This September, Armed Women of America is putting a national spotlight on the one thing every gun owner should do more of: train. 

We’ve joined theMantisX #TRAINtheWORLD Global Training Month with our own initiative, #AimHigher and we’re inviting shooters everywhere to spend the month doing exactly what the name says. You don’t have to be an AWA member to take part. Whether you belong to a chapter, another club, or no organization at all, if you own a firearm (or a bow) this challenge is for you. 

The concept is simple: Sign up, set a personal shot goal for September, and commit to completing it over 30 days. Train, track every shot live and dry, and report your totals by October 1. It doesn’t matter whether you’re brand new or a seasoned competitor. What matters is that you show up and do the work, consistently, for a month. That’s how real skill is built, and confidence follows. 

Log your shots however you train. Mantis makes it easy. The TitanX training pistol and app count your dry-fire shots for you, and the MantisX 10 sensor attaches to your firearm to track live fire. Prefer to count on your own? Use a simple shot log. Most people will do a mix, and that’s totally fine: we’re counting every shot, whether Mantis tracked it or you did. On the final report, you’ll enter your Mantis-tracked shots alongside your non-Mantis dry and live fire. 

To make it easy for anyone to join, we built a Participant Guide, a shot-tracking log, and a MantisX group for the campaign. Everything you need to get started is a scan or a click away. You can visit our website specific page: #AimHigher and the Train The World website for additional details.  

We also paired the training with a pledge drive. Supporters back a shooter with a flat gift or a per-shot pledge, and every dollar goes straight into our mission — training women to be safe, confident, and capable with a firearm. It turns a month of practice into a month of purpose. 

Safety is the foundation of all of it. Before anyone picks up a firearm, we lead with the rules. We produced a full dry-fire safety video series for the campaign that opens every daily drill with the four firearm safety rules and our five dry-fire rules: clear the room of ammunition, unload, confirm empty by look and feel, aim at a safe target with a solid backstop, and announce “dry fire.” Good training and good safety habits are the same habit. 

Armed Women of America exists to help women take responsibility for their own protection and become genuinely proficient. With 5,000-plus members and roughly 400 volunteer leaders running chapters across the country, we have a rare opportunity to move thousands of people toward measurable improvement in a single month. Opening #AimHigher beyond our membership means even more shooters can train alongside us. #TRAINtheWORLD gave us the perfect platform to do it out loud. 

If you lead a club, a chapter, or just a group of friends who want to get better, September is the month to aim higher. Set a goal. Track your shots. Train with intention. Anyone can join — and we’d love to have you shooting alongside us. 

Learn more and get involved at armedwomen.org.