Certification of Gibbons’ firearms instructor revoked

RENO -- Documents show the Washoe County sheriff's office revoked the certification of the firearms instructor who improperly signed off on Gov. Jim Gibbons' concealed weapons permit training.

According to the Reno Gazette-Journal, a letter also indicates that the instructor, physician Jerry Matsumura, denied he had signed off on Gibbons' permit without putting him through the required training when first confronted about it by Sheriff Mike Haley earlier this year.

"It is unacceptable that, when I first broached the rumor in this regard to you in mid-January, you denied that you had not required the live-fire component of the training," Haley wrote in the March 5 letter revoking Matsumura's instructor certification.

Matsumura declined to comment on the revocation.

The documents, obtained in a public records request, are the first to shed light on the response by the sheriff's office to the mishandling of Gibbons' weapons permit.

Haley has refused to comment about Gibbons' permit, saying state law makes the applications confidential. In the letter, the name of the applicant handled by Matsumura is blacked out.

But the governor's office confirmed on Wednesday that Matsumura was Gibbons' instructor.

Gibbons surrendered his permit earlier this year after it was discovered that he wasn't certified on all nine of the pistols he was allowed to carry.

He has said he only had seven of the guns with him at the training and had promised to bring back the others at a later date, but got busy and forgot.

Gibbons said he has since returned for complete training and has a proper permit.