As I mentioned elsewhere on the Forum, I emailed Jim Franklin, the Executive Director of the Minnesota Sheriffs Association, about some issues that have come up. Here's his response, and my response to him; it's posted with permission. Jim's writing is in italics.

To: Jim Franklin
Cc: sen.pat.pariseau@senate.mn
Subject: Re: Message for Jim Franklin.


Jim Franklin wrote:

Joel:

I received your message below and with all due respect, I'm moving on to making sure the new law is operating as efficiently as possible. Let me just make a couple of quick comments.


Thanks for the comments; I hope you don't mind several quick responses. There'll be more discussion of these issues on the Forum at http://forum.twincitiescarry.com and -- if you don't mind -- I'll post both your response and my own comments there. (I won't post your email without your permission, and won't edit it -- that would be wrong -- but it would be easier for me if I can post it, and then my own responses, without having to turn my responses into another long essay on the subject to put them in context. Up to you; please let me know. If I don't hear from you, I'll assume that you don't want your email published.)

1. I was not the Executive Director of MSA back when the first PPA law
was passed. Hence, much of what went on at that time is history to me.


The history of both the passage of the 2003 law and the MSA's lobbying against carry reform for almost a decade before is very important history indeed, both in evaluating the present, and in moving forward. I'll refer you to, once again, Sheriff Steve Borchardt's excellent summary at http://209.157.64.200/focus/f-news/959414/posts , and my own short history of it and more recent events at http://ellegon.com/features/data/observations .



2. My L/E career has focused on "police training" which is different than civilian firearms training. I used to teach the DNR Firearms training course for kids a number of years ago, that this is my only
involvement in civilian firearms training, however I know that NRA has taught a number of civilians and I have always thought their training programs were high quality.


I certainly agree that their training is of very high quality -- but, then, I would: I'm certified as an NRA instructor in several disciplines. And I think that points to a problem with both the recommended standards that came out of the MSA meetings, and the present ones:

NRA, despite being the gold standard for civilian firearms training, is not an approved organization under the new standards!

I've talked to Senator Pariseau about that several times. I don't, of course, speak for her, but if you ask her, I'm sure she'll tell you that that was not her intent when she agreed to the compromises that the MSA asked for during the writing of the legislation. Don't trust me -- ask her.


3. The decision of myself/MSA to help BCA with the development of the new PPA instructor standards was not a secret!! There were a number of interested parties who came to the table, and NRA had a representative there that spoke on behalf of NRA. I can tell you that at least myself
and I think many others there all thought this person spoke on behalf of NRA. I can tell you our intent was to be inclusive and we were not knowledgeable of the internal problems inside NRA.

I'm sure your intentions were good, but, as a matter of fact, there was no NRA representative at the meetings, although I accept that you and several others there honestly believed otherwise. If you've any doubt about that, I'd suggest that you call NRA-ILA, and get the same authoritative answer that I've gotten. I don't think it reflects internal problems inside NRA when somebody who doesn't have the authority to speak for NRA affects to do so, and says -- quite inaccurately -- that NRA has no interest in who conducts carry permit training in Minnesota.

As I think that many folks can tell you -- and you could call Governor Pawlenty's office, if you're in any doubt -- NRA became very interested in the matter -- when they were, finally, made aware of what was going on -- and communicated that interest and their concerns to the highest levels of government in Minnesota. (That said, of course: I don't speak for NRA. You should probably check with them, or with Governor Pawlenty's office, rather than taking my word at face value.)

Probably the best way to get an NRA representative would have been to, well, contact NRA. You can find contact information at www.nra.org -- or, if you know any NRA instructor, contact phone numbers are available on their instructor card. (And, for that matter, on any NRA member's membership card -- NRA isn't hard to find.)

As to the meetings being a secret, well, there's apparently some confusion there. At least two attendees of the meeting have reported that they were "sworn to secrecy," and I know of many people interested in the new standards who had made their interest very clear, who only heard about the meetings after the secret meetings were finished, and the proposed standards sent to the DPS. I've covered that in detail on the livejournal -- see http://www.joel-rosenberg.com -- so there's no need to revisit that lengthy history at this point.

I think it's fair to characterize them as secret meetings -- although I certainly agree that it was not as tightly-held a secret as it might have been. What you had at your meetings was an ad hoc group -- nothing wrong with that, per se -- representing the MSA, MALEFI, and several business interests -- Andrea Murphy's "Atalanta Lady" company, AACFI, Bill's Gun Range, and so forth. And, again: there's nothing wrong with that. You also had a representative from the small, quasi-grassroots organization, "Citizens for a Safer Minnesota," which opposed carry reform -- just as the MSA did -- and still does, although I accept that the MSA no longer does.

That's fine, too.

It's what was missing that was the problem.

What you were missing was somebody representing NRA (the largest grass-roots organization interested in the matter) and the carry reform community. Joe Olson and Tim Grant weren't there representing GOCRA/CCRN, the largest grass-roots lobbying organization on the matter in Minnesota; they were there, quite clearly, representing AACFI, their private company. Which is only understandable -- they couldn't represent two different interests at the same time.

Heck, even Senator Pat Pariseau -- the author of the MCPPA, and somebody who could reliably have been predicted to be interested in seeing how the bill she wrote was to be implemented -- only heard about the meetings after they were over. You could ask Pat, if you've any doubt, about whether or not she'd have been interested in attending the meetings -- if she'd been informed about them. I don't, of course, speak for her -- feel free to ask her yourself; her phone number is 651.296.5252.

I think that the absence of community representatives was a problem that could have -- and should have -- been avoided.

Publicity and open meetings would have done that. That's why we have a public meetings law in Minnesota, after all.

4. Let me try and set the record straight as to my comments with regard to Dr. Breuer's firearms course outline. Dr. Breuer was kind enough to give us a copy of his outlines as well as did several others who supplies materials, including the NRA representative.

Again: there was no NRA representative at that meeting, although I accept that you thought that there was. That was a matter that, I believe, became of some concern to the NRA -- you could check with Dawson Hobbes, if you'd like.


I simply reach over the table and happened to pick up Dr. Breuer's material and made the comment that this is what all PPA course should look like in MN. I
was referring to this document as an example of what appear to be a well
organized program. I believe I also went on to say, there are several other good program referring to the other examples that were laying on the table in front of me as mentioned above. It's unfortunate a comment was intended as a complement for those who had presented training materials is twisted into a political endorsement/criticism. As stated
above, this was not the intent.

I believe you, and I hope that you'll communicate that to Dr. Breuer and Bill's.




I hope this help a little.

Thanks........Jim Franklin.........




Helps quite a lot; thanks for the response.

best,

Joel Rosenberg

I can see why some Sheriffs would be tweaked by losing the power to hand out permits as they might have seen fit.

Does it go beyond, that, though? What other advantage did it give them? I could probably speculate on some, but won't.

Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

I think it does go beyond that. From following developments around the secret meetings at the MSA, it's pretty clear that the sheriffs think of permit holders as uppity, junior-grade, cop wannabes, hence their emphasis on getting as much of the POST training in as possible.

What they don't get, I think, is that cops carrying handguns (along with badges) to preserve order and enforce the law is a very different thing than somebody carrying a handgun in order to be able to defend himself or herself. Very different paradigm.

That, too.

This reinforces for me, the urgent need to form a statewide instructors organization.We have got to be unified and organized to be able to have a voice in future implementation and interpretation.As Joel has said, this may get complicated if we get a CCW unfriendly governor.

Is there any more political or economic gain for them? I would think that you would have a lot of influence over third-party guards and other businesses that one would normally associate with a "need" for a permit under the old system.

Someone with an interest in the security business and with the ability to yea/nea permits could give one group decided advantage over another.

I'm not saying that's happened, but any time you have only one entity involved in the issuing of credentials "at their discretion" you have at a minimum the appearance of "a situation".

Oh, absolutely. And given that the sheriffs abused their discretion in many ways -- not necessarily the one you're suggesting is possible; I dunno about that, either way -- I think that the very limited discretion that they now have (to accept some instructors' certificates that they don't have to) is just fine.

Meanwhile, of course, some of them are complaining about no longer being able to use the old BCA website to see if a given instructor (rather than his or her organization) is accepted. Given that they're getting just what they asked for, I have little sympathy.

For good or ill -- good, I think -- whatever attempt was made to lock out instructors has pretty clearly failed, and failed bigtime.

For good or ill -- good, I think -- whatever attempt was made to lock out instructors has pretty clearly failed, and failed bigtime.
I like to think that they changed the lock, but then made keys available to all that wanted.