The United States Concealed Carry Association offers a Children's Firearms & Safety Fundamentals class. The Association held an event highlighting their offerings at a New Hampshire range on September 13, 2025.
USCCA has a number of educational opportunities. Traditionally known for their self-defense programs, training has become a huge part of what the Association offers. The USCCA For Saving Lives Action Fund, a 501(c)(4) supported by Delta Defense, underwrote and sponsored the program. The “Family-Friendly Firearm Safety Event” was a glimpse into portions of the children’s class.
The safety event was an open house where participants could come for some or all of the presentations. The day could be carved up into two sessions with two of the modules taught twice, two hands-on craft activities, and one module that was offered once. Lunch and light refreshments were provided by USCCA and that included some delicious imported donuts from Rhode Island.
Modules from the curriculum that were taught in part included: “Ready, Aware, Prepared,” “Tools & Traditions,” and “The Big 4.”
The event was hosted at Manchester Firing Line shooting range in conjunction with Iron Rose Women's Shooting Club.
Heading the conversation and instruction was award-winning author/writer and trainer Beth Alcazar. Alcazar is one of the leading instructors at USCCA, she authored "Women's Handgun & Self-Defense Fundamentals" and "Children's Firearms & Safety Fundamentals," serves as an editor-at-large of “Concealed Carry Magazine,” and is the creator of the “Pacifiers & Peacemakers” blog. Also on site giving presentations was co-owner of Manchester Firing Line, TerryAnn Bowen.
“Ready, Aware, Prepared” is a kids version of situational awareness and conflict avoidance. Alcazar not only commanded the information, but also connected with the children in the seminar. Breaking the more complex concepts of things like the color code of awareness into digestible bits, the module was easy to take in.
“Tools & Traditions” is both a lesson on the “why” of gun ownership as well as a miniature civics lesson about the Second Amendment. The material was delivered in a very apolitical way and broke down the many facets of gun ownership, highlighting this important civil liberty.
“The Big 4” is a highly accessible way of teaching Cooper’s rules of gun safety. When the so-called universal rules are discussed, as Alcazar pointed out in her instruction, there’s some double negatives involved and a lack of clarity that leaves even adults scratching their heads.
The rules were all discussed and then pantomimed out in a Macharaniaesque manner: “Safe gun,” “safe direction,” “safe finger,” and “safe target.” Each point coincided with one of Cooper’s rules. This distillation is worthy of adoption in adult-level classes.
During “The Big 4” module, firearms instructor and retired law enforcement officer Daren Minch led a conversation about firearm safety education and communication. Minch stressed it’s our personal responsibility to educate ourselves beyond getting training and sitting in classes.
“You have the most unique opportunity that has ever been provided to anybody on this planet. You have this thing called the internet,” Minch said. “You can learn everything you want to know about guns, gun safety, gun violence, the history of guns, how to take a gun apart, how to put a gun together. Anything and everything you want to know about guns is right at the palm of your hand.”
Throughout the day, Alcazar communicated concepts artfully. At times the floor was open to discussion and she solicited responses from the children participants. If the “right” answer was not brought up, she was not dismissive. Rather than draw attention to a response being incorrect, she discussed a context that the answer would be correct in. She then further prompted the group until the lesson’s points were fully realized.
This mastery of a classroom and communicating with children is no accident. Alcazar has been an educator for over twenty years and is PHD bound in education.
After the series of mini classes, a participant who was hesitant to attend said that he was glad that he went. “It was good,” he said and noted that he did “learn a lot.” When asked if he’d attend a longer full version of the classes, he indicated that he would. “Beth was really cool and a good teacher,” he noted when asked about the experience overall.
“The USCCA Children's Firearms and Safety Fundamentals class actually includes nine mini classes,” Alcazar told Bearing Arms. “So there's these different sessions that are very flexible, little portions that have different topics that they're going to hone in on. And honestly, it's up to the instructor—once they're certified—which of those nine they want to teach.”
Alcazar explained that different modules could be mixed and matched to suit the needs of a particular audience. She said, “For the sake of today, we just wanted to kind of give everyone a little taste and give them some of the highlights of the lessons, and maybe they'll come back to this awesome range.”
For prospective instructors who are interested in getting certified to teach from the children’s curriculum, they must first be a USCCA instructor. Alcazar said that the children’s class would be an addendum to their base level of training. “They can go through the e-learning—just like they could with the Emergency First Aid or the women's class, and they can get the information and the toolkit that goes specifically for this,” Alcazar said.
“I think one of the most unique aspects to our program—if you try to look at other programs, or have a compare and contrast—is that there are three pillars to our program,” Alcazar said. “There's a prevention aspect, there's an education aspect, and there's an action aspect.”
Alcazar noted that some of the programs stop at prevention, teaching don’t touch firearms. Others, with the educational aspects, they’ll introduce firearms and how to hold them properly, and use them, but stop there. And for action, Alcazar said that implementing things like situational awareness would come into play. She explained, “We try to encompass all those things.”
TerryAnn Bowen, the co-owner of the range and founder of Iron Rose, enthusiastically welcomed guests and participants to the facility. Bowen believes in advocacy and serving more than just children through outreach events.
“I have a unique perspective owning a gun range and seeing women come in with the same questions,” Bowen said. “And what blows me away, it's been a decade I've owned this range, and in a decade, the same questions come in, and you think ‘isn't our industry growing?’” Those repeated questions and topics got Bowen motivated to create Iron Rose.
The programs and training that Bowen offers at Manchester Firing Line, either through the company or Iron Rose, cost money. She said that USCCA has always been a giving benefactor whenever she needed something in the way of extending outreach—like the children’s event held September 13.
“They believe in what I'm doing. They believe in the education,” Bowen said about USCCA. “We don't want money to be the reason people don't come—we say that. Every single month we offer two free seminars…for years, you know, for a decade.”
Bowen also talked about an upcoming event she’s hosting at the range. The Iron Rose Rise Together Weekend is scheduled for October 4-5. The event page says that Iron Rose has partnered with Women’s Defense League of NH, East Coast School of Safety, Joan of Arms, USCCA, GLOCK, and others to bring the event to fruition.
“You'll work with certified instructors in both range and classroom sessions covering rifles, pistols, self‑defense, less‑than‑lethal techniques, and more,” the Facebook event page says. “Build your own schedule by choosing from a variety of workshops—some have limited spots, so register early to lock in your favorites.” The page also says there’s a banquet on Saturday night.
A poster at the range advertised that the following trainers/speakers will be presenting at the event: Andee Reardon, Ashley Robertson, April Allgire, Kate Giddins, Thomas Brown, and Tyler Shaw. A social media post announced that Olympian and former “Top Shot” contestant Gabby Franco is scheduled to be the keynote speaker.
If you’ve got an opportunity to pop into a USCCA-sponsored outreach event like the “Family-Friendly Firearm Safety Event,” you should check it out. Classes like the one Alcazar taught are great primers to getting children involved in the shooting sports in a safe and stress-free manner. For more information on USCCA-sponsored free events, click HERE. Alternatively, if you’re interested in training, they have a whole selection of classes available across the country.
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