by UnaStamus on Wed Oct 01, 2014 9:21 pm
"Concealed carry permit" is a national generalist term at this point, much like in some places people say "coke" and mean pop or soda. Or when people say Kleenex when they really mean tissue. I know a lot of cops that say "concealed carry permit" and full well know that open carry is legal. They just call it that because they do. Most LE in MN are now fully aware that open carry is legal.
In reference to Kevin Torgerson, I can't put words in his mouth. If you want clarification, you can contact him and he or his campaign manager (my younger brother, who is as big of a gun nut as me) or another staff worker will respond to you with with Kevin's answer. The thing I CAN say is that many LE officials are not going to be overly specific about their interpretations and support intentions with relation to 2A. There are people who want Sheriffs like out in Utah who will openly say that they will refuse any order relating to gun control. There are others who simply want a Sheriff who is pro-gun. The problem is that a Sheriff is an elected position, and Olmsted county's biggest population is in Rochester, and Rochester is getting more and more liberal by the moment. It's not a place where a politician can openly make "right wing" pro-gun statements that the nanny-state libs might be afraid of. Like I said though, I cannot speak to what his intentions are.
The thing that he has mentioned about training is something I'm not familiar with. For me speaking from an LE perspective, the better trained the cops, the safer they are. The most dangerous cops I've known have been small town cops and deputies whose firearms training consists of 4 hours, once a year. I know of deputy who, when he retired, they had to cut his leather holster off of his revolver because it had been that long since he had shot it. In that regard, my supposition would be that he views training to be important for safety, but I can only say that from an LE perspective as a fellow cop. I hear a lot of horror stories of people at carry permit qualifications, and having formerly sold guns at Gander Mountain, there were a lot of people with zero firearms experience getting permits when I was. As a pro-2A guy, I don't think we should be REQUIRED to get mandatory training. However, as a responsible gun owner, I have zero respect and complete contempt for anyone that buys a gun and doesn't get proper training on how to use it.