Miami_JBT
Member
Browsing one of the other gun forums (the black rifle associated one), I noticed that once again folks were attacking Massad Ayoob. I just don't get the hate. I'm not 40 years old yet, but I read Ayoob's In the Gravest Extreme: The Role of the Firearm in Personal Protection when I was young, and it was insightful. I've spoken with Ayoob a few times and learned a lot from him. But those folks attacking him are doing so because he wasn't a GWOT Operator.
So what! Ayoob came about in an era before the internet. In fact, he came about in an era where pretty much the idea of teaching the general public anything self-defense related wasn't done. Heck Jeff Cooper only opened up Gunsite in 1976 and Ayoob released In the Gravest Extreme in 1980. Self-defense instruction was just starting and Ayoob was one of the early folks that got it off the ground. He tackled self-defense in a manner that previously, was never done. He gathered data on laws and situations from around the country and developed a training curriculum around that information. He also became an expert witness and helped a number of folks being railroaded not be railroaded.
Same goes for Jeff Cooper, Elmer Keith, Ken Hackathorn, "Skeeter" Skelton, and the rest of 'em. I see folks now bemoaning and admonishing them too, especially Jeff Cooper and his ideas on the scout rifle.
The folks that came from yesteryear are the ones who laid the foundations that today's GunTubers get to build careers on. They were the pioneers of and settled the frontier to make what today's industry is. Even folks knock Lenny Magill. Yet he took basic gun instruction and slapped it on a VHS tape and that truly spawned the GunTubers.
Are some of these folks past their prime? And are some of their earlier works outdated? Sure. But at the time, many of them weren't outdated and they worked with the knowledge and tools that they had available. But more importantly, they built entire industries that the shooting public enjoys today.
So what! Ayoob came about in an era before the internet. In fact, he came about in an era where pretty much the idea of teaching the general public anything self-defense related wasn't done. Heck Jeff Cooper only opened up Gunsite in 1976 and Ayoob released In the Gravest Extreme in 1980. Self-defense instruction was just starting and Ayoob was one of the early folks that got it off the ground. He tackled self-defense in a manner that previously, was never done. He gathered data on laws and situations from around the country and developed a training curriculum around that information. He also became an expert witness and helped a number of folks being railroaded not be railroaded.
Same goes for Jeff Cooper, Elmer Keith, Ken Hackathorn, "Skeeter" Skelton, and the rest of 'em. I see folks now bemoaning and admonishing them too, especially Jeff Cooper and his ideas on the scout rifle.
The folks that came from yesteryear are the ones who laid the foundations that today's GunTubers get to build careers on. They were the pioneers of and settled the frontier to make what today's industry is. Even folks knock Lenny Magill. Yet he took basic gun instruction and slapped it on a VHS tape and that truly spawned the GunTubers.
Are some of these folks past their prime? And are some of their earlier works outdated? Sure. But at the time, many of them weren't outdated and they worked with the knowledge and tools that they had available. But more importantly, they built entire industries that the shooting public enjoys today.