John Harold Weaver (November 1, 1928 – April 7, 2009) was a Los Angeles County Deputy Sheriff and the developer of the

Weaver stance The Weaver stance is a shooting technique for handguns. It was developed by Los Angeles County Deputy Sheriff Jack Weaver during freestyle pistol competition in Southern California during the late 1950s. Description The Weaver stance has two m ...

, a popular shooting stance for firing

handguns A handgun is a short- barrelled gun, typically a firearm, that is designed to be usable with only one hand. It is distinguished from a long gun (i.e. rifle, shotgun or machine gun, etc.), which needs to be held by both hands and also braced ...

Biography

Weaver was born on November 1, 1928, in

South Gate, California South Gate is the 19th largest city in Los Angeles County, California, United States, with . South Gate is located southeast of Downtown Los Angeles. It is part of the Gateway Cities region of southeastern Los Angeles County. The city was inc ...

. He was an only child. Weaver attended Herbert Hoover High School in Glendale, California, and briefly attended Glendale Community College, but left when he was drafted into the

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land warfare, land military branch, service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight Uniformed services of the United States, U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army o ...

. It was around this time that he met Joy Moniot, whom he married on August 30, 1952, in Glendale. He joined the

Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department (LASD), officially the County of Los Angeles Sheriff's Department, is a law enforcement agency serving Los Angeles County, California. LASD is the largest sheriff's department in the United States ...

in 1954. Weaver was a member of the Southwest Combat Pistol League, along with several other world-class shooters including

Ray Chapman Raymond Johnson Chapman (January 15, 1891 – August 17, 1920) was an American baseball player. He spent his entire career as a shortstop for the Cleveland Indians. Chapman was hit in the head by a pitch thrown by pitcher Carl Mays and died ...

. In 1955, the team and individuals won the national championships at the

Toledo, Ohio Toledo ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Lucas County, Ohio, United States. A major Midwestern United States port city, Toledo is the fourth-most populous city in the state of Ohio, after Columbus, Cleveland, and Cincinnati, and according ...

, combat range using both one-handed and two-handed stances. The team defended the trophy for most of the following decade at practice matches in preparation for the National Pistol Matches, held shortly thereafter at

Camp Perry Camp Perry is a National Guard training facility located on the shore of Lake Erie in northern Ohio near Port Clinton. In addition to its regular mission as a military training base, Camp Perry also boasts the second largest outdoor rifle range ...

in northern Ohio. Weaver retired from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department in 1979, and resided near Carson City, Nevada, until his death.

Weaver stance

The

was developed by Weaver in the late 1950s to compete in Jeff Cooper's "Leatherslap" matches, which Weaver won in 1959. The stance, which incorporates a two-handed grip, isometric tension to reduce muzzle flip, and aimed fire using the weapon's

sight Visual perception is the ability to interpret the surrounding environment through photopic vision (daytime vision), color vision, scotopic vision (night vision), and mesopic vision (twilight vision), using light in the visible spectrum reflecte ...

s, was adopted in 1982 as the official shooting style of the

Federal Bureau of Investigation The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States and its principal federal law enforcement agency. Operating under the jurisdiction of the United States Department of Justice, ...

. Weaver's approach to handgun technique is reflected in a 1994 letter he wrote to ''Handguns'' magazine: "Practice, experiment, shoot in competition, stick to one gun, one style (no last-second decisions) and don't wait until you're in a

shootout A shootout, also called a firefight or gunfight, is a fight between armed combatants using firearms. The term can be used to describe any such fight, though it is typically used to describe those that do not involve military forces or only invo ...

to find out what works and what doesn't."

Notes

References

External links

The REAL Weaver Shooting Stance
via

YouTube YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second mo ...

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Weaver, Jack 1928 births 2009 deaths American law enforcement officials People from South Gate, California