I have always enjoyed his writing style and have gained some good insights from him. I emailed him once about something that he had written and his reply was very courteous and well-written. I believe that his crusty exterior is pretty much a shtick and that I would like to know him.
As for teaching people to shoot off their hands, when I was young, a was told of a fellow in our town who had gotten into an argument with another fellow over whether a certain revolver would shoot through a certain (old) wooden fence post. To prove that it would, he held the (somewhat loose) fence post firmly with his left hand, placed the muzzle of the revolver rather close to the post with his right, and fired. The bullet penetrated not only the post, but also his left hand.
