I've a feeling that instead of approaching the whole pistol ownership thing nice and quietly, i.e establishing ownership of target pistols, building up a good reputation etc. showing we can handle these firearms safely etc. people are gonna rush out to buy everything and anything... and create a lot of bad publicity..... We all know the press are gonna jump on this one as soon as someone gets a flashy gun.

Unfortunately from talking to a few shooters since the 1st pistol licence went through, most of them are looking at flashy sidearms, quick draw holsters, extended mags....... a bit o.t.t. ... much as I would love one myself, I've a feeling the extreemists will scare the authorities.

Back before the ban, was there regulations regarding carrying/storing of pistols??

Yep a lot of ranges really have to work on the whole image.
I'd wear camo when in the field, on the rare occasions I'd go hunting......

I dont feel the need to wear them on the range.... wrong image for the public to see!!

this firearms euro pass thing is a load of rubbish, the brits wont recognise it, last time i was there for dtl shoot they wouldnt accept it and looked for a visitors permit, funny enough i had a northern ireland licence and argued with them that should be enough for them. when they started to act the mick over it i told them thet the irish governtment would love to know that the british governtment wouldnt accept a northern ireland licence as they were claiming it was an irish licence. that shut him up fairly quick and they kicked us through fairly quick. dont know about importing guns but this thing looks like another piece of euro trash.

Entrophy,
It sounds like you just ran into a thick bollix in a uniform who wanted to give you a very hard time.From what I have on this thing it works effectively on the continent.wonder has it possibly got somthing to do with the UK and IRL not signing up to Shengen[sic].Or is it just another hassle the shooters DOJ thing?

entropy wrote:

this firearms euro pass thing is a load of rubbish, the brits wont recognise it, last time i was there for dtl shoot they wouldnt accept it and looked for a visitors permit, funny enough i had a northern ireland licence and argued with them that should be enough for them. when they started to act the mick over it i told them thet the irish governtment would love to know that the british governtment wouldnt accept a northern ireland licence as they were claiming it was an irish licence. that shut him up fairly quick and they kicked us through fairly quick. dont know about importing guns but this thing looks like another piece of euro trash.

I may be wrong but the Euro Pass was to do away with a removal order as prior to that even though you were in posession of a UK permit you still needed a removal order from the Gardai to take the gun out of the country.
The Euro pass permits cross border travel but only when the destination countries requirement for certification has been met. Total value? Zero.

The N.I. certificate is the only one to have as it is by law recognised by the constabulary in England, Scotland and Wales (even if a reminder is sometimes necessary). An English, Scottish or Welsh permit is not however acceptable in N.I. and a visitors permit is needed.

Setting the scene.

The Government now and in the past have no interest in shooting sports, look at the amount of money collected each year in licence fees and consider how much is re invested in facilities for shooters. None.
Firearms Acts only affect legitimate shooters, criminal have no regard for the law ergo they are not bothered by how severe the laws are as they do not comply anyway.
To the best of my knowledge, no other sport contributes so much financially to the Government for zero return.
Shooters are probably the only group in Ireland who do NOT have a right to their sport.
Ramblers seem to have a right to go where they like while contributing nothing (other than litter) to the country but want further access to private lands which would have the knock on effect of reducing land available for shooting. Yes, that would also include land available for ranges as we could not be allowed disturb the peace of the countryside with noisy gunfire!
If shooting is a minority sport, how come there are approx. 230,000 licensed firearms in this country? I doubt if there are 230,000 canoeists or track athletes in this country yet they receive TV coverage and Government funding, without contributing a licence fee.
The Gardai do not approach the companies who run competitions for cars to ask them not to publish the names or addresses of people who win flash cars in competition in case they might be stolen. The NARGC has been approached to ask clubs not to publish the names and addresses of club competition winners in local media as it could identify the houses which have guns, thereby increasing the risk of the house being burgled. Funny, I thought the Gardai were supposed to protect us from crime not the NARGC.
On the face of it this seems sensible, nobody wants their house burgled .However, it further reduces clubs ability to promote their sport at local level. Imagine asking the GAA not to publish pictures or names and addresses of victorious teams. Again rather than the Gardai protecting us, they want us to keep our heads down and pretend we don’t exist. All clubs should be causing uproar over this.
The NRPAI and affiliated bodies (including NTSA,NSA,NASRC etc) should learn from the NARGC, a much younger organisation than the NRPAI but with a lot more credibility. Why? Because they organised on a REGIONAL/COUNTY basis, included all shooting disciplines (though mainly shotgunners, not exclusively so). They do NOT discriminate between different disciplines. Pity the NRPAI didn’t recognise that there were a lot of shooters outside Dublin and Wicklow/Wexford and beyond the walls of the Universities. Perhaps things are changing, there is now Wilkinstown and Fermoy and MRC. Isn’t it strange that with only 10% of shooters being members of the NARGC they can have a Compensation Fund, permanent offices a full time CEO and a relatively happy and peaceful ship? Why don’t the NRPAI chase the other 90% and see what they can achieve? At least they should look at setting up County bodies to help promote the sport. I know quite a lot of people who do not realise that the NRPAI exist. Wonderful job of PR, keep it up and we won’t need the Government to prevent us from having our sport, we can obliterate it ourselves. It’s funny when I speak to people about joining the NRPAI, they seem to think that the NRPAI has nothing to offer them. I find it difficult to contradict them, as there are no ranges nearby, or competitions nearby. Also as they would mainly be rabbit hunters, having to use subsonic ammunition on ranges does not appeal to them, particularly as they are aware that subsonic .22 ammo is far more likely to ricochet than high velocity. The argument about subsonic being more accurate does not hold water as they would like to be able to compete with what they would use normally and improve their skills with this. Sounds reasonable as I cannot see target shooters changing to high velocity ammo when they need to be proficient with subs for their chosen discipline, rabbit shooters will not want to change to subs when they mainly use high velocity. Perhaps this could be looked at? I know ISSF disciplines use subs but perhaps sports shooters could have their own competitions with high velocity ammo. This would be seen as being inclusive rather than exclusive and perhaps some of these shooters would take up ISSF disciplines as well, who knows? I believe it is because existing rules in clubs prohibit high velocity .22 ammo that it has done more towards dividing shooters rather than uniting them and this continued rift is furthering the view of an “us and them” mentality with regard to sports shooters and target shooters. We all shoot and enjoy our sport, why can we not enjoy it together? In the UK Practical Shotgun, Practical Rifle, Gallery Rifle,.22 Target, .22 Sporting (High Velocity) Muzzle Loaders (pistol and rifle) Archery, Crossbow, Air Pistol, Air Rifle can all be enjoyed in the same venue without any difficulty and I understand there has been some crossover from one discipline to another as people can see what the other sports are like and can then try them out. I can see no reason why we cannot do the same here; in fact it would ease the financial burden on clubs as building/insurance costs would be spread over a larger number of members. It will never happen so long as this “us and them” attitude continues. Times are changing and the only way to protect the sport long term is to adopt a radical new approach. This is not to say that all which has happened previously was wrong but we are in an age when a fresh approach from the ground up is possibly the only way to ensure our sport is there for future generations to enjoy.
With land for ranges hard to come by, combining with other clubs to develop a multi use facility makes sense, it is only one planning application, one venue for public liability insurance, one venue to be heated, one venue to be secured and will be more appealing to the community if a variety of activities can take place there other than shooting. What a wonderful way to promote our sport, include the local community not exclude. How many clubs hold open days or run family fun days? I am only aware of two BRC and MRC. Both events are very successful and run annually. What about NRPAI on tour? A few air rifles, permission from schools to use their halls/playing fields or the local GAA hall or pitch, insurance, approval from and possibly endorsement from Dept of Education? No need for major licences as the local Superintendent can issue permits for Air Rifles as he does for funfair air rifle ranges. Perhaps it is a loser but we will never know until we try.
Who knows, it may even lead to schools setting up rifle clubs as happens in some UK schools. Now there is a novel way to promote the sport and also win over some of the 3.8 million people on this Island. Word of caution, this would only work if it was rolled out on a National basis i.e. beyond Dublin. Perhaps a trial run in a number of selected schools would be a good place to start. If schools do not appeal there is also the Scouts and Foroige to be considered. I can almost hear clubs saying ” we tried it locally and it did not work”. Fine, let’s look at why it didn’t work and improve it and try again. After all, failure is the best incentive to try harder next time.
We have a number of National shooting bodies but unfortunately National seems to mean “my club only”. We need to forget personal differences and inter discipline rows and pull together on this or we will soon have nothing to fight over as we will have nothing. Let’s get proactive rather than reactive and stop the in fighting about what disciplines we approve of or disapprove of. If we go down that road we are doomed to failure, witness the example of the UK in 1987 (Hungerford and Michael Ryan). The NRA told the UK government they could see no reason for a civilian to have a full bore semi-auto rifle. Thousands of COMPETITIVE shooters lost their sport. Dunblane, .22 target shooters told the UK Government that they had no difficulty with a large calibre handgun ban. One month later they lost their .22 Target pistols also. Learn the lesson. Be careful what you say about disciplines other than your own. We have never had a Hungerford or Dunblane here so we should not adopt or even consider adopting similar attitudes to those of the NRA (UK) or UK .22 Target shooters. We are legitimate shooters, we pay for our sport, we are safe in our sport, we enjoy our sport, and our sport includes ALL classes of firearms whether we like it that way or not.


Regards
Gouda

I have been interested in handguns for years and now that the ground seems to have shifted in my favour I was wondering if anyone could advise as to how I should proceed. I own a .22 and 12 guage and I am extremely safety conscious. I am a member of a range which currently only has clay pidgeon shooting and a rifle range but I'd say they would be favourably disposed to allowing handguns in. I've gone to the States to shoot but obviously I cant afford to do that on an ongoing basis. I'm a bit confused by all this talk of importation certs and its seems to be a bit of a chicken and egg situation. I'd like to start off with a .22 pistol and obviously I would like to keep on the good side of my local firearms officer. Can anyone give me any pointers.