breaks with the cycles, not the other way around.

If a principle exists it must be immutable, for that is what a principle is - a truth standing apart from the mood of the times.

The rifle is the queen of weapons and its effective use is one of the greatest satisfactions available to man.

At long last I have discovered that most shooters are not interested in firearms as tools, but rather as toys. Such people do not acquire their weapons because of what they will do, but rather to gratify the "Christmas morning joy" that we largely left behind in our childhood.

We are fully justified in valuing the life and person of an intended victim more highly than the life of a pernicious assailant. The attacker must be stopped. At once and completely.

Most governments are designed to protect the government from the people, whereas the United States government was organized to protect the people from the government.

Personal weapons are what raised mankind out of the mud, and the rifle is the queen of personal weapons. The possession of a good rifle, as well as the skill to use it well, truly makes a man the monarch of all he surveys. It realizes the ancient dream of the Jovian thunderbolt, and as such it is the embodiment of personal power. For this reason it exercises a curious influence over the minds of most men, and in its best examples it constitutes an object of affection unmatched by any other inanimate object.

Speed is the absolute essence of any form of combat

The criminal does not expect his prey to fight back. May he never choose you, but, if he does, surprise him.

In the larger sense, however, the personal ownership of firearms is only secondarily a matter of defense against the criminal. Note the following from Thomas Jefferson: The strongest reason for the people to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against the tyranny of government. That is why our masters in Washington are so anxious to disarm us. They are not afraid of criminals. They are afraid of a populace which cannot be subdued by tyrants.

What you do to prevent further felonious assault, as long as the felon is still capable of action, is justified.

We are somewhat amused by the hysteria manifest in the press at the suggestion by Gordon Liddy that if one is menaced by bad guys (particularly the ninja) one is wise to shoot for the head. That statement has got a whole bunch of journalists and commentators bleeding from the nose. One wonders why it should. Where else should you shoot a man if he is probably wearing an armored vest? If you decide to shoot you have made the big decision. Where you place your shot is merely a technical matter.

There ain't many troubles that a man caint fix With seven hundred dollars and a thirty ought six.

The media insist that crime is the major concern of the American public today. In this connection they generally push the point that a disarmed society would be a crime-free society. They will not accept the truth that if you take all the guns off the street you still will have a crime problem, whereas if you take the criminals off the street you cannot have a gun problem.

Any man who is a man may not, in honor, submit to threats or violence. But many men who are not cowards are simply unprepared for the fact of human savagery.

By doing what our assailant least expects us to do, we may throw him completely off. ... what he usually least suspects is instant, violent counterattack, so the principle of aggressiveness is closely tied to threat of surprise.

One of the notable aspects of the democratic process is that one need not know anything about a subject in order to pass laws about it.

It has long been my conviction that a masked man with a gun is a target. I see no reason to change that view.

Blessed are those who, in the face of death, think only about the front sight.

Colonialism has a bad reputation in the modern context, but Colonial Africa was a far better place for both black and white before the colonists gave up.

All the people constitute the militia - according to the Founding Fathers. Therefore every able-bodied man has a duty under the Constitution to become part of the "well-regulated" militia, specifically to understand and perform well with the individual weapon currently issued to the regular establishment. . . . Thus one who has not qualified himself with the M-16 may not be considered to be a responsible citizen.

The 1911 pistol remains the service pistol of choice in the eyes of those who understand the problem. Back when we audited the FBI academy in 1947, I was told that I ought not to use my pistol in their training program because it was not fair. Maybe the first thing one should demand of his sidearm is that it be unfair.

The rifle itself has no moral stature, since it has no will of its own. Naturally, it may be used by evil men for evil purposes, but there are more good men than evil, and while the latter cannot be persuaded to the path of righteousness by propaganda, they can certainly be corrected by good men with rifles.

Anyone who is aware of his environment knows that the peril of physical assault does exist, and that it exists everywhere and at all times.

I have long had a tendency to tie marksmanship to morality. The essence of good marksmanship is self-control, and self-control is the essence of good citizenship. It is too easy to say that a good shot is automatically a good man, but it would be equally incorrect to ignore the connection.

The proper course of action, when under attack, is usually to counterattack.

Anger, as long as it is controlled anger, is no obstacle to efficiency. Self-control is one thing the sociopath does not usually possess. Use yours to his undoing.

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.