SUBMITTED: Monday, April 07, 2008
POSTED: Friday, April 18, 2008
Unlike most people who have posted here at ripoff.com, I have some experience at being the target of unfounded accusations. I am a mental health professional in Minnesota and have once been (unsuccessfully) sued by a former patient who made utterly untrue allegations. Despite those allegations being false and defamatory, that incident was bruising to myself and my family. I was also once called as a witness in a complaint against a colleague of mine against whom allegations had been made that I had thought were utterly untrue but turned out to be entirely true. That was a distressing time for him and his family, but that colleague did to bring that upon himself.
What I am trying to say is that accusations can be either true or false.
I am also a firearms hobbyist and carry permit holder. I have been a carry permit holder since shortly after the law changed in 2003 and was among the first to get a new permit under the new system, as I took my original training during that summer.
Two months ago I was pointed at Mr. Penaz's website by a colleague who asked me if this was the "conceal and carry" instructor I had taken my training from. He was not. My colleague pronounced himself reassured to have learned that. When I first examined that website, I thought it was a weak attempt at humor. I was able to verify that Mr. Penaz is, in fact, a licensed instructor, and further Internet search brought me to this site.
While I had planned on taking my renewal instruction from the same, well-respected, instructor who trained me during the time period of the summer of 2003, I thought it might be interesting to take Mr. Penaz's class, in view of the fact that I was comfortable that my re-training was a mere formality, unlike the CE that I take in my professional life.
I have one more bit of preface before I go on to the substance of my review. I do not now have and have never had a professional relationship with Mr. Penaz or any member of his family. I am also more than aware that I simply do not have enough contact with Mr. Penaz to perform a diagnosis, and do not represent my conclusions here as having diagnostic merit.
Let me begin with the factual matters. The class actually began shortly after 9:30 a.m. on a weekend morning. It finally terminated for the drive to the range for the shooting qualification 4 1/2 hours later. It was punctuated by several long breaks. I estimate that they totaled fifty minutes or a little more. He completed his presentation at 1:15, and engaged in a "discussion" until we departed for the range forty-five minutes later. He encouraged us to "take your time driving, there is no rush."
It was a three and a half hour class, at most.
The basic material presented was clearly and demonstrably a subset of the material presented in the course that I had taken five years before from a well-respected instructor. To put none too fine a point on it, there were important legal and gun-handling issues that were given short shrift. With that in mind, and upon consultation with the text of the law and the book that I received in my initial class, I believe that Mr. Penaz's class may have met the minimal requirements as specified in Minnesota statute 624.714. It would be a matter of judgment.
The range qualification took place at the range facility that has been mentioned here before. All of the trainees fired 10 shots each. I deliberately used a cross-thumb grip on my pistol, and Mr. Penaz made no attempt to correct that. I deliberately scattered my ten rounds across the target. Immediately upon taking my target down, Mr. Penaz immediately crumpled it and tossed it behind him after looking over his shoulder at the glass window into the lobby. He then signed my training certificate and congratulated me on a "good job."
Matters of impression. Mr. Penaz's presentation was punctuated with self-aggrandizing stories about his many claimed accomplishments. This was markedly similar to the verbal diarrhea splattered across his website. He was constantly and continually requesting confirmation from the people taking the class as to how wonderful the class was. It was not. When he stopped reading from the overhead presentation, he seemed unable to bring himself back to the subject matter without a reminder from the woman who he had introduced as his wife, who appeared to be repeatedly attempting to keep him on task. She was often successful but not always. Mr. Penaz did display a grandiose sense of self-importance, seemed preoccupied with fantasies of his own success in many fields, and was almost incessantly talking about how other instructors were jealous of him. I do not know if he honestly believes that he is special and unique, or if he simply feels that it is useful to portray himself as such. I would guess that both are the case.
As I have previously stated, I do not have a professional relationship with Mr. Penaz, the approximately 5 hours that I spent in his presence might be, in a clinical setting, sufficient to diagnose Narcissistic Personality Disorder if that were present. That would, however, required the give-and-take of a therapeutic/diagnostic environment, rather than the environment of his class, which may have exaggerated some manifest flaws in his personality of a subclinical nature. Accordingly, while I observed all of the characteristics of NPD, which I have listed below, it would be unethical and inappropriate for me to suggest that, upon proper diagnosis, another clinician would find that that disorder is present in Mr. Penaz.
With the controversy about Mr. Penaz's credentials here, I do not intend to present his certificate for my renewal and will be taking my renewal training from another instructor before submitting my paperwork later this year.
I will not be sending friends or family to take Mr. Penaz's course, and would advise the certification agency to carefully examine him.
To put none too fine a point on it: there is something wrong with this guy. You don't have to be a doctor to see that.
From the DSM-IV: Diagnostic criteria for 301.81 Narcissistic Personality Disorder:
1. has a grandiose sense of self-importance
2. is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love
3. believes that he or she is "special" and unique
4. requires excessive admiration
5. has a sense of entitlement
6. is interpersonally exploitative
7. lacks empathy
8. is often envious of others or believes others are envious of him or her
9. shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes