Nostalgia - Cooper on Handguns

[alfsauve]

Cleaning, straightening and otherwise making the gun room at the Chalet de San Souci neater, I came across a 1965 edition of Outdoor Life's Complete Book of Shooting.   Written in three sections with one about rifle, one about shotgun and one about handguns.   The later, of course, was written by the Colonel.   It was my first formal introduction to shooting.   Looking back through it I realize how much has changed.

Of course the rifle section had nothing about AR's nor about Scout Rifles, but I spent most of my time in the handgun section.    While Cooper touched on all manner of handguns, primarily the writing centered around either the 1911 or revolvers, which isn't surprising.   Weaver verses Isosceles stance and point shooting were hot topics.  There were no IWB holsters.  And what surprised me the most was how much we've mashed up his rules.   


GUNS ARE ALWAYS LOADED

I've always railed against those who put any qualifiers in the first rule.   NO "treat all".  NO "assume all".  Plain and simple.  GUNS ARE ALWAYS LOADED.   And he was pretty adamant about not putting any qualifiers in there as well.   He felt it gave people an excuse when they had an ND.   I'm guilty though of adding the word "ALL" at the front.  Having read over his section on rules, I don't think he'd like that either.   Straight forward ALWAYS LOADED.

MUZZLE IN SAFE DIRECTION

He was a cheapskate when it came to extra words.  Sure he discussed what this meant, but the rule doesn't elaborate like we do now,  "Don't cover/point a gun at anything you don't....blah, blah, blah."

BE SURE OF YOUR TARGET

Again, straight forward, short and sweet.   I think he assume the reader had a lot of common sense.


BUT, where you ask is the trigger finger rule?   Surprise, surprise surprise.  He only had three rules.

Okay, but he did have a section on Range Etiquette in which he did discuss keeping finger off the trigger and other common sense guidelines when on the range.  Now that I'm old and crotchty, I'm going back to his original rules.    I ALSO REALIZE that he may have written them differently in different publications.  He may have modified them some as he went along.   But this was my shooting bible when I left home, so I'm sticking with this version.


It was a fun look into a window on 50 years ago.   I ought to clean out more often.