• "target shooting" is not defined, nor is "shooting range", nor "zeroing" or any similar term. On the other hand, all the definitions for the Acts are now moved into the Firearms Act instead of being here and in the Firearms and Offensive Weapons Act.
• Jim O'Keefe is trying to have the firearms training certificate age raised from 14 to 16 years again, and to have the supervisor's age raised from 18 to 21
• Aengus O'Snodaigh is trying to have the firearms training certificate made available only for target shooting (as opposed to target shooting and hunting)
• If a training cert is refused, it'll be the commissioner who writes the explanitory letter, not the minister
• Aengus wants the training cert to be for one year, not three. Jim O'Keefe wants it to be two years.
• Howlin wants the Minister to have to consult "such organisations as in the Minister’s opinion are representative of persons engaged in sporting or other lawful use of firearms" before declaring a firearm as restricted.
• The restriction of firearms on muzzle energy changed to "the muzzle energy of ammunition likely to be used by the firearm". (Howlin again)
• From Howlin again, if the Minister declares a firearm restriced : "In making an order under subsection (1) the Minister shall have regard to the desirability of facilitating persons engaged in sporting or other lawful use of firearms."
• Howlin also adds the following (again, regarding the Minister declaring a firearm to be restricted):"“(2) A person aggrieved by an order of the Minister under subsection (1) may give notice in a form to be prescribed by the Minister of his or her grievance and of the grounds for it, and the Minister shall consider such notice and shall make a decision on foot of the notice either to make no amendment to the order under subsection (1) or to may make such amendment to the order under subsection (1) as, in the opinion of the Minister, the circumstances warrant.
  (3) A person dissatisfied by a decision of the Minister under subsection (2) may appeal against such decision to the High Court which may give such directions to the Minister as the circumstances warrant."
• Howlin wants the time in which we can apply for a renewal of the firearms certificate to be extended to three months before it expires, which would eliminate the overlap problem.
• On the Minister or Commissioner adding guidelines for firearms act implementation, Howlin adds "In making an order under subsection (1) the Minister shall have regard to the desirability of facilitating persons engaged in sporting or other lawful use of firearms.”; and “(3) Guidelines under this section shall be made available by the Commissioner to
  those likely to be affected thereby.”.
• Where a licence is for target shooting, membership of clay pigeon shooting clubs is also acceptable (instead of only rifle or pistol shooting, which would be handy for clay pigeon shooters).
• Jim O'Keefe wants the following added to the legal prerequisites for getting a firearms licence:
  “(f) is of sound mental and psychiatric health,
  (g) has sufficient capacity to possess and operate a firearm responsibly and safely,”.
• Over the mention of being competent in the use of a firearm before getting the licence for it, Howlin adds "or a bona fide intention to acquire competence", and “or in such other similar firearms as satisfy the issuing person that the applicant will be competent in the use of the firearm concerned”. (ie. if you have a single barrel shotgun, getting a licence for an over-and-under won't mean you have to prove you're competent with one, the experience with the single barrle will serve to prove competence).
• The definition of who is allowed testifty to your mental health is narrowed from “a person who is a doctor, psychiatrist, dentist, optician, chemist or nurse” to “doctor or psychiatrist”.
• Howlin adds to the section on club shooting ranges needing to meet standards: “(15) Regulations under subsection (13) insofar as they determine standards by reference to subsection (14)(vi) shall have due regard to the need for shooting ranges to be used by persons who are in the process of acquiring competency in the use of firearms.”.
• You'll have to be resident in the state for six months before applying for a firearms licence. I'm not certain, but I think that's badly written and may well disentitle shooters coming into Ireland for matches from holding a certificate - thus meaning that they can't come in at all. The amendment is from the minister and is to section 8 (the list of those not entitled to hold a certificate) and it simply says "(f) any person not ordinarily resident in the State for a period of 6 months before applying for a firearm certificate.”. That seems far too wide to me and I don't remember if there's a specific provision in the Acts to allow for tourists to get a licence seperately from the procedure for residents.
• If you apply for a cert, and you don't get a response inside the three months, then your application is deemed to have been denied, and the lack of response is deemed to be notification. And that overrides section 3(10) which specifically says that we're meant to be notified in writing. That's an amendment from the Minister:
  “(5) For the purposes of this section—
  (a) an issuing person—
  (i) who is required under section 3(9), 4A(7) or 10(4F) to decide on an application within a specified period, and
  (ii) who does not so decide,
  is deemed to have decided to refuse to grant the application,
  (b) the applicant is deemed to have received notice of the decision on the expiration of that period, and
  (c) as the case may be, section 3(10) does not apply in relation to the
  application.
  In other words, forget about getting written notification of not being granted the licence.
• You can now be ordered to surrender your firearm at the local station or anywhere else the superintendent specifies.

But, there is still one existing problem not dealt with, and two that have cropped up in the Ministers's amendments.

The existing problem is that there is no definition for "target shooting" or "shooting range" in the Bill. And the Bill makes target shooting on an unauthorised shooting range a criminal offence, along with running an unauthorised shooting range, with a penalty of up to seven years in jail and a fine of up to €25,000. How can you have something defined as a criminal offence with such a huge penalty, when you don't even define the terms?

The new problems are:

1) You'll have to be resident in the state for six months before applying for a firearms licence. I'm not certain, but I think that's badly written and may well disentitle shooters coming into Ireland for matches from holding a certificate - thus meaning that they can't come in at all. The amendment is from the minister and adds to section 8 (the list of those not entitled to hold a certificate) and it simply says "(f) any person not ordinarily resident in the State for a period of 6 months before applying for a firearm certificate.". That seems far too wide to me and I don't remember if there's a specific provision in the Acts to allow for tourists to get a licence seperately from the procedure for residents. The amendment is number 108, on page 23 of the Report stage amendments.

The problem here is that we do get people coming in from abroad (and a lot coming down from up north, where two of the three olympic representatives and several of the national champions we've produced in the last two decades have come from). And if I'm right, that amendment will mean that they can't get a certificate down here. It's bad enough that we don't have a free visitor's permit system (or any other form of visitor's permit system) like every other EU country (including Northern Ireland), but this would prevent anyone coming in here for a target shooting competition. And that's not just wrong, it's daft because if you're born in Northern Ireland, you can represent us in the Olympics and you can compete for the National Championship, but this would mean that you wouldn't be able to shoot in the Republic to do so and we'd be obligated to have to hold the Nationals up North every year or face lawsuits over not giving people a fair chance!

2) If you apply for a cert, and you don't get a response inside the three months, then your application is deemed to have been denied, and the lack of response is deemed to be notification. And that overrides section 3(10) which specifically says that we're meant to be notified in writing. That's an amendment from the Minister:
"(5) For the purposes of this section—
(a) an issuing person—
(i) who is required under section 3(9), 4A(7) or 10(4F) to decide on an application within a specified period, and
(ii) who does not so decide,
is deemed to have decided to refuse to grant the application,
(b) the applicant is deemed to have received notice of the decision on the expiration of that period, and
(c) as the case may be, section 3(10) does not apply in relation to the
application.
In other words, forget about getting written notification of not being granted the licence. The amendment is number 122 on page 25 of the Report stage amendments.

The problem with this is that while most superintendents (as in, 170 or more of the 183 of them) are very good to shooters and never muck about - but the "problem" ones have actually broken the law in the past (and present - several are up for the high court as we speak) in trying not to grant firearms licences because they get no support from above and if anything goes wrong, it's their personal rear end in the hot seat. It's an understandable predicament, but that's no help to the 180,000 or so people who've done nothing wrong and who deserve better treatment from what is effectively a civil service - to say nothing of how it breaches the Gardai's own code of how it will serve the public!

jaycee wrote:

Not alone that ...
On page 55 section 40(5) it says that surrendered firearms may be disposed of as is deemed fit . No mention of compensation either. :eek: