Jeff Cooper's Commentaries
Previously Gunsite Gossip
Vol. 2, No. 2 31 January 1994 (continued)

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Mark Moritz recently introduced me to "the pistol that shoots everything." It is a Smith-frame revolver that accepts any known cartridge in the 9mm persuasion, from the 380 to the 357. It accomplishes this by means of a trick cylinder and ejector system that accommodates to any sort of rim. Mark tells me that this is the answer, in view of the dark times ahead when ammunition may be as hard to come by as good whiskey during Prohibition. Could be. In any case, it is a very interesting piece.
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The run on arms and ammunition has caused shortages here and there throughout the country. In my opinion this phenomenon is a direct result of the passage of the Brady Bill. As everybody knows, that bill will do nothing about anything, but it does indicate that the hoplophobes now feel that they are free to go ahead with other and more ruinous action.

I have long preached that one should never be caught short in his personal armament, either in regard to the weapons or the ammunition. Keep up your supply, and do not neglect the 22 rimfire, which may well turn into the "ballistic wampum" I have spoken of the past.

If you have any loading equipment, stock primers, which may constitute the weakest link in the chain.
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"The entire modern deification of survival, per se, survival returning to its self, survival naked and abstract with the denial of any subsequent excellence in what survives except the capacity for more survival still, is surely the strangest intellectual stopping place ever proposed by one man to another."

William James, via Roy Traband
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That curious trial of the survivors of the Waco atrocity suggests trying the Christians for irritating the lions. ("Your honor, he just kept hitting me on the fist with his face!")
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I have been annoyed enough to mention it before, but I wish people would stop using the word "professional" as a synonym for "expert." Anyone who does anything for money is a professional at whatever it is he is doing. That certainly does not mean that he is doing it well. You have only to look around you. An expert, on the other hand, is doing it well. Whether he gets paid for it or not is coincidental.
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Do you enjoy recoil? A recent article in Magnum magazine from South Africa points out that the retroactive shock delivered by the shooting of a firearm is not necessarily punishment. The sock you feel when your racket centers a tennis ball, or when you floor the throttle on a highly-bred car in third gear, or when you hit the water from the boat deck of your fishing cruiser - these things are exhilarating. It seems possible that this tendency to mitigate the shock of recoil maybe overlooking something. Personally I enjoy shooting a full-sized weapon more than I do a 22, and if I can remember that far back, I used to anticipate with distinct pleasure an unavoidable tackle when running back a kickoff. Perhaps we should think further upon this.
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We recently ran across an interesting new word, Schlimmbesserung. It describes the process of making something worse by "improving" it. That is a good word to have at the ready these days, since it covers the subject without the necessity of a long-winded explanation.
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Those of you who are still looking for "Another Country," my best work to date, should know that the NRA Book Service still has a stock:
NRA Publications, 11250 Waples Mill Road, Fairfax, VA 22030.
The current owner of Gunsite Press seems disinclined to reprint it, despite the demand, so it may be now or never.
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Have we, the American people, truly forgotten the burning of the children?