Moby Clarke: hate to bring out the obvious, but Mark, your issue with the proposed organizations listed is that you are not one of them. My response is: too bad. This is bigger than just you. You are one individual. This law affects thousands. I really could not care less if you are not written into the law and I mean no offence.

Mark: Where did I say that I wanted to be one of them? My response is : you don’t know your facts. Where did I say I wanted to be one of the 4 or 5 orgs? I said it should be all or none. Other State’s have been doing good without have a few orgs. name’s in there law.

It sound like most people on this forum are NO DOUBT better quality than other.

We should care what other state's have done. Why? They don't all have orgs. names in there law and there law works very well. Lets look back here and yes some of these people or orgs have work very hard to get to where we are at to day. BUT however they also try there best to F&*K every one over a long the way.

Why not have a Grandfather law, saying that those who are now certified instructors the DPS/BCA"Must" allow. and anyone else from whatever date must be certify by any one of the current orgs. Then Joel,Andrew and any one else you can put in what must be teach in the law.

We can also have a Board of Review (BOR) to police our own.
Made up of 5 person from these orgs. and 1 from DPS and BAC or a LEO.
Total of 7.
They will serve 2 years.
The BOR will oversee any misconduct etc.. Joel and anyone else can help in this. This is a ruff draft.

I know some of you will say there is no Grandfather law in the State of Minnesota. But they have done this before and it can be done again.

Obviously, I'm with Moby on this one, which is why I structured the proposal the way I did. It's focused on the needs of permit holders, not on instructors. (In fact, if the out-of-state-permit-acceptance provision were to be instituted, all Minnesota instructors would have to sell their services on value, not on gatekeeping. I think that's a good thing.)

Joel your proposal focused first on 3 or 4 instructor orgs. I don't have a problem with the "out-of-state-permit-acceptance provision"

I would be less interested in a "grandfather clause" as opposed to a no decertification clause. I don't like the idea of an abitrary cutoff time, so to speak. I'm not sure if it is an impossible sell, but what about an amendment stating that "once accepted an orginization cannot be decertified, unless the submitted course outline is changed." or something similar (this is just off the cuff).

I'm not sure I understand why they should be allowed to decertify any organization once they have certified that it meets the state requirements?
They aren't certifying the organization so much as the course outline submitted, right?

7 forum pages arguing about which organizations to write into law. This can not be a good idea when concensus is so difficult to reach. The problem I have with orgs. is just what you saw the last time around. IMHO - not one of them who sat at the "secret" little meeting cared one bit about the permit holder. They were all there to divide up a percieved pie of $$$$ that they thought would be coming down the line. I even heard that one of the parites commented that their org along with one other would be the only ones ready to train come October 1st 2005. Ummmm.... shoot off mouth... shoot self in foot.

So here I am... still in favor of the Alaska or the Vermont model. When do we in this country go back to treating free men and women like free men and women and NOT some ward of the state??

GS

You get two thumbs up for your comment. I have been told in person and been e-mail by some that I couldn't train masses of instructor at one time and/or I wasn't a non-profit orgs. so some felt that I shouldn't be in the law. Let me say this one more time! I never said I wanted to be in the law. I said that it should be all or none. I have been ask by many, Well if you have a plan let’s hear it. Well I did post a ruff plan to: Why not have a Grandfather law, saying that those who are now certified instructors the DPS/BCA" Must" allow. and anyone else from whatever date must be certify by any one of the current orgs. Then Joel,Andrew and any one else you can put in what must be teach in the law.

This would be fair to ALL orgs. As far as Moby Clarke wrote: apologize if this is deemed harsh, but this law is bigger than any one person.

Yes it is but however it’s not as big as 3 or 4 orgs.

You have some good points now we are getting some where so that no one get screwed. Lets keep this going.

Two things: we, right now, have the best governor and legislature we've ever had on our issues. I'm perfectly willing to be persuaded that either Vermont or Alaska laws are possible to pass now -- but I'd need some factual basis for that, it not a wish, hope, or position.

Secondly, you really can't complain about the secret meetings on one hand, and about too much open discussion on the other.

Pick one. You don't get both.

It's all well and good to talk about motivations -- bad ones -- of organizations, but it's best to be careful, for the sake of one's own credibility, where one points one's finger. I can't imagine that the president of a certified instructor organization would want to argue that every certified instructor organization is necessarily acting from venal motives.

(I, by the way, am not an officer or owner of any certified instructor organization, although I am certified by four of them, three of them actively at the moment -- I'll be dropping my AACFI certification when it comes up for renewal, and haven't taught an AACFI course in a very, very long time -- and two of those three are not on my short list as "must accept" organizations in my proposal.)

As I said, over and over again, my concern is not coming up with a philosophically wonderful, terrific, utterly perfect but impossible to get carry notion that we will, well, not get under the best legislative situation we have ever had in this state. My concern is to -- primarily for the sake of permit holder applicants -- change the law so that Minnesota bureaucrats will not in any way be able to act as gatekeepers to prevent permit holders from being able to carry.

And if that bothers somebody who has his own training organization that's not on my list, well, so what? Were my proposal adopted, it wouldn't stop him from doing his own classes, in any way.

My proposal does protect both permit holder applicants in three ways and, for that matter, instructors, in two ways -- and if anybody's got a better one, I'd love to hear it.

So far, I haven't.

I've heard I don't like this, and I don't like that, and would be really great if we had Vermont or Alaska -- and that's about all.

Now, I'm hearing the preposterous argument that we shouldn't do anything because we don't have a consensus. Great. Does anybody think that we should let this opportunity go by, and risk a repressive permit environment because we don't have an immediate consensus -- does that make sense to anybody? What possible benefit is there of that?

I'm personally tired of hearing Vermont and Alaska waved around as though they are some sort of magic talismans. They have the best laws in the country, sure -- but "the best is the enemy of the good." If we had gone for a Vermont-style law in 2003, we never would have gotten "shall issue." If we had gone for a Vermont-style law in 2005, we would never have gotten back "shall-issue." There may, possibly, come a time we can go for a Vermont-style law and get it -- and that would be the reason to do so. Not posturing now, and being all-so-holy in defeat.

Victory is better than defeat.

Let me point out that Vermont never went down the path that we have to back out from, and that Alaska did not go from no permits to no need for permits in less than three years. It takes time to improve things -- and, in case you haven't noticed, we have a Governor who is both pro-carry, and by no means likely to be reelected. And he's certainly not a shoo-in.

If we lose that Governor governor, or the antis are able to flip as few as five or six seats in the Senate -- and we are certainly going to lose at least three of our supporters, through retirement, if nothing else -- we will not be able to affect any change until five years from now.

At least.

If you want to spend five years -- at least -- talking about how much better it would be to have Vermont-style or Alaska-style carry laws here in Minnesota, I think that's great; I'd much rather you discuss that while we have a better carry law than we have now, and not while we have, say, an anti-carry Governor appointing the Commissioner of Public Safety.

Some people disagree. Tim Grant, for example, thinks that Governor Pawlenty will certainly be reelected, and that, even if he isn't, we will get Mike Hatch, who Tim thinks is a real supporter of shall-issue. I think he's wrong on both counts: I think the Governor Pawlenty may will not be reelected, and I don't believe that Mike Hatch is a supporter.

If you agree with Tim, the best thing to do is to sit on your hands. After all, while that won't move the ball forward, it's a lot less work. And you can be ideologically pure.

Larry Pratt and the Gun Owners of America are ideologically pure; the NRA got rid of the silly "assault weapons ban", and past the Protection act to prevent gun manufacturers from being put out of business.

Which did more? Some people may think that be ideologically pure are terrific.

As for me, I disagree. I've put a proposal on the table -- and, as of now, it's the only one on the table.

That said, I'm just one guy; if there isn't a large group of people willing to work on this, it's not going to happen.

I will be presenting my proposal at the CCRN/GOCRA meeting in February and I would encourage everybody -- particularly those who think that they have a way to get Alaska-style or Vermont-style or Pennsylvania-style permitting in the state of Minnesota during this window of opportunity which is at least possibly closing down as of November, and, in my opinion, is likely to close down in November.

If you don't agree with my proposal, that's just fine -- show up, present your own, and be prepared to work on it.

Or, alternately, those who want to can sit on their hands for the next 11 months, and then, quite possibly, contemplate the delightful possibility of Commissioner of Public Safety Skoglund or somebody equally sensitive to the right to keep and bear arms... until, at a minimum, the next gubernatorial election. And then, only if we can keep the Senate. And the House.

Make your own call; but be prepared to live with the consequences.

No, they are certifying the organization. If the organization does not, in their opinion, continually meet what ever standards the Commissioner sets -- at his own utter discretion -- any organization can be decertified. If the commissioner changes the standards -- something he can do at his own complete discretion -- any organization can be decertified.

As long as you leave it in the hands of the Commissioner of public safety to choose which organizations must be accepted, you are utterly dependent on the good faith and good will of the Commissioner of Public Safety.

How about changing it to say 'once an organization is certified, they cannot be decertified'? (with 'wrong-doing' exceptions)

Is there a current decertification clause?

Who decides what's wrong doing? And what recourse does an organization have against administrative decisions?

Right now, there's none. The CPS can decide that an organization is not doing things right -- and, I'm certain, any organization has instructors that have made mistakes -- and decertify that organization.

Under your suggestion or the present situation, the only recourse is to go to court with, basically, zero chance of a declaratory judgment, or attorney's fees. After all, it is very difficult to suggest that the DPS can't have a good faith belief that a given organizational is doing something less than good.

On the other hand, under my proposal, the weight comes down on the sheriffs -- and the law already provides that, unless they win in a specific denial appeal, the applicant must be awarded attorney's fees. Sheriffs don't like that; they find it embarrassing.

The problem with the 2005 law was that it got away from instructor qualification, and got into instructor organization qualification. That created the apparent "opportunity" that Gary points to, above. If there only were a very small number of certified organizations, they could monopolize the training environment, to the obvious advantage of those organizations, and the disadvantage of permit holder applicants.

What we need is to keep the market open. Orientation, styles, and costs vary tremendously. People get to pick which works for them -- and for those for whom price is the only issue, they can get their training for $100 or less. If we had the same number of people who wanted to get permits and, say, only two organizations each of which had, say, 50 instructors (that's probably around the optimum size for a shared monopoly, given the demand for training -- too much competition among its own instructors, and an organization isn't going to be able to charge heavy dealership fees) spread out over the state, we'd see training fees upwards of $300.

That's not just speculation. When Bill's Gun Range started doing their training initially in 2003, they leveraged the lack of general information about alternatives among the applicant community into charges of just about that. (Competition eventually brought them down, just as it brought their qualification fees for other instructors to use their facilities down to something only a little more expensive than Burnsville, rather than six times what Burnsville was charging.)

The purpose of my proposal isn't to privilege or de-privilege organizations -- and that isn't the effect. The purpose is to create a very easy worst possible case for instructors: under the worst of situations, and instructor who doesn't have any NRA certification at all would have to spend a weekend getting certified in just about anything.

Joel: It's all well and good to talk about motivations -- bad ones -- of organizations, but it's best to be careful, for the sake of one's own credibility, where one points one's finger. I can't imagine that the president of a certified instructor organization would want to argue that every certified instructor organization is necessarily acting from venal motives.

Mark: Joel if your comment above was for me then this is my reply: I never said that these orgs. was acting from venal motives.

Joel: Mark, if you think you have some language that couldn't be misused by sheriffs of the CPS -- and which wouldn't end up in court in, say, Ramsey, under Judge Finley -- trot it out and let's take a look at your proposal.

Mark: Joel I did trot it out.

Joel: No, they are certifying the organization. If the organization does not, in their opinion, continually meet whatever standards the Commissioner sets -- at his own utter discretion -- any organization can be decertified. If the commissioner changes the standards -- something he can do at his own complete discretion -- any organization can be decertified.

Mark: This is why we should have a “Grandfather clause” in. That all orgs. are Grandfather in from this date this way they cannot be decertified by the commissioner. So you would have 50 some odd orgs. in. I think that would be a BIG SAFETY NET for ALL orgs.

Or AACFI, MADFI ,SAFE or any other orgs. that is currently certify by the DPS as of this date.

Joel then you have cover all of them.

If need be or if wanted we could have standards in the law which all orgs. would have to go by. As long as the orgs. teach these standards they cannot be decertified. ( Would you want only someone that is ONLY NRA certify teach the course?) Please note That I think the NRA haves the best "Safety course out there"

One more "SAFETY NET" would be:
We can also have a Board of Review (BOR) to police our own.
Made up of 5 person from these orgs. and 1 from DPS and BAC or a LEO.
Total of 7.
They will serve 2 years.
The BOR will oversee any misconduct or a request to decertified orgs. or instructor.

These are a few thing that we should think about and talk about.

Of course I can speak to both at the same time Joel. I'm not complaining about the open discussion, I am merely pointing out that your idea needs work. There is no consensus.



Actually I am on the list Joel. Either way, I am on the list (sic: NRA, NRA Instructor, Approved DPS organization, former USAF) etc.... everything you have except MADFI and AACFI

And why do you feel compelled to always include your disclaimer? We all know you do not have your own training orgaization etc. etc. etc.

Apparently you feel strongly about something Joel based on the length of your response.

I don't believe it is in our interest to open the MCPPA this soon after it's 2005 passage. You may disagree with me. But don't tell me I "don't get both".


Regards,
GS

I guess my suggestion was just one point. Instead of listing a few orgs, would it be better to (sort of) grandfather/lock in the already certified ones? Of course then, a review board would be a good idea.

I'm just throwing out options. I understand what Joel is getting at, but it doesn't seem to be well received by others.

Oh, another idea, do away with the certifications. Have the state/dps/bca come up with a course outline with a standard form and completion certificate. Well, didn't think that one all the way through...