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The essence of defensive handgun skills is simply this: you do not have to be a victim!

The Definition of Defensive Handgun Skills

Before we can explore the realm of defensive handgun skills, we need to agree on a definition of what this art form truly is. Bear in mind that we must work within the confines of the legal constraints imposed by many state legislatures.

Most of the 38-odd states that have passed shall-issue concealed carry laws all have varying clauses in each statute. One common thread in each is that you have the right to protect your life and that of your family, and your property, from the threat of serious bodily harm and/or death. Pretty basic stuff, that! Therein lies the essence of our definition: you do not have to be a victim.

My rationale for defensive guncraft goes as follows: you have the right to use a weapon (handgun, long gun or edged weapon) in the lawful protection of your life and that of your family. It may be used as a deterrent or as lethal force, if the assailant launches a lethal and violent attack.

It follows, then, that the definition of defensive handgun skills is simply this: they are the means of using a weapon (hand gun, long gun or edged weapon) in the lawful protection of your life and that of your family. Now this definition has not been pulled from some other publication or author’s work. It is mine and comes from my study, research, teaching and thoughts about the various state laws and their application to our Constitution.

Familiarity and proficiency with your chosen weapon are only half the requirement. You must also be aware of, and observe, all applicable laws governing concealed carry in your state.

One note, at this point: several anti-gun states still cling to the silly notion that the potential victim must demonstrate to an attacker that he has retreated to a position of being less of a threat to said attacker. Now this doesn’t make a lot of sense. Currently, several states have stricken this clause from their statutes in favor of the potential victim, in the form of what is now being called Stand Your Ground laws. Finally, some of these state legislatures at least get it! Remember that you and you alone are responsible for knowing all applicable laws dealing with personal protection in the state in which you reside.

We know that law enforcement cannot always be there in our time of greatest peril, so we must train to prepare ourselves for this eventuality, should it ever occur. We have to train so as to confine our responses within the legal limits imposed by each individual statute. You see, concealed carry weapon (CCW) laws are all double edged. They provide the law-abiding citizen with the legal tools needed to provide for his or her own protection, but they demand that he or she act with great restraint and stay within this narrow band of responsibility in regard to a criminal who is intent on doing bodily harm.

If the CCW permit holder operates within these limits of force, identifies each level of danger and escalation by his assailant, and applies the appropriate measured response and survives the encounter, then he or she may still have to face the legal system in his or her community in a civil action, as deemed necessary under the law, by the district attorney.

The CCW permit comes with a tremendous and awesome responsibility to react to a threat with a controlled response that is sufficiently measured but also forceful enough to stop the threat. Remember, it is not a license to shoot a bad guy who may only appear to mean you great harm. Identifying that level of the threat is a very important component of your training.

Please note that my definition of defensive guncraft has been carefully formulated to remain within the bounds of most legal terminology and to comply in a generic way with basic CCW statutes.

One last time on our definition of the art of defensive handgun skills: they are the means of using a weapon (hand gun, long gun or edged weapon) in the lawful protection of your life and that of your family. They can be deployed as a deterrent or as lethal force, if the assailant continues a potentially lethal and violent attack.

Now, let’s examine all the elements of our defensive handgun skills equation and construct a logical sequence that will afford us a better understanding of this lifesaving and often necessary art.

U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis, Maryland. Instruction in pistol shooting - 1942

The History of Defensive Guncraft

As most of us know, there have been primitive firearms around since the mid-1300s. Of course, over the centuries, they evolved into the sophisticated weapons systems that we can see on the battlefields and in the hunting, recreational and sporting venues spread around the world. So how did the theory and principles of defensive hand gunning emerge? Good question.

For the answer, we need to look back to World War II and to Lt. Col. Jeff Cooper and the evolution of his fast draw and combat shoots that were staged at Big Bear Lake, California, in the 1950s. Up until that time, handgun shooting consisted of one-handed target shooting with none of the run-and-gun tactics that we see employed today at many of the IPSC and IDPA venues. This concept would change considerably under the guidance of Col. Cooper and his Big Bear contests in the next decade.

In fact, I was serving in the Marine Corps during this time and learned to shoot my 1911A1 duty pistol in this old time Camp Perry-style, one-handed technique with the firing side arm horizontal, locked out, and my body perpendicular to the target. It was often referred to as the dueling position. Cooper’s Big Bear shoots, by their very nature, were spawning grounds for experimentation and innovation as each competitor worked to get a competitive edge over his fellow competitors.

Initially, they used revolvers as their weapon of choice. Cooper started shooting his 1911A1 Colt Commander, which he had trained with while an officer in the Marine Corps. As his tournament wins grew in number, more and more of his fellow competitors took note and switched to various semiautomatics, mainly 1911-type weapons. Even Thell Reed, the King of the Single Actions, eventually switched to the 1911A1. All experimented with movement and combat (tactical) applications with this handgun.

Developed by the late Jack Weaver, the Weaver Stance is the classic defensive handgunning posture.

One such innovator was L.A. County Sheriff’s Deputy Jack Weaver. He worked on several stances and grips over time and figured out that a more stable and aggressive two-handed grip would afford him the accuracy, speed and precision he needed. At first he aimed his weapon at the target in a semi-point-shoot method. To improve his consistency and precision during the shoots, Weaver experimented with raising the weapon higher to eye level for precision-aimed shots. His accuracy and winning percentages improved immediately. Thus was born the Weaver Stance and Grip. (I discuss the Weaver Stance and Grip in great detail later in this book.) It consists of a 30° bladed stance with the firing-side foot pulled back about four to six inches from the firing line and combined with an overlapping two-handed grip.

The Weaver Stance and Grip proved to be a winner. It assisted in managing recoil and allowed Weaver to deliver rapid-fire multiple shots with considerable accuracy. Soon, his fellow shooters adopted this shooting position and today the Weaver is universally used by all shooters in the field of defensive guncraft. (Jack Weaver passed away in Carson City, Nevada, in July of 2009.)

Cooper’s shooting tournaments were initially called Leather Slaps and were essentially blank-firing fast-draw contests. They became very popular with the viewing public, but soon evolved into true combat-style action shoots, combining movement with time limitations. Cooper held them exclusively at the newly-opened ski resort atop Tejon Pass, in San Bernardino county, California. He called his group the Bear Valley Gunslingers. (This ski resort is still there today and is now called Snow Summit.)

As the popularity of Cooper’s contests spread, the two-handed Weaver stance and grip were being emulated by the shooting public all over the southwest. The name of Cooper’s organization had now become the South West Combat Pistol League. New shooting clubs formed teams to participate in this new and exciting form of pistol competition.

It is at this point that Cooper began to form the nucleus of what was to become his Modern Technique of the Pistol. It contained the basic elements of his form of modern pistol shooting and its combat nature, compared to the older Camp Perry style of static competitive and recreational shooting of the past. The Big Bear shoots gave impetus and seed to combat shooting for the public at large and many big-name shooters rushed to join Cooper and compete in them: Bob Munden, Ray Chapman, Eldon Carl, Thell Reed, John Shaw, Mickey Fowler, Mike Dalton and Armend Swenson, to name just a few.

Training under the guidance of a qualified, certified instructor is the best way to build defensive handgun skills.

As the popularity of this sport grew, spurred on by the many TV westerns, some of the fledging anti-gun groups of the day petitioned the California Secretary of State’s office to change the name of the SWCPL. They objected to the use of the word “combat” in the name. The California legislature caved in to the offended group and informed Cooper that the name had to be changed. Cooper acquiesced and renamed his club the International Practical Shooters Confederation. Thus was born what we now refer to as IPSC!

With IPSC established and a bad taste in his mouth for California and its brand of politics, Cooper left the IPSC management group and took his combat shooting and movement tactics and moved to Arizona. There, Cooper started his American Pistol Institute (API), in Paulden, Arizona. He later changed the name to Gunsite Firearms Training Center. He devoted himself to training both civilians and law enforcement personnel in the techniques of personal protection that were formulated during his Big Bear shooting days. At Gunsite, he instituted his Modern Techniques of the Pistol into the curriculum of his defensive handgun classes. Now civilians and law enforcement students were being taught the techniques that proved so successful during the competition that Cooper and his pals conducted at Big Bear Lake. His classes covered all the principles of movement, aggressiveness, tactics, mindset, the Weaver stance, gun handling, marksmanship and pistol deployment, coupled with his thoughts on speed, precision and accuracy. This, folks, is the precursor to what we now call defensive guncraft and its correlation to personal protection with a handgun. We have Col. Cooper and his sharp mind and wit to thank for his contribution to our welfare.

Gunsite is today rated as one of the top firearms training facilities in the country, along with Front Sight, Thunder Ranch and LFI. Cooper spent his remaining years writing, lecturing, consulting and operating and teaching at Gunsite. Through a couple of ownership changes, Cooper stayed at Gunsite until his health began to fail and he finally passed away on the September 26, 2006, at his home, the Sconce, on the Gunsite property.

The passage of the first CCW law in the country in 1987, in Florida, gave further impetus to the need for professional training in the art of defensive handgun skills. History has borne this out – in recent years a veritable boom in gun ownership has occurred, along with the growth of firearms training facilities. Not coincidentally, numerous peer-researched surveys all show an overall reduction in violent gun-related crime across our country. All this has served to enhance the reputation of Col. Jeff Cooper as the genius who was responsible for the development of the principles of defensive handgun skills.

Gun Safety

No book on firearms training that deals with gun handling and marksmanship would be complete without a thorough, up-front discussion of gun safety.

Safety, more especially gun safety, is a major concern for those shooters on and around any gun range when firearms are present. A professional, focused demeanor must be exhibited by all shooters at all times. Any reckless, careless, unsafe and unprofessional gun handling or behavior will never be tolerated or condoned by any observers or fellow shooters. This type of behavior will only demonstrate to all of those in your presence your level of incompetence and your total disrespect for their general safety and welfare. Contrary to this disrespect and reckless disregard for safety, a focused and concerned gun owner must always exhibit proper and correct safety standards whether on the range or alone in the field engaged in recreational shooting.

Remember, always handle your firearms in a safe and responsible manner and keep your head in the game! Further, the Four Universal Rules of Firearms Safety are in effect 24/7 wherever and whenever a firearm is present. Let’s start by discussing the importance of the Four Universal Rules of Firearms Safety.

The Four Universal Rules of Firearms Safety

These rules are attributed to Col. Cooper before he became a major influence in the handgun training field; there were, and still are, those who espoused dozens of such rules. Most of these rules were simply reiterations of the others. Recently I saw a modem firearms training video in which the instructor proposed that there were 16 rules of firearms safety. The vast majority of them were silly and insulted the viewer’s intelligence. Anyone with a half a room-temperature IQ could have routinely figured out that breaking a couple of them, while on the range, would not put them in any great peril. Cooper culled out all these nonsensical rules and relegated them to the trash heap. Breaking any one of the remaning rules while shooting or training with your firearm, however, might result in death or injury to the shooter and/or his fellow range companions.

Col. Cooper subsequently modified and distilled this hodgepodge of useless and repetitive rules into his Four Universal Rules of Firearms Safety. Any instructor worth his reputation should faithfully promote them on his range or in his classes. I teach them with much passion and ask my students to recite them verbatim in front of their fellow students each day until they are all able to exhibit that they have them firmly committed to memory.

Stephan P. Wenger, in his book Defensive Use of Firearms, has added a fifth rule, which states “maintain control of your gun.” My feeling is that this line of reasoning is more pertinent to gun ownership and storage than to range safety. It relates to the legal problems that can accrue from having your firearm fall into the wrong hands and end up being used in the commission of a felony offense like armed robbery, murder or the wrongful death of a minor. In many states, you can be charged as an accessory to that crime, the thought being that through your negligence, you facilitated the commission of the crime. Wenger’s fifth rule makes a lot of sense and all gun owners should be mindful of its implications. However, I choose not to include it as part of the original four rules. It goes without saying that proper and lawful gun storage of firearms by all gun owners is of the utmost importance at all times.

Is this weapon loaded or unloaded? It’s impossible to tell without checking the chamber. Thus the rule: Treat all weapons as if they are loaded!

Rule #1 Treat all weapons as if they are loaded.

Many gun pundits reverse these sentiments when reciting the Four Universal Rules of Firearms Safety and say “All weapons are always loaded!” To me, there is a very obvious distinction here and it may be parsing words, but all weapons are not always loaded. A popular talk show host has a saying that I utilize in my class lectures and writings: Words have meaning and actions have consequences! Think about that for a while, please.