This is a touchy issue for me and please read this entire post before condemming me. My whole point in the discussion was not to bash the AACFI as an organization, just what fees they charge. Some may find it acceptable, others are going to feel like me and think it's outrageous. I think they have a quality curriculum and offer a fine class. This is more about making MPPA sucessful statewide and all of us attempting to be on the same page.

I have the same secure web access and ordering options for materials through the NRA and it only costs me $25/year, not per month. I also have many many many other benefits throught the NRA that are included in my $25 membership. I can also get support fram any NRA training counselor I want if I need it.

By sending out an email months in advance of being approved by the DPS was, in my opinion, putting the cart before the horse and caused some outrage in many of us on the NRA bench. Tim and I exchanged emails about this until 1:00am when I received the first email. Receiving the email a second time before the approved organizational standards were adopted and approved by the DPS didn't do much to help matters and was interpreted as rather arrogant on the part of the AACFI, especially when it is an NRA instructor on the receiving end and I had already had a very lengthy discussion on the topic a couple of months earlier.

We all know that Joe and Tim were a very strong presence in getting MPPA passed and this was never intended to be a "personal attack" on them. Again, nuff said about the whole thing. I apologize if I offended Joe or the administrators of this forum, please remove the original post if it found offensive by anyone..

There lot more I could say but I won't for now....

I'll say it then: even giving off the impression, true or not, that one worked hard to pass legislation in order to directly benefit financially in the future casts us all in a dim light. While working to pass the MPPA was admirable, doing anything less than working hard to ensure that there are many well-qualified and certified instructors from many different sources in Minnesota after that passage is not.

FWIW, I say that not as an instructor who has a dog in this fight, I don't, but as someone who was an instructor a long time ago, and was helping train the local PDs at Camp Ripley well before the MPPA was anything but a dream. I've had to jump through hoops before, and those hoops were reasonable (becoming an NRA instructor in order to rent Ripley's ranges as a civilian). I do not know that the gentleman I was helping train with would have been able to do what he did if the hoops were 800 dollars high for every employee that needed to become a RSO.

Anyhow, my opinion is worth what you pay to read it on the internet, but I have yet to hear or read a good reason why MORE qualified instructors would be a bad thing. I have yet to hear why keeping costs down, so people who don't have a ton of spending money can get a permit to carry as well as the suburban white male who already spends too much (according to the wife) on shooting and reloading. Instructor certification costs will be passed on to the consumer. That makes me hopeful that low-cost, high quality instructor certification will be available in order to ensure long-time NRA instructors do not have to spend a whole lot of money (and pass that on to students with higher class prices) to retain certification.

If instructors are able to attain certification through the state and charge a whole lot less than "the oldest" ones do, I wish them luck. We all should, because it will help EVERYONE in the long run.

However, he has also told me that he was informed at a recent certification class that after 10-1, only the AACFI would be instructing students.

Does anyone have an updated version of this supposed list?

Is this what you are looking for???????

http://www.dps.state.mn.us/bca/Invest/D ... ssPPA.html

Cobb,
thanks!!! That was the list I was looking for. The list has grown significantly. I see that the listing of all the organizations thread is locked. Maybe a new update or kept updated thread would be in order, that way people that surf here would be able to find the most current listings, since this forum is kind of a focal point for carry permits in the Twin Cities metro.

Volunteer?? ......... ok. I'll have some time this week and see what I can do.