![]() ![]() So I’m sitting in Salmon, ID, and this evening, I just believe I’ll raise a glass to those writers and handgunners who have gone before. ![]() We historians believe that you can’t really know where you’re going if you don’t know where you’ve been. It’s just that our handgunning history is full and colorful, and it’s a real shame to see it fade away. Now, I’m not knocking today’s writers and shooting instructors most of them do a great job, and many are my friends. Today’s shooters, especially the younger generation, could get a lot out of the yarns and experiences of these men from years gone by. Quite frankly, I miss it. I surely wish that today’s magazines would reprint some of the articles of these great writers of the golden era. Storytelling is not as big a priority in today’s gun magazines. Times change and publication focus changes, too. One strong man supplied the guts and the vision, and the world followed, which is the way things usually work in real life. His influence on handgun design was substantial, his influence on handgun cartridge design truly revolutionary. In that era, the gun writer had also better be an above-average storyteller. It has been said that Elmer Keith almost single-handedly pioneered modern sport handgunning. What they all had in common was the ability to entertain us while they also informed us. Some of these writers taught us a lot about how to shoot, while others of them taught us a good bit about gunfighting, since the two are not always the same. Again, the old timers in the audience will add some favorite names of their own to this list. Keith, we read and enjoyed writers like Bill Jordan, Skeeter Skelton, Jeff Cooper and Bob Milik, just to name a few of those who wrote mostly about handguns and handgunning. The years following the end of World War II became what I consider the golden years of gun writing. I think that the rugged, Idaho mountains that surround Salmon are a far more fitting monument to this grand old man of sixgunning. Early on, Keith supplemented his ranching ventures by writing stories for American Rifleman and most other popular magazines of the day. It was the home and final resting place of Elmer Keith, one of the great gun writers of years past.ĭuring a long life of cowboying and ranching in the northwest, Keith found time to assist in developing the. Now, you old-timers reading this will know exactly why I was compelled to visit Salmon. Of course, I made time to be sure to visit Salmon, ID. This past weekend, I played an event in southern Wyoming and then headed to Idaho on assignment for American Rifleman. ![]()
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