Firearms Trainer Schedules Pre-July 4th Gun Training in South Minneapolis Neighborhood Hit by Crime Wave

Joel Rosenberg, author of "Everything You Need to Know About (Legally) Carrying a Handgun in Minnesota", will be holding another session of his Twin Cities Carry Course in the south Minneapolis neighborhood that was recently shocked by a savage, brutal beating of an elderly woman. The class will be on Friday, July 2nd, just before the 4th of July weekend.

(PRWEB) June 21, 2004 -- "One squad car. One." Joel Rosenberg shakes his head. "In Sector 4 of Precinct 4 -- the largest police sector in the largest police precinct city of Minneapolis -- there's one squad car assigned, despite the crime wave there."

Since the beginning of the year, the southern part of Sector 4 has been hit with a wave of violent and property crimes that, among other things, on May 1 left an elderly woman bookstore owner bleeding and battered on the floor of her bookshop after a brazen daylight robbery and beating.

On June 10th, at a neighborhood meeting, Lt. John F. Kelly, the lieutenant in charge of the sector, admitted the limitations. "We get cars from other sectors when we can," Kelly said, "and I fight as hard as I can to get more resources. But... "

But the city of Minneapolis is in a budget crunch, and the motto of the day is "doing the best we can with what we have."

A source inside MPD confirms what some at the meeting had suspected: the average response time to Priority 1 calls (the highest priority) in that sector is more than seventeen minutes.

"A lot of bad things can happen in seventeen minutes," Rosenberg said. "Still, in many ways, it was a good meeting -- Lt. Kelly was frank about the limitations of the resources he has. My own take is that he's a good cop, with not enough resources, and he's trying as best he can.

"Heck, he started off the meeting by introducing the two officers from Car 330 -- the one car assigned to the whole sector -- and then sent them back on the street. I think that they could have had a lot of interesting things to say and hear, but the lieutenant was right: it was more important that they be out on patrol, since there was nobody else to cover the sector.

"The local civilan Crime Prevention Specialist gave out some good advice -- things like turning on outside lights, calling 911 whenever you've got any suspicion, and like that.

"All good stuff." Rosenberg sighed. "But, for political reasons, there was one subject that nobody from the city mentioned: carry permits.

"Even in a life-threatening emergency, a police car may take more than twenty minutes to arrive. A robbery, a murder, a beating -- they can take seconds. It's not a matter of the cops not caring -- they do -- but because they're so overstretched in general, and with only one car assigned to the sector, the coverage is pretty bad. The car -- Car 330, for those who keep track -- is often called out of the sector.

"If you take a look at the official MPD crime report, in fact, you'll find that only about 10% of the calls in that particular sector are handled by the sector car -- the vast majority of the time, cars have to be called from other sectors that may be miles away, and that takes time. Sometimes too much time.

"It's not a question of just not having a cop on every corner; it's a question of the largest sector in the city of Minneapolis often not having a single squad car in it. And even when Car 330 is there, it's going to be spending most of its time handling calls, not patrolling -- preventing problems before they happen. That's what police should be spending most of their time doing, not dashing from crime to crime.

"This isn't a new thing -- look back to Sir Robert Peel's Ninth Principle for Policing, writing in 1822:

'To recognize always that the test of police efficiency is the absence of crime and disorder, and not the visible evidence of police action in dealing with them.'"

"And that's not what's going on," Rosenberg added, pointing out that in a life-threatening emergency, people need another alternative to calling 911 and waiting for however long it takes for the police to arrive on scene.

So Rosenberg is scheduling anohter of his handgun carry classes at Book Trader, right at the epicenter of the neighborhood crime wave. On May 1, Lynn "Fluffy" Murray, the owner of Book Trader at 5344 34th Avenue South, Minneapolis MN 55417, was savagely beaten and robbed by two young men in a brazen daylight robbery.

She's since taken Rosenberg's carry class, and many expect that, like many others, she either is or will be discreetly carrying a handgun for her own personal protection. When asked about the class, Murray said, "I learned a lot. There's a lot to learn, and a lot to think about," but refused to comment when asked if she really is or will be carrying a handgun.

"It's nobody else's business," she said. "It's my decision."

Rosenberg agreed. "Very few permit holders ever have to take their handguns out 'for serious,'" he added. "That's a good thing.

"Most of the time, the real benefit to 'shall-issue' carry laws like the one-year-old one in Minnesota is that they persuade criminals to go elsewhere. Which is what I'm hoping will happen for Fluffy, and for all my other students. That's about the best you can hope for.

"It's not crime prevention; it's crime relocation, and I'm hoping that crime will relocate itself out of Fluffy's neighborhood -- and out of mine, too, for that matter."

The class will be held at 3320 East 54th Street in Minneapolis right behind Book Trader. The cost of the class is $175, which includes a copy of Everything You Need to Know About (Legally) Carrying a Handgun in Minnesota. A downloadable PDF of introduction to the book is available, online, at http://www.howtogetthebook.com or http://www.ellegon.com/thebook.pdf.

Rosenberg is certified by the National Rifle Association as an instructor in Pistol, Home Firearms Safety, and Personal Protection, and by the American Association of Certified Firearms Instructors as a Carry Permit Instructor and Carry Permit Certifying Instructor, and has been validated by the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension as a Minnesota Carry Permit Instructor, making him the only instructor in the state of Minnesota with that list of qualifications. He's also been certified by the NRA as a Certified Range Officer (CRO).

In addition to his work as a firearms instructor, Rosenberg is a best-selling author, with more than twenty published novels to his credit, including eight in the bestselling Guardians of the Flame Fantasy series; Home Front, a murder mystery, and the recently sequel Family Matters; and Paladins, to be published by Baen Books in September. He's writes frequently on issues around carry permit training issues, and maintains an online journal on the subject at http://www.joel-rosenberg.com.