Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:<\/p>\n
A few years ago, Ramsey County Sheriff Fletcher got in hot water for using the list of carry permit holders to raise money for private charities. Lots of things wrong with that idea and he deserved to be rebuked.<\/p>\n
But the notion of the Sheriff\u2019s department working with carry permit holders still intrigues me. Could there be a useful public safety function?<\/p>\n
Some law enforcement officials worry that the shooting skills of civilian carry permit holders are not up to snuff. Hell, I\u2019m sure they\u2019re not \u2013 my wife and I have our permits and in good light, wide awake, at a motionless target 15 feet away . . . we\u2019re deadly. But public ranges won\u2019t allow low-light shooting, barricades, moving targets so there\u2019s no good way for civilians to improve their skills for a real-life situation.<\/p>\n
The Sheriff has access to a shooting range, range safety officers and shooting instructors. His deputies have to pass realistic qualification courses every so often \u2013 why not open them up to civilians, on a voluntary basis?<\/p>\n
What if the Sheriff offered \u201crefresher\u201d classes to carry permit holders? For a nominal fee and a box of your own ammo, you could bring your carry gun to the range, shoot a realistic course of fire and have your shooting critiqued by an instructor. For some of us, of course, it would simply confirm that we are, in fact, the World\u2019s Best Shots. But for those few others whose skills aren\u2019t quite up to snuff, it might be a useful wake-up call.<\/p>\n
Yes, it would cost the Sheriff some overtime, some targets, some potential liability if someone gets hurt. Fees might cover some of that. The program would generate publicity that the Sheriff is doing something to make the streets safer by helping carry permit holders make themselves safer (the anti-gun crowd will hate it, but they\u2019re like Mikey, they hate everything, so that\u2019s not a big minus).<\/p>\n
There are potential drawbacks. If I shoot the Sheriff\u2019s range and fail, then kill some “youth” in Frogtown, it\u2019s going to look bad for the Sheriff (why didn\u2019t you pull his permit) and also for me (you knew you shouldn\u2019t be carrying). If I shoot the Sheriff\u2019s range and pass, then kill some “youth” in Frogtown, it\u2019s going to look bad for the Sheriff (teaching crackers to kill youths). Okay, so the Sheriff\u2019s got a tough job and why make it worse? Except in some cases, maybe he can make it better? Maybe one or two of those folks will realize they shouldn\u2019t be carrying on the street and will leave the gun at home? Or maybe we’ll get the training we need to be safe when carrying on the streets?<\/p>\n
Joe Doakes<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
If a DFL controlled County sheriffs office were to develop such a level of common sense, it would be a very good sign indeed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Joe Doakes from Como Park emails: A few years ago, Ramsey County Sheriff Fletcher got in hot water for using the list of carry permit holders to raise money for private charities. Lots of things wrong with that idea and he deserved to be rebuked. But the notion of the Sheriff\u2019s department working with carry […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58450","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-victim-disarmament"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58450","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=58450"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58450\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58452,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58450\/revisions\/58452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=58450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=58450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=58450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}