NRA Tactical Police Competitions

The Tactical Police Competition (TPC) program was created to encourage patrol officers to gain more experience, training and time on the range using their duty firearms. While traditional standard qualification courses of fire are very important, officers need additional practice time, live-fire exercises, and challenges to hone their skills and gain additional experience in handling and deploying duty firearms. TPC is different in many ways from other combat or tactical competitions:

• TPC is only for law enforcement officers, members of the U.S. military and private sector law enforcement officers.
• Firearms, holsters and other equipment must be "patrol duty gear."
• Courses of fire are designed as either Skill-Based Courses or Scenario-Based Courses.
  • Skill-Based Courses challenge the officer's skills and abilities in handling, accuracy and overall proficiency with a given firearm system under set conditions.
  • Scenario Based Courses place the officer in a hypothetical law enforcement encounter. The officer must then decide how to run the course and solve the challenges presented according to their own tactics and skills.

TPC matches are comprised of four to seven separate courses of fire. Courses may be handgun-only, rifle or shotgun-only, or a combination of firearms. Each course is designed to challenge the officer's skills in the use of their duty firearms and equipment. Some of the challenges include: assessing threat and non-threat targets, firing from unusual shooting positions, making tactical decisions of how to move through a course, using cover and working around visual barriers, being responsible for ammunition management, assessing hits, and balancing the paramount need for accuracy with speed. TPC is designed with a philosophy of presenting typical challenges they may face in their job. What an officer carries on the street should be what he uses in TPC courses. An exception to our street reality preference is the use of multiple sets of threat targets. As such, in Scenario Based Courses, officers will find multiple engagement decisions and sets of threat targets to provide additional opportunities for officers to practice and evaluate their skills.