Judging from phone conversations I had with Allen he learned the lessons he set forth in that quote the same way most of us do......by owning a lot of rifles!
i didn't know Allen as well as many but that seemed to be pretty clear to me when we talked. It seemed he had gone through a lot of rifles,but adopted that philosophy when he started having Darcy Echols build rifles for him....I could be mistaken but that's the way it seemed (?)