Melody Lauer, a mother and firearms instructor, is finding that a course she created for new parents juggling the carrying of a newborn baby and a concealed weapon to be incredibly popular:

“We have seen a huge insurgence in young mothers – mothers of young children, wanting to get into firearms. And what’s happening is we don’t have instructors that are addressing their needs. So they just do it. They don’t do it right and then they end up having an accident,” Lauer said.

So as a firearm instructor and parenting expert, she’s going where no one has gone before.

“If you have baby on one side, it’s best to have gun on the other side,” Lauer said.

“To our knowledge, nobody is doing this yet. The interest was so great that she actually had to turn off or shut off the registration. Otherwise, we would have had two-three times as many people here,” said Barry Snesll, Crossroads Shooting Sports.

Some parents say it’s what they’ve been looking for.

“When we first had Margaret, and I just had this overwhelming desire, that I need to protect this child. And it’s really made me take it a lot more seriously,” said Eric Tull, a student.

I suspect that this Eric Tull from Iowa is the same Eric Tull that is a Bearing Arms reader, incredibly nice gentleman, and a graduate of the same Gunsite 250 Pistol class I attended in August of 2014.

I’d suggest that when Eric is ready let Margaret date in 25- or 30 years, boys, that you have her home early. Just in case.

In all seriousness, there is obvious demand for such a course, especially as it seems that so many new parents are discovering that they want to learn defensive firearms use after they have a new life to protect.

Safely carrying and storing a firearm for self-defense is hardly second nature for people who not might have grown up with firearms, and new parenting is tough enough as it is with the routine sleep deprivation that suddenly becomes part of your life.

Perhaps if such classes such as these existed in Houston, it wouldn’t be the negligent discharge clown show we’ve seen in the past few days, where three children have been shot in four days thanks to incredibly irresponsible adults leaving firearms where kids can access them.