That strategy seemed especially appropriate for the class I took in early March 2017. The full name of the class is Contextual Handgun: The Armed Parent/Guardian (I’ll call it TAP/G here), and it’s taught by John Johnston and Melody Lauer of Citizens Defense Research. I attended the session hosted by John Murphy at FPF Training, in Culpeper, VA. It was my first time at FPF, and I’m hoping to be back for more in the future. It’s always a pleasure finding a new-to-me training range that’s easily accessible with good facilities and an organized host – thanks, John M.!
TAP/G is the first class developed and offered by Citizens Defense Research, and grew out of earlier work that Melody did with her groundbreaking Babywearing and Carrying class. As you might imagine from the name of the company, John and Melody are focused on what works for ordinary people toting guns – not law enforcement, not military, but an entirely different mission with more restrictive rules of engagement from both legal and ethical perspectives. That perspective is why I was interested in the class even though I don’t have kids and don’t spend a lot of time around them.
Turns out that the real key to the class material is in the first part of its name: Contextual Handgun. As introduced early in the classroom time that kicked off the weekend, the context in which we operate drives everything, whether it’s the mission, the gear, or the options available. In other words, we can’t find the best path to our goals unless we’ve identified and articulated them, and taken a look at the entire landscape between where we are now and where we’re trying to get to. The particular context for this class, the armed parent/guardian, was simply an application of the general framework that John and Melody emphasized throughout the class.
The lecture we started out with on day one was an excellent overview of the concept of contextualizing self-defense when children of all ages are in the mix, with application for anyone who might face a self-defense encounter when others are present. John and Melody also identified the goals of the class and contextualized (there’s that word again) the problems of self-defense where children are present into the concepts that are taught in more standard defensive pistol classes. While the material is covered in enough depth for someone completely new to the world of self-defense, it’s perhaps more appreciated by someone who already has a bit of a background and wants to understand how to expand and apply it.
After lunch, we braved the cold for an afternoon of reviewing and practicing the base skills needed to work with a pistol from concealment. The standards here were perhaps a bit tougher than I’ve seen in other classes, in preparation for day two’s shooting requirements, but were achievable by all students in our class, regardless of training background. I especially appreciated shooting a standard law enforcement qualification as the ending exercise for the day, to set a repeatable, objective baseline of shooting skill.
Day two of most defensive pistol classes generally get into the more difficult shooting problems faced by concealed carriers – the use of concealment garments, understanding cover, one-handed shooting, etc. TAP/G held true here by getting into more specific gun-handling knowledge and skills necessary when children are in the mix. The day started with a short additional lecture about aiming points, bridging the gap from fundamentals practice on less humanoid targets, and included a practical demonstration of why ammunition choice matters. Getting behind guns ourselves, we then learned how to manage kids of all ages, whether small enough to be carried or larger than the shooter, while maintaining a high level of performance downrange. Each skill built on one that we had practiced earlier, leaving us with some highly complex tasks that made clear why the day one fundamentals were so important to be able to perform reflexively.
The techniques taught largely fell into the “duh, why didn’t I think of that?” category: simple, easy to implement and remember, and highly effective. They weren’t obvious walking into the class, but now that I know them, I know I won’t forget them because they make so much sense. While geared towards people with children, I was able to immediately think of many applications of the same techniques in my own life. The tools for dealing with ‘big kids’ are, after all, not very different than you might consider for dealing with, well, big kid-like adults.
While we certainly worked hard on learning the relevant shooting skills, John and Melody also took the time to explain why each technique worked and when it would be most useful. As was hammered home all weekend, one of the key drivers for any self-defense is context both for deciding what to do at a certain point in time and for articulating that action at a later time. I found this particularly useful for some of the more potentially controversial solutions or ones that had a very narrow applicability.
Instead of providing “do this” pronouncements, TAP/G is a more nuanced class and requires an appropriately thoughtful approach to using a gun to defend yourself and others. Here, we faced not only the prospect of killing or dying in self-defense, but the consequences of being involved in or responding to an attack involving children and loved ones. Taking on the responsibility of wielding deadly force is and should be a weighty decision, and all the more so when you consider that you may have to choose the lesser of evils when defending more than one individual. TAP/G provides the background to help students think through those issues and the skills to apply their decisions.
The class was capped by the TAP/G qualification, based on the law enforcement qualification we shot at the end of day one but incorporating all of the new skills and techniques we learned in day two. I found it a useful review, reinforcing that I had indeed learned the skills enough to remember and use them. It also gave me a baseline of performance with my actual carry gear, so that I now objectively know how well I shoot with it when including the distractions that are part of managing a defensive shooting encounter with people I need to protect.
Because in the end, we return to the underlying theme of TAP/G, in what I hope to be a series of classes from Citizens Defense Research: do your skills, your gear, and your strategy fit the context?
