TacCon 2024, as we call it, is now in the books. [link] It is an annual teaching and learning conference for those who are, or want to be, serious students of the Art of Self-Defense and Personal Protection. This is the fourth year it has been held at the Dallas Pistol Club, a marvelous facility.

The Conference is three days long. This year there were 42 trainers, who taught 69 different classes in 10 different ranges/classrooms. Topics ranged widely from shooting technique to unarmed combatives to medical procedures to using social media effectively and safely. Some classes are live fire, some are hands-on non-live fire, and some are lectures.

There is also a pistol match for those who choose to shoot it. The match is not mandatory and some attendees don’t shoot it. Not everyone who attends TacCon is a gun person, although most are. The Pistol Match consists of 40 rounds shot on turning silhouette targets at distances of 3 to 10 yards.

The presentation I gave was Off-Duty Shootouts of the LAPD. The basis for my presentation was the entirety of shootouts by LAPD officers, while they were off-duty, during the period 2005 to 2022, the last year full reporting has been published.

Since there are generally 10 classes going on at time, it’s impossible to attend them all. Some of the classes are repeated once or twice but the majority are not. Classes I was able to attend were:

Friday

Beware of… Well, Just Beware by Tom Givens

As my colleague Craig Douglas likes to ask “How do you do ‘Situational Awareness?’” Tom provided some answers to that question.

Civilian Defender Philosophy by Dr. Sherman House

The Art of Self-Defense and Personal Protection has many different facets, as represented by the wide variety of topics presented at TacCon. ‘The Real Dr. House’ presented his thoughts on how to prioritize and integrate them.

SATURDAY

Off-Duty Shootouts of the LAPD by Claude Werner, the Tactical Professor. To start the day off right, my presentation was one of the 8AM offerings.

Why study Off-Duty POlice Shootings? LAPD officers are encouraged to NOT take “enforcement action” while off-duty. Off-duty lethal force incidents involving LAPD officers are almost always Self-Defense/Personal Protection incidents much like those that could be encountered by Armed Private Citizens. They provide a thoroughly researched and documented database of shootings and the circumstances that led up to them.

Pistol Match

I finished about middle of the field. But since I shot a Taurus 856 snub revolver and speedloaders against a bunch of red dot equipped service sized autoloaders, I’m okay with that. POV video of the match will be up in a few days on my YouTube channel.

10 Tips for Teaching Gateway Students by Karl Rehn

It’s heartening to me to see how many high level instructors are thinking about best practices for teaching entry level gunowners and shooters. Karl’s wasn’t the only such presentation at the Conference but the only one I could attend.

During lunch, Andy Stanford from Surefire did a video interview with me about Serious Mistakes Gunowners Make and Guns That Get No Respect. When he publishes the edit, I’ll link it.

More about the Conference tomorrow