Jeff Cooper (10 May 1920 - ) is recognized as the father of what is commonly referred to as "The Modern Techniques of Shooting". He was born John Dean Cooper and is known to his friends as "Jeff". Cooper is a former Marine Lt. Colonel who served in World War II and Korea. He is also a history professor and an ongoing student of history, a philosopher, an adventurer, an author, and a shooter. In the early 1980s, Cooper published an article describing his ideal of a general-purpose rifle, which he dubbed a Scout rifle.

Cooper's emphasis in the "modern technique" of shooting, or practical shooting, is the use of firearms in their intended roles as tools for personal protection and hunting rather than just instruments of recreation. ibid.

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.

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.

-- Jeff Cooper, The Art of the Rifle (as cited at [1])

Coined the term hoplophobia. Formulated the four basic rules of gun safety. In the 1950's, advocated the so-called "modern technique of the pistol", which emphasized two-handed shooting using the Weaver stance; prior to that, one-handed shooting was the common practice. Developed a system of readiness stances for the Colt 1911 automatic pistol and similar models.

External links:

http://home.sprynet.com/~frfrog/cooper.htm

http://www.dvc.org.uk/~johnny/jeff/