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from the Minneapolis Star Tribune
http://www.startribune.com/stories/462/3977801.html
http://www.startribune.com/stories/462/3977801.html
Trainer's role in new gun law questioned
Conrad deFiebre, Star Tribune
Published July 9, 2003 GUNS09
As Minnesotans line up for training classes required to get a permit to carry firearms in public, a 19-month-old company has stepped to the forefront with the help of a unique opportunity provided by the state's new handgun law.
The American Association of Certified Firearms Instructors Inc. is one of six organizations named in the law as qualified to train teachers whose courses meet the education requirements.
The other groups are much older, more established and not for profit.
But the for-profit AACFI had an edge in getting into the field: Its founder and president drafted the handgun law, including the training provisions.
While some say that may amount to a conflict of interest, Joseph Olson defends, even advertises, his roles as both entrepreneur and well-connected gun-rights lobbyist at the State Capitol.
"The whole process was completely transparent," he said. "Anyone who wanted to know who AACFI is was told. I'm trying to figure out how there can be a conflict of interest if everyone knows."
Since the handgun law took effect May 28, the firm has registered 50 firearms instructors with the state, nearly one-quarter of the total certified, who have trained about 2,000 permit candidates.
The other groups named in the law as qualified to certify instructors are the National Rifle Association (NRA), the state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, the state Department of Public Safety, the state Board of Peace Officers Standards and Training and the Minnesota Association of Law Enforcement Firearms Instructors.
Including sales of training materials and business services to instructors, gross revenues have reached about $75,000 for Olson, of Roseville, and AACFI's vice president and only other shareholder, Tim Grant of Richfield. Grant was the lead strategist in getting the gun law passed.
Olson's claim of transparency has at least one doubter in Gov. Tim Pawlenty's commissioner of public safety, Rich Stanek. On June 17, seven weeks after Pawlenty signed the handgun bill into law, Stanek wrote to Olson requesting information about AACFI and his affiliation with it.
"I'd never heard of it," Stanek said Tuesday. "The governor had no idea; the governor's staff had no idea."
As of Tuesday, Stanek said, Olson hadn't replied to his letter.
Conflict of interest?
Olson, a professor at the Hamline University School of Law in St. Paul, is also president of and registered lobbyist for the Minnesota Gun Owners Civil Rights Alliance, which pushed for the law along with its subsidiary, Concealed Carry Reform Now.
"He wrote this bill, but I don't know if a lobbyist can have a conflict of interest," said Sen. Wes Skoglund, DFL-Minneapolis, an outspoken foe of the new handgun law. "Still, you can question whether there was additional motivation to feather one's own nest."
Another opponent of the law, Rep. Nora Slawik, DFL-Maplewood, was more critical.
"We've seen lobbyists slip language into bills before, but this goes beyond the boundaries of good legislation because there's a profit involved," she said. "It seems like a conflict of interest to me."
Skoglund and Slawik said they were unaware of the link between Olson and AACFI until a reporter told them of it Tuesday. But Rep. Lynda Boudreau, R-Faribault, chief House sponsor of the law, said she saw no problem with its favored status.
"My knowledge of the association is limited," she said. "I have no beef with who does the training, as long as it is very thorough." Having just taken an AACFI handgun course from David Gross of St. Louis Park, a longtime gun-rights activist and a lawyer who helped Olson draft the law, she said it is excellent.
Olson said AACFI was incorporated in December 2001 and written into the bill in an effort to broaden the options for citizen handgun training. The only existing group that certified civilian trainers at the time was the NRA, he said.
"The legislators wanted an open and competitive training system," he said. "No one thought an NRA monopoly was desirable. There was a huge gap. Someone said: 'Why don't we do it?' "
Boudreau said that she wanted the list of state-approved trainer certifiers to be as broad as possible, but that no other groups came forward. If others want state approval, she said, they should ask her. "I'd be happy to include them," she said.
Fleeting opportunity
Under the law, handgun courses given by trainers certified by the six groups must be accepted by sheriffs as sufficient to satisfy the training requirement for a permit. The law also allows sheriffs to accept any "other satisfactory evidence of training in the safe use of a pistol."
If other training groups want inclusion in the law, however, they would have to wait at least until the Legislature meets again next year. And that may be too late to catch Minnesotans' wave of interest in handgun training.
"It's going to be a short-term thing," said Dallas Russ Jr., a longtime Thief River Falls gunsmith who teaches courses under NRA certification. "After the first year, it's going to drop back off."
Olson said he expects that AACFI will train no more than 200 instructors in Minnesota and that demand will decline after that. So, he said, the firm hopes to expand to Colorado, which recently enacted a liberalized handgun law, and Wisconsin, where gun-rights activists are pushing for one.
In Minnesota, he acknowledged, "we got the jump on training people." The first 5,000 copies of AACFI's training manual, "Everything You Need to Know About (Legally) Carrying a Handgun in Minnesota," are nearly sold out, he said, and a second printing is likely within a month.
The 250-page book, written by Joel Rosenberg of Minneapolis, a gun-rights activist and science fiction author, sells for $24.95. It is part of a packet of materials that AACFI requires its trainers to supply to students.
The book's appendix includes a list of all 125 Minnesota legislators who voted for the handgun law and an exhortation to readers to thank them. An AACFI brochure touts the group's courses because its "staff continues to work at the Minnesota State Capitol to defend, support and protect your Second Amendment rights."
Instructors pay AACFI $500 for a two-day training course taught by Olson and Grant, then $300 a year for a listing on its Web site (at http://www.firearmsinstructors.biz) and other business services.
"We tell each trainer they can expect to have 300 to 500 students in the first couple of years," Grant said. With 10 to 15 people in each seven-hour class paying $125 to $200 apiece, he added, it can add up to a good part-time job for instructors.
Grant, who became active in the handgun rights movement after his cousin was killed in a drive-by shooting in Golden Valley in 1996, quit his job as a national sales manager for Norstan and Siemens two years ago to devote his full time to the crusade. He describes AACFI as the next step in a process that he hopes will end with widespread cultural acceptance of carrying concealed handguns in public.
"What it's really about is implementing this thing right," Grant added. "We are the best-qualified people to teach this course. Sure, we'll make a little money. But I spent close to $100,000 of my own money getting this passed."
Conrad deFiebre is at [email protected].
© Copyright 2003 Star Tribune.
