Training required for

gun permit applicants

By RON LARSEN

Journal Staff Writer

NEW ULM--While sheriff's offices in the Metro area may have been deluged Wednesday during the new conceal-and-carry law's first day, three area sheriff's offices saw only modest increases in the number of application requests but a lot more phone calls from people seeking information.

Nicollet County Sheriff David Lange reported only one application picked up by mid-afternoon, but his office received "lots of phone calls wondering how to apply."

The big hang-up, Lange's office said, is that the people possibly desiring applications haven't gotten the training required to obtain a conceal-and-carry permit.

According to a Sibley County Sheriff's Office spokesperson, callers are turned off by the application fee of $100 which, in effect, is the fee for a five-year permit.

The other turn-off, she said, was the cost of receiving the necessary proof of proficiency, which is required under both the old law and the new law, for a person to obtain a conceal-and-carry permit.

"The only place we've been able to find is Bill's Gun Shop in the Metro area, and it costs $150," she said.

It turns out, however, that the cost is even more than that.

"We raised our price for the six hours of lecture and 50 rounds of target practice to $215, actually $216.56 with tax," said Adam of Bill's Gun Shop and Range, Robbinsdale.

For that investment, the customer gets the six hours of instruction in handling a handgun safely from two certified instructors, one of whom is an instructor from one of the metro police departments, Adam said.

That's followed by work on the range before the person receives a certificate of proficiency.

Brown County's Chief Deputy Bob Christensen said the Brown County Sheriff's Office hasn't made a study yet of where potential permit holders could get their instruction.

"Right now, we're concentrating on details of the permit issuance and leaving that up to the applicant," Christensen said.

Lange guessed that potential applicants might be able to get some help by visiting the National Rifle Association's website on the Internet.

(The sheriff's offices in Redwood, Watonwan and Blue Earth counties also were contacted, but no one was available to comment on the day's activities in those offices.)

"It's safe to say we're not getting the mad rush that the metro sheriffs are getting, but it may be that some are getting their applications off the BCA (Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension) website," Lange said.

"We had more phone calls after the bill was a done deal than we're getting right now, but we had to tell them that there wasn't anything we could do until the law went into effect."

Christensen said three applications were picked up at the sheriff's office Wednesday, and "we may get a couple more before the day is over."

Lange's office said before the new law went into effect, "we would get maybe four all year."

Christensen said his guess was that Brown County would be about the same or "just a few more. We never got very many."

He also noted that those permits were only for one year. While Nicollet County has set $75 as the renewal fee, Christensen said Brown County hadn't addressed the issue of renewal fees "because we have five years before we have to."

"A major concern for law enforcement from this law is that while officers are aware of the potential for facing a gun on any call they go out on, particularly with domestics," Lange said. "However, with this law, the probability is far greater."

He's also concerned about the tendency toward road rage and what would happen if the drivers have a gun available.

"This law is going to be hard to police, primarily because it doesn't have any bite to it."

In comparing the new law with that of other states where they have conceal-and-carry laws, Christensen finds Minnesota's law to be more conservative in a few areas and more liberal in others.

"Take a person who may have a protection order against him. If he doesn't have any felony convictions involving a firearm, he can get a conceal-and-carry permit."