Mitch Vilos's "Beyond your basic CCW" class...

Hey all!

Today I contacted Mitch Vilos to inquire about retaining him in order to address the CC questions that we have been raising here, mainly in the "E-Center Carry" thread, and mainly to address my question of being able to CC unrestricted on private "for public use" property. In exchanging emails with him he mentioned that he has an ADVANCED CC class that he would like to offer a group of us at a bit of a discount from his normal rate and share the expense among the participants (in other words, the more the merrier!)

For those unfamiliar with Mitch, he's the author of Utah Gun Laws and a well-respected pro-2A attorney here in Utah.

Here is his brief description of the course contents:

I deem it absolutely
essential that every person who has resolved to defend him or herself w/ a
gun should get the kind of training you describe. Fortunately I can offer
you this training without you having to go to the expense of paying me for a
legal consultation. I have toyed with the option of putting on such a legal
seminar where we "raise the bar" so to speak and hit the topic "Utah law
beyond your basic CCW class." Kind of like a second level of legal training
putting the "macho" aside and informing the students of many of the horror
stories I can tell when Utah gun owners' actions exceed what police and
prosecutors deem "justifiable." And also, as you mention, alert gun owners
of the hidden traps that snare them when they either forget or don't
understand their legal limitations in carrying their guns throughout the
state and beyond... We would eliminate the topics of gun safety
(not that it's not important - it's critical, but it sounds like you are
already trained in gun safety - I could take more time on the topics you
mentioned), the mechanics of operating a pistol vs revolver (all those
topics that take up time in the CCW class) and focus on the law and what
gets gun owners in trouble in my experience.

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Although this was just an initial contact, and the details are still sketchy, from my understanding the course would take him about 3-4 hours and his discounted rate of $195/hr means the whole thing would cost between $585-$780. If we could get together just 10 of us, the cost would only be $60-$80 a person... if we could bring friends and family and get it up to 20, it could be as cheap as $30-$40 a head. Or, if the money isn't the question so much as the quality, we could opt for a smaller crowd and pay a bit more per person.

Personally, short of paying for a private session with a skilled 2A attorney, this seems like the best opportunity for us to get a quality education regarding issues that affect us every single day and carry the potential for jail-time, loss of our 2A rights, and worse. To me, it's a small price to pay.

What do you guys, say, can we get together a decent group to make this reasonably affordable for all???

Cinhil said:

remember paying .11 cents a gallon

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HOLY BATMAN!!! Like xmirage2k, I also remember buying gas for below $1 (though not quite as cheap as $0.80... it seems to me the cheapest I ever bought it for was maybe $0.89), but $0.11 is crazy-cheap!

I haven't spoken to Mitch about this since the other day when I posted this. He's a busy guy, I'm a busy guy -- also I wanted to give everyone a chance to weigh-in on this thread before I go back to him with the results and start trying to get something more concrete.

As it stands now, there are just over 11 people who have indicated they would most-likely go (and 2 "maybes", which I'm not counting).

That means our individual rate (with 11 people) would be in the ballpark of $65.

Of course, we have 2 "maybes" and several of the "yes's" indicated they would most likely bring additional friends. But not counting any of the "maybes", that's what we're looking at per person.

So, to give me a good solid idea of whether this can pan-out or not, could everyone PLEASE just post a quick note stating one of these options:
* "I'm game, I'm willing to spend $65"
-OR-
* "No can do -- $65 is too high for me... my highest price is $xx"

This way I can figure out what to go back to Mitch with, or if we need to keep working at this and see if we can't get more people to commit and thus drive our individual target price lower.

As for the suggestions regarding coming up with topics/questions. I will definitely bring that up to Mitch. He sounds like a pretty kewl guy, so I think he would be willing to accommodate something like a Q&A period. Also, I agree with providing us with notes. My CC Instructor gave us a pamphlet containing most everything he discussed and I loved that and wouldn't want anything less from ANY class I take (except College, where part of the standard requirement is that you take your own notes).

As far as weekends go, it sounded like he would prefer to do this during the week (nights or days) but I will definitely try and get a Saturday if most strongly concur.

So, please, post each of your feedback of the 2 options I presented. Thanks!

Maladjusted said:

I'd need to know what the class is going to cover to make a decision. It's not about the $65, it's about the time and whether I want to take a class about the curriculum he's presenting.

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Allow me to clarify. I am not asking anyone to ACTUALLY COMMIT right now... no one is committing to anything until someone starts asking you for money or asking to add you to a list. In either case, a date/time and more detail will be offered first.

I am still trying to flesh this out and anticipate the class to still be sometime in the not extremely near future (a month or so out, at least, given my hectic schedule).

All I am asking is people to read my initial post about the general concept of this class, weigh the general guess that it might be around $65, and understand that it might possibly be in a time-frame that works for them, and just give a loose and not firm "yeay" or "nay" so I can understand how I should approach the next phase of planning on this.

(In other words, I'm trying to figure out if given the 11 respondents we have so far whether or not us 11 are willing to pay $65 for a class of this sort or whether I need to try and get more participants in order to bring the fee lower).

No, I understood your point.

What I am saying is that the "blurb" actually contains quite a bit of general information regarding the conceptual idea of the class. Sure, it is not a curriculum outlining every specific topic -- but it does provide a notion of what the class is aimed at.

I think it would be a waste of time and energy to demand he provide a curriculum and a full outline of detailed items such as certificates and handouts before we even know whether or not enough people are generally interested at the $65-level to warrant going further with this.

It should be noted that he does not have a formal established class put together that he is already teaching somewhere and for which I already have all available information regarding it. All this is is a well-versed attorney with a conceptual idea who offered the idea to me if I were interested in helping to arrange it. The details are still in the works.

Thus, why I asked for people to indicate their general INTEREST (read, possibly, however slightly, interested) at the $65-level. I was not asking for specific commitment since I was not providing specific details.

But, perhaps, this is the answer I was seeking -- the interest is maybe not great enough to warrant we proceed.