Where to get "Conceal and Carry" Training in Minnesota
Where to Get "Conceal & Carry" Training in Minnesota
It wouldn't bother me a bit if you would get it here.Not that I'm the only choice, by a factor of more than two hundred. There are something like two hundred instructors across the state who have been certified by any of the training organizations approved by the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. I don't know all of them, by a longshot — but I do know some, and some of those I know are quite good.
That said, of course, I'd be happy to have you in TCCarry, and am, I hope, rightfully proud of the job I do in the class.
Most carry permit classes, though, are intended for people with at least some firearms experience, and I wouldn't recommend the folks who take somebody who has never so much as touched a firearm before, put him or her through a four-hour class, spend three minutes shooting ten shots at a piece of paper at the range, and then promise to sign off even if all ten shots miss the paper. (No, I'm not making this up.)
Carry permit training is mainly about things other than shooting, of course, and there's no reason why the required successful completion of an actual shooting qualification exercise has to be stressful; all in all, I'm of the opinion that fun is good.
For people with some reasonable familiarity with firearms, I think TCCarry is probably the right choice.
On the other hand, right now, the only course taught by a certified instructor that is intended for beginners wanting to get Minnesota carry permits is the Beginner-To-Carry course — "B2C" — course that David Dyer-Bennet and I wrote and are teaching locally.
It's, by design, a very focused course — we teach only about the use and carrying of snubby double action only (DAO) revolvers, like the Smith & Wesson Model 642 that you can find here. Snubby revolvers aren't just for beginners — they're a good choice for a lot of people. Simple to operate, even under stress; easy enough to carry and conceal; very reliable. Focusing on the handling and use of DAO snubbies makes it possible for us to get a beginner ready to take a full carry course in about three, three-and-a-half hours.
Not that it's the only choice. The gold standard in basic handgun training is the NRA Basic Pistol course. It's a terrific course — but it's a long one, requiring ten hours, usually three to five sessions. That's necessary because NRA Basic Pistol covers both multiple kinds of revolvers and the many different kinds of actions of semiautos. It's necessary to spend a lot of time going over those, if one's going to handle them safely. There's an abridged version — dealing with just one firearm — called NRA First Steps, but even that's a five-hour course, and it teaches about one pistol, not about one type of pistol. Again: the NRA courses are terrific, but they're not intended to prepare somebody to go right into a Minnesota-specific carry course — although both Basic Pistol and First Steps do work as a prerequisite to the NRA Personal Protection course.
How do I know? Three years ago, I completed my training as, among other things, an instructor for all three of those courses.
For a general introduction to handguns, I'd strongly recommend NRA Basic Pistol; for those who want to get a carry permit reasonably quickly, "B2C".
But it's up to you.