Mike and Me
I did post this on the Forum earlier in the week, but I've gotten an email or two saying that it's hard to find there, what with all the comments, so I figured I'd put it here, too.  A few edits for clarity and accuracy are included . . .

Late last week, I got a call from Professor Joe Olson. He had gotten a call from the secretary for Commissioner of Public Safety Michael Campion, summoning Joe, Senator Pat Pariseau, and me to a meeting at Campion's office in St. Paul on Monday, March 19, at 10:30 in the morning, a scant two months and nineteen days after the Pawlenty administration had promised that this whole handgun carry permit reciprocity mess would have been handled ... at the very latest.  (Short form:  there are now 28 states that qualify under the law; the Commissioner of Public safety had, some years ago, issued a commissionorial encyclical that only four did.)

The secretary hadn't actually asked if it was convenient for Professor Olson, Senator Pariseau, or me to be there, mind you; she hadn't, say, said that the Commissioner, Joseph Newton (a lawyer in the DPS) and ScottWigginsOfTheGovernorsOffice*  (a political operative of the Pawlenty administration, who used to work for the DPS -- not, contrary to what I had thought, a lawyer) wanted to discuss the reciprocity mess and their attempts to partly undo some of the damage that they'd done -- she just told him that there was a meeting. 10:30. Monday morning.

Kind of a harbinger of things to come. I'm not overly fond of harbingers; sue me.

Senator Pariseau, unfortunately, wasn't available -- she's up to her ears in budget meetings, it being that time of year, as ScottWigginsOfTheGovernorsOffice either knew or should have known. (Dealer's choice.) Instead, her office sent an email to Campion's office, asking that John Caile be there. Pat Pariseau has worked with John on this stuff for, well, years . . .

And, so, we went.

I was a little surprised that we weren't kept waiting very long when we arrived on time, but we weren't, and the very nice receptionist offered us coffee. They have pretty good coffee at the top headquarters of the Department of Public Safety -- Colombian, I think. I don't know if you should or shouldn't be relieved that your tax dollars are buying good imported coffee for the DPS, but perhaps you should be reassured that they're not shelling out for Jamaican Blue Mountain or Hawaiian Kona.

Campion himself came out to the waiting room to introduce himself only a few minutes late. Punctuality is the courtesy of kings, and all.

He brought us to a nearby conference room, on the way to which we were introduced to Joe Newton -- a lawyer in Campion's office -- and where ScottWigginsFromTheGovernorsOffice -- a political operative who used to work in Campion's office, but who now works in the office of Governor Pawlenty, offering reassurances and promises to people who buy cars from Joe Isuzu, arrived.

Campion opened the meeting by informing me that he knew -- as they say, it isn't what you don't know that'll get you in trouble, but what you do know that just ain't so -- that there are people in the community who think that if Minnesota "grants reciprocity" (his term) to all of the other states, Minnesotans will automatically be able to carry in all fifty states, and he wanted me to be sure to correct those mistaken people on that.

Okay. I allowed as how I didn't know anybody who believed such a strange thing, but I'd be happy to clear it up if I ever ran into one. (Maybe I'm wrong, but he didn't seem to be overly grateful. I don't see why he should have been, mind; I'm not sure that there are any such folks, anywhere. I don't know who has been whispering in Commissioner Campion's ear, but he should get himself a better whisperer.)

He also -- and I think this may have been one major purpose of this meeting -- wanted me to tell you all that back during the Instructor Certification Organization mess at the DPS, it was never, ever the notion of the DPS that there should only be a small number of certifying organizations, no matter what anybody had heard, nosirreebob (err, in the interest of accuracy: he didn't actually say, "nosireebob"), and I agreed to pass that on, which I've done.

(I wasn't asked to -- and I didn't agree to -- believe that for a minute, mind you. Another issue for another day -- I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader to figure out why an entirely hypothetical Commissioner of Public Safety who really doesn't approve of commonsense, mainstream, "shall issue" carry laws might want to minimize the number of instructors and instructor organizations.)

Commissioner Campion expressed perhaps not entirely unsimulated curiousity as to why anybody would care about this whole reciprocity thing.

I was glad he asked, and started to answer, but was quickly interrupted. He wasn't all that curious, apparently.

And so it went.

ScottWigginsFromTheGovernorsOffice allowed that he had spent a huge amount of time researching the laws of many states, and that he had decided that where in Minnesota law it says that Minnesota will honor permits from all states that have issuance laws that are "substantially similar" to Minnesota's law, "substantially similar" meant a whole laundry list of requirements (you'll be shocked, shocked to hear that it was ScottWigginsFromTheGovernorsOffice's set of requirements) --

I stopped him at this point and asked him on what basis he had decided that "substantially similar" meant his laundry list of requirements.  I'm not a lawyer, either, but I've read not only that section of the law, but taken a pretty good look at where the phrase "substantially similar" appears elsewhere in Minnesota Statues, and gone over that stuff with a very experienced lawyer of my acquaintance, and he couldn't find Scott Wiggins' laundry list, either. (He didn't offer to share a printed copy of his laundry list. The stack of papers in front of him was, apparently, a prop. There are better props.  I can understand why he didnt' want to share a copy of his laundry list; what political operative likes airing dirty laundry in public?)

He responded, "because that's what my opinion is." Oh.

No, I'm not making this up. I think the rolling of my eyes was probably audible. I can't believe you came out and admitted that, I thought. I'm not sure why; the law firm of Arbitrary, Capricious, and JustBecauseISaySo isn't hiring, Mr. Wiggins. Joe Olson was watching Newton when Wiggins kept admitting that; Newton apparently was in some pain, every time that particular admission came out of Wiggins' mouth.

-- and that, in addition to the four states that the DPS has already deemed acceptable, he, ScottWigginsOfTheGovernorsOffice, had achieved a level of comfort in adding another eleven states, and read out the list.

I was trying to figure out an appropriate way to express my great happiness that ScottWigginsOfTheGovernorsOffice had, finally, after voluminous minutes of research that apparently had occupied many parts of several sleepless afternoons, had achieved a level of comfort via his blessing of an additional eleven states...

...but I realized that, all in all, the level of comfort of ScottWigginsOfTheGovernorsOffice wasn't a matter that I had ever given much thought to, cared about a whole lot, or, for that matter, expect to give much thought to, or care about a whole lot.

Besides, since I was going to be interrupted repeatedly, I figured that I'd rather be interrupted when talking about something that I am interested in -- you know: human rights, self-defense, the law, government bureaucrats following the law, elected government officials keeping campaign promises . . . the whole list of things that, apparently, bored these political functionaries to the point of pain, if not beyond it.

If that was my wish, it was quickly granted. Repeatedly.

I didn't write down the list of states that were, in the fullness of time, to be given the blessing of ScottWigginsOfTheGovernorsOffice -- it took another several days for the the DPS to get a round tuit and put it up on their website  (round tuits are not always easy to find, apparently; they couldn't pour urine out of a boot at the office of the Commissioner of Public Safety even if the instructions were written on the heel) -- but there were some states conspicuous by their absence. Seems that those states didn't do precisely the right kind -- in the opinion of ScottWigginsOfTheGovernorsOffice, a non-lawyer who is a political operative in the governor's office  -- background check, or didn't have exactly the right kind of required training that -- in the opinion of ScottWigginsOfTheGovernorsOffice, a non-lawyer who is a political operative in the governor's office  -- was good enough (apparently, Arizona's required 8-hour course isn't -- in the opinion of ScottWigginsOfTheGovernorsOffice, a non-lawyer who is a political operative in the governor's office  -- sufficient; nor is Florida's training requirement, etc. ), etc..

I'm not sure it was then or later when Commissioner Campion pronounced himself pleased -- I must admit that that whether or not Commissioner Campion was pleased wasn't something I had stayed up nights worrying about -- and suggested that he was downright touched, at all the hard work that ScottWigginsOfTheGovernorsOffice , a non-lawyer who is a political operative in the governor's office and Newton had put into finding a comfort level for ScottWigginsOfTheGovernorsOffice, a non-lawyer who is a political operative in the governor's office , but, well, he did, at one point or another.

I was still puzzled about ScottWigginsOfTheGovernorsOffice's insistence that when Minn. Stat. 624.714 says that the other state's issuance laws must be "substantially similar" to Minnesota's issuance requirements, that it meant that other states had to comply with a laundry list of requirements pulled out of the, err, fine mind of ScottWigginsOfTheGovernorsOffice, rather than what "substantially similar" means the other dozens and dozens and dozens of times it's used in Minnesota statutes (roughly, "having some sort of resemblance to"), or in common usage, and asked him what his exhaustive research said it meant everywhere else in Minnesota statutes.

I'll give him this: he repeatedly admitted that he hadn't looked at any of the other uses, and just decided for himself what it ought to mean.

I don't make this stuff up, you know.

I was curious as to why we were all there -- I mean, if I find some need to be constantly interrupted and listen to preposterously lame excuses, I can always talk to my kids about the status of their homework -- and asked.

Commissioner Campion looked like somebody who had just bitten into a lemon, and explained that we were there to engage in an exchange of ideas.

Oh.

After giving a new and strange meaning to "substantially similar", Commissioner Campion and his subordinates proceeded to give a new and strange meaning to "exchange" --

Professor Olson attempted, repeatedly, despite constant interruptions -- Commissioner Campion is, to give him credit, almost an equal opportunity interrupter; he did interrupt everybody except ScottWigginsOfTheGovernorsOffice, at one time or another -- to explain the meaning of the law. In between interruptions, Professor Olson went into some detail about how and why it was constructed the way it was constructed, and why the guy who had actually put the words "substantially similar" into the law had put them in (he had more than a little knowledge of that -- he is, after all, that guy; he'd drafted much of the bill, and all of that part of it), and Newton nodded in apparent understanding, while Campion and ScottWigginsOfTheGovernorsOffice busied themselves with more biting into invisible lemons.

Fairly late in the meeting, Commissioner Campion allowed that in the vanishingly unlikely event that some of the states that ScottWigginsOfTheGovernorsOffice had decided didn't meet the standards for being "substantially similar" handed down by ScottWigginsOfTheGovernorsOffice had been improperly excluded, he would be "open" to, next year, when they give their annual review (he didn't mention why they had skipped their annual review last year, and I didn't ask; there are Some Things Man Was Not Mean to Know, like the meaning of "annual" at the Department of Public Safety) consider the possibility of looking at whatever documentation would be supplied to support their meeting the standards issuing ex cathedra from the appropriate orifice of ScottWigginsOfTheGovernorsOffice . . .

. . . at which point ScottWigginsOfTheGovernorsOffice interrupted Commissioner Campion to explain that he certainly wasn't open to any further discussion. Too many sleepless afternoons had gone by, I guess.

I think it was around then that Commissioner Campion decided to play gotcha with me. t's the old cop thing, I think. Campion was a cop before he became a career bureaucrat; some habits die hard. he asked what states, if any, I would deny, if it were my call.

That was easy. "Vermont, for -- "

"Why?" he shot back. (So to speak.)

"Because they don't require perm -- "

"Any others?"

"Pennsylvania and Washington State, be -- "

"Why?"

"Because they don't require training, and I'd also limit -- "

"Thank you." I dunno; he didn't look thankful; he bit into another of those invisible lemons, again. Yes, Commissioner, I thought -- well, I really didn't think "Commissioner," but let's not be sticklers for details; Minnesota's Department of Public Safety sure isn't -- I've done my homework.

It kind of petered out after that. I was perfectly willing to discuss how North Dakota's requirement that applicants for a carry permit take -- and pass -- a test being not substantially dissimilar to Minnesota's requirement that applicants attend a carry course, but Commissioner Campion was more interested in congratulating his subordinates and himself than anything else. (I do hope he didn't tear a rotator cuff patting himself on the back.)

It was time to go. Or more than time.

"Now," I said, "I do have to get going, but I do want to say that I think it's pretty revealing that when looking at 'substantially similar' you decided what you decided it would mean rather than looking at what it means everywhere else it's used in Minnesota law. I think that's unfortunate, and I wish you'd rethought that. I do want to thank you for your time, but I do have to get going and get on with my life. Have a good day. Which way is out?"

At which point, I left. (Oh, that's not quite complete. I did thank them for the coffee.)

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* Hey, I don't make this stuff up, you know; that's how he introduces himself on the phone, as in, "Hello. This is ScottWigginsOfTheGovernorsOffice."