[NOTE: Citizens’ Defense Research’s next class in Alliance, Ohio is the weekend of April 1-2. They’re currently running a “BOGO” (buy one seat in the class, get the next seat free) offer from now until Monday at 11:59PM EST. If you’re within driving distance, I’d suggest going for the reason’s below. Make sure you select the $450 option]

Thanks to my job, I get to do a lot of very cool firearms training classes and media events sponsored by manufacturers. From aerial target interdictions to storming a prison cell block full of terrorist robots while wearing night vision gear in the dead of night, to shooting machine guns and $25,000 precision rifles, I’ve had a blast. Literally.

It’s all very cool, and I’ll jump at my next training opportunity or media event and I’ll love every second of it, but I also know that while these experiences are both fun and educational, they don’t provide a lot of knowledge that can easily translate well to my everyday life. After all, I can’t just call up a Little Bird and start blazing away with a suppressed AR-15 if I’m with my oldest daughter and we’re approached by an apparent mugger when at the local Walmart…

… as cool as that may be.

That’s why Citizen Defense Research‘s Contextual Handgun: The Armed Parent/Guardian is probably the most relatable class I can recommend to the readers of Bearing Arms. We’re simply not tooling around in plate carriers with an AR-15 in our hands and a pistol on a drop-leg rig in our daily lives, but we do run to the grocery store with our husbands and wives, dinner at a restaurant with our spouse and kids, and run errands with a gaggle of rug rats in tow, often several times a week.

Colloquially called “TAP/G” by graduates, the class is the first I’ve taken that has taken the real-world context of being the armed defender of our families out in public, typically with a concealed handgun.

That’s the normal, daily context of our lives that most shooting schools simply haven’t fully addressed, and what “TAP/G” is specifically designed to provide:

A fast-paced course designed around the thought, “What if my children are with me when I get into a shooting?” Contextual Handgun: The Armed Parent/Guardian discusses with students the hard/soft skills necessary to solve the commonly observed shooting problems associated with fighting with our children present. Are some of the most commonly held best practices for if we are attacked when we are alone actually going to put our loved ones at risk when they are present? Students will be shown WHY the context we find ourselves in as a parent can change our tactics. This skill-intensive two-day course covers application of practical handgun skills in a family environment. Topics include, but are not limited to; types of attacks, avoidance skills, handgun terminal ballistics and the importance of accuracy, one-handed access/shooting skills, shooting past/around no-shoots, clearing family members from lines of fire, best practices for dealing with a close-range assault while loading/unloading children from the vehicle, malfunction clearances and more with the end result being students better capable of delivering fast, accurate, fight-ending fire on demand.

My review of the “alpha” class (the very first one they taught, full of new shooters, and highly skilled instructors, and advanced hobbyists) was absolutely glowing, and with good reason. I’m the doting father of two girls, and the husband of a loving wife. While I’ve trained to fight on my own or with other highly-skilled individuals, The Armed Parent/Guardian is the very first class that focused entirely on how to defend my family. But as good as I thought that first class was last year, instructors Melody Lauer and John Johnston have done a lot of work to refine and enhance the focus of the course, and those who have taken it recently have posted their own reviews, suggesting this class—designed for us, not SWAT teams or pipe hitters—is only getting better.

I’d strongly suggest that if you carry a concealed handgun and have a family, and you’re thinking about taking a training class that focuses on the way you live your life, that you take a look at the Citizens’ Defense Research web site and see if they’re offering a course in your area.