Personal weapons are what raised mankind out of the mud, and the rifle is the queen of personal weapons.... Pick up a rifle - a really good rifle - and if you know how to use it well, you change instantly from a mouse to a man, from a peon to a caballero, and - most significantly - from a subject to a citizen.

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

Use your eyes. Do not enter unfamiliar areas that you cannot observe first. Make it a practice to swing wide around corners, use window glass for rearward visibility, and get something solid behind you when you pause.

On the very instant that we know that our assailant intends us serious physical harm, we must work just as fast as we can.

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.

The purpose of the pistol is to stop a fight that somebody else has started, almost always at very short range.

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.