Safety Courses (Split from CJB Thread)

Sparks

Good work for all bar perhaps one point;

Rovi wrote:

Head 50.
NARGC asked who would set the level of competence, and suggested that the Gardai were not in a position to do this.
DOJ agreed to re-word the provision so that completion of a safety course run by one of the recognised shooting associations would be acceptable.

Does this mean that groups which have a long history of not following rules they don't like, even when they're the ones who drafted them, are to be entrusted with deciding who's safe to hold a firearm now? Some more thought needed here, methinks, or court cases will surely follow!

Vegeta

Sparks I just think that at least now (or in the near future) there will be at least some sort of training as opposed to none.

In reality I could go in to a gun shop buy a gun, join a gun club, and have a lethal weapon in my hands having never even held a gun before, in fairness that is madness and could do with changing. Even if it only prevented one injury every 5 years I think we'd all agree some form of legal training in a safe controlled environment is better than nothing.

I was forced to do a safety course for a shotgun when I was 16, joined the local gun club, installed gun safe in all paid over 100 pounds (yes old money) just so they'd even consider my application. I still got turned down for a license cos I was too young, even though legally I was old enough and I had gone above and beyond.

The more safe experience the better before licenses are issued. The bodies you are speaking about will not have the say on who is fit to have a license but they will probably implement the training courses.

Sparks

Even if it only prevented one injury every 5 years I think we'd all agree some form of legal training in a safe controlled environment is better than nothing.

Decidedly. My point isn't that such training isn't needed - I've said in the past that it is - but that it has to be done properly. We need to know that people who annoy head office won't mysteriously fail their safety course for no reason. I'm not confident enough in the current head office to say that that wouldn't happen; and I could cite you cases where similar things have happened to people who complained to head office in the past.

Rovi

I suppose, ideally, the DOJ would sign off on each association's safety course. They should certainly (in my opinion) only be run by certified instructors.

How about- once an organisation's safety course and instructors have been accepted by the DOJ, they can run all the courses they like. Courses would have to be notified in advance to the DOJ, and would be assigned an 'Official Course Number' (for want of a better term). Only course certificates with these 'Official Course Numbers' on them would be accepted by the Gardai.
The DOJ could send a representative to observe or even participate in any course, with no prior notice to the organisers.

I'm sure there are many flaws in this, but it might be a workable system to keep everyone 'honest.'


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Sparks

Better than before, but doesn't quite fly in some points Rovi. Apart from assuming that the DoJ is at worst impartial to firearms and nominally is for their use, it still leaves you with the same question - how do you ensure that the rules are followed?

There are other questions that come to mind as well, though - for instance, who certifies the instructors? And do we wind up with a situation like we have with the current NRPAI's RO course where you see ISSF ROs being trained to handle silhouette matches and other similar redundancies? (There's a point to that, in that each kind of match has it's own safety risks and factors and an RO can't be competent in, say, an air pistol match if s/he's been trained for a smallbore rifle match - there are serious safety issues here).

Rovi

Sparks, I misunderstood your concerns when I posted my proposal for the running of safety courses.
I can see your point about the internal politics of an association certifying (or not) their own members.

How about this?-
I'm assuming here that there will be more than one 'general firearms safety certificate.'
Assuming (again!) that there will be something along the lines of separate certs for shotguns, rifles, and handguns, what's to stop anyone doing a course under another organisation that happens to use the same type of firearm?

Or is it proposed somewhere that these safety certs are to be extraordinarily specific to the firearm/discipline/calibre in question?
That could get very complicated very quickly.

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Sparks

That could get very complicated very quickly.

Agreed - but at the same time, do you want the same course for an air pistol as you'd have for a .45ACP ?
As I see it, you'd have to have courses for rifle and pistol in air, smallbore and fullbore categories, and also for shotguns. That's seven seperate courses. The DoJ isn't competent to sign off on safety courses; and the question of who or what body will sign off on them is an interesting one as well.
And none of this prevents head office from failing someone without due cause!

civdef

Why?
You're complicating things far too much.

As I'd see it, the safety principles for one handgun hold true for any of them. One firearms safety course could be constructed to cover the subject, two at a push, one for handguns, one for longguns.

Even with two categories, most of the information will be duplicated.

Sparks

civdef wrote:

Why?

Well, you don't need a knitting needle for fullbore or smallbore pistols for a start.
And you don't have parts on a smallbore rifle that can act with the destructive force of a pair of hand grenades at arm's length.
And poor misfire protocol with a smallbore rifle won't see you lose fingers and get a rather huge hole put through your shoulder.
And few people shooting silhouette are putting themselves at serious risk of long-term spinal problems if they shoot with poor posture.
And few air rifle shooters have to worry about magazines.

And so on and so forth. The point is that you have different safety risks for different kinds of firearm - and you don't try to teach someone all of them, as they forget most of what they learn. Again, take a lesson from aviation - there, you need specific training for specific aircraft types and general aircraft types (tailwheel/nosewheel, multi/single engine, instrument/visual flight rules and so on).

As I'd see it, the safety principles for one handgun hold true for any of them.

Sure - where the safety principles are expressed as "hard things come out of here very fast".

civdef

I think you're seriously overestimating the risks of a compressed gas container rupture, and underestimating the risks of a cartridge going Kaboom.
Likewise, you don't seem too familiar with cartridge firearms if you state that poor misfire procedure with them doesn't run the risk of self perforation....

Like I say, you're overcomplicating things, and this isn't good. Different firearms have different ussies, I still say they could all be sensibly covered in a single general course. The other maintenance and component issues come down to RTFM - which any safety course will of course tell the owner to do.

Sparks

civdef wrote:

I think you're seriously overestimating the risks of a compressed gas container rupture

Last year a junior apparently had to be stopped from juggling with three of them while upstairs in the LRC in Bisley. Had one gone over the side and hit a solid surface on the ground floor, I wouldn't particularly care to wager my shins on the workmanship of the manufacturer. And if it has happened there, it can certainly happen here.

and underestimating the risks of a cartridge going Kaboom.

So long as it's outside the breech, the conventional wisdom appears to be that it's nowhere near as potentially destructive as an air cylinder cracking open.

Likewise, you don't seem too familiar with cartridge firearms if you state that poor misfire procedure with them doesn't run the risk of self perforation....

Oh no, you could get a rather nasty wound allright, if unlucky. Just nothing like in fullbore (the last incident I heard of with a hangfire in Bisley saw the unfortunate gent lose three fingers as the bolt and handle went backwards through the fingerjoints and then further backwards to pass through his shoulder. You just don't get that with the .22lr rifles.

Like I say, you're overcomplicating things, and this isn't good. Different firearms have different ussies, I still say they could all be sensibly covered in a single general course.

Yes - if it was general enough. But would a course that general be of any use to anyone?

Rovi

We could probably do worse than model something on the Canadian system-

Canadian Firearms Safety Course

• Introduction to firearms
• Firearm safety
• Ammunition
• Operating firearm actions
• Safe handling and carrying of firearms
• Firing techniques and procedures
• Care of firearms
• Responsibilities of the firearm owner/user
• Safe storage, handling, and transportation of firearms

They place heavy emphasis on the ACTS & PROVE system-
THE VITAL FOUR ACTS OF FIREARMS SAFETY

ACTS

• Assume every firearm is loaded.
• Control the muzzle direction at all times.
• Trigger finger must be kept off the trigger and out of the trigger guard.
• See that the firearm is unloaded - PROVE it safe.
  

PROVE

• Point the firearm in the safest available direction.
• Remove all cartridges.
• Observe the chamber.
• Verify the feeding path.
• Examine the bore.

They have 2 versions of the exam, for restricted firearms and non-restricted firearms-
http://www.firearmstraining.ca/classes.htm


Leave it as simple as that.
The peculiarities and particulars of each discipline should be left to the coach/association/range officers for that discipline.

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civdef

Things that go boom is something I know a bit about, compressed gas cylinders are designed with huge safety margins and with seams designed to allow controlled release of gas in the event of failure. They aren't quite the primed-nailbombs-waiting-to-kill-and-main that you're making them out to be.

For the record, the misfire incident I was thinking of involves forgetting where the muzzle is pointed during a hangfire - which is a very bad thing indeed.

I think a general course would be very worthwhile and entirely sufficient.

Sparks

Rovi's suggestion looks fair enough to me.

Civ, I'm not suggesting that they're sticks of dynamite - I'd want not to, since I shoot with one about a foot away from my face - but they do have the potential for a lot of damage if mistreated (filled to 300bar instead of 200 by mistake because someone thought he had a new Walther cylinder instead of an old one, for example).

civdef

If you overfilled it by that much you'd probably never notice - though you would be gone well past the tested rating, the ratings are conservative.

Sparks

And if you did it repeatedly, on average once a week, how long until metal fatigue kicked in?
(Assuming, that is, you didn't cause an internal failure in the rifle itself)

civdef

That's the intangible, because the cylinder won't have been tested at that pressure to find out. It might be fine, it might not be. Anyone who overfills the cylinder is a dumbass, so Darwin might have a part to play.

Thing is do you need to include all the gen about checking rated cylinder pressures on a government mandated safety course? The necessary safety level could equally achieved by telling attendees on a general firearms safety course to carefully read and digest the manual of whatever firearm they use, and to follow that guidance.

civdef

Oh yeah, just to prove that sometimes people overdo the whole "compressed gas is deadly" line, I saw a young lady taking part in an advanced first aid course recently who was too afraid to use an oxygen set. The reason for her fear was that she read all the dire warnings, and assumed as soon as she opened the valve she'd spontaneously combust or be blown to smithereens!

Rovi

Remember this guy?-
http://www.thegunzone.com/mos/dea-nd.html

I wonder if he's available to run these courses?

He IS "the only one in this room professional enough" after all.
:D:D

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Clare gunner

Again we see the good oul insular outlook of things.Folks,we are supposed to be Europeans.[Remember that lot who gave us tons of money so we could kickstart the Celtic Tiger???].
Maybe we should be more concerned as to what legislation might be foisted upon us from "over there" as to what the lot in the Dail can come up with.Not only that I would ask will our gubmint recognise EU issued saftey courses,where I would /will attend as I will get the whole lot done within a seven day period at a more reasonable price.Rather than be foisted with[if I know Irish clubs] a long winded,time consuming,money spinning course.That will proably last six months which in reality can be fast tracked into 72 hours intensive.
Put it like this;If our driving liscense issuing system is such a shambles,do you honestly think that anything with the firearms course is going to be any different?

Also,I personally would strongly resent having to go back into a classroom to be lectured on the basics of safe shotgun /rifle pistol/ handling,when I have been shooting all of those three types of guns since I was ten!!! And then having to cough up more of my hard earned Euros to go and redo it for each type of gunNo problem ,if it is pertinent to a certain disipline [IE practical rifle,pistol,etc]
But the general saftey issues are the same no matter what type of firearm you use.So unless there is a fast track system for experianced shooters,I see it as another milch cow way for the gubmint to get more money out of us.

civdef

In Canada you can "challenge" the course requirement if you have prior experience. You just take the final exam, and if you pass that, you don't bother with the course.

Sparks

civdef wrote:

Thing is do you need to include all the gen about checking rated cylinder pressures on a government mandated safety course?

No, I'm merely trying to point out that different types of firearm will have different requirements. And I'm not sure RTFM is a valid approach to take for a safety course!

Clare gunner

Civ,
Common sense indeed.However whats the betting of that being "omitted" from the rule book??:rolleyes: Remember one thing here ;if it doesnt make somone money here it will be ignored,omitted,forgotten about or dereided.

civdef

No, I'm merely trying to point out that different types of firearm will have different requirements.

Yes and the safety on a CZ75B works different to that on a CZ75BD, which is different from a Glock, so should there be different courses for each of those too?

And I'm not sure RTFM is a valid approach to take for a safety course!

In my opinion it's a pretty good rule for life in general!

On the point of Cylinders.. Mythbusters yesterday shot a .303 round from point blank range at a fully charged divers bottle...

It does'nt go BANG, but rather shoots off, same effect as knocking the cap of it.

Only when they put C4 on it did it explode.. knocking a massive dent in a steel container.

Either way, I would not like to be in room with people "juggling" them, or screwing around with them. Proper care and maintenance of compressed air cylinders should probably be on a .177 safety course.

Clare gunner

Psycho
Agree with you up to a point.But as such the cylinders are pretty hardy things.When you consider how much scuba bottles ane thumped about,not to mind more dangerous cylinders containing acytelene or Calor gas.
There is a saftey aspect that can be summed up with these as
"Lads these things contain compressed air.Dont go hammering on them,thumping them or throwing them in a fire.In other words dont do anything you wouldnt do with a full aerosol can of butane gas,dont overfill etc.Capis?".
Or it can be turned into a long lecture on EU regulations pertaining to the storage,transportand use or misuse of compressed gases.The color marking of said cylinders[black/white striped on top],the codes to over pressure,the date of making etc.Then add in the EU directives of how the cylinders must be checked[xrayed if made of aluminium] hydrostatically tested every five years,visually inspected every year.Now,consider that we are dealing with "firearms" another "deadly"item in the eyes of our betters.Which course of action do you think they will adapt for this firearms saftey course??
Having a firearm implies some basic common sense as well to other dangerous items connected to a gun.

Kryten

Safety courses ehh! It is all very well for the majority of us experienced shooters for which basic firearms safety is almost second nature, and well done guys. But it becomes all the more easy for us to nit pick. I.E. Range protocol on one range or club is different than range protocol in another club. And our safety is better than yours etc..

But the fundamentals apply to all type of firearms, whether air guns or .308's. Rifle, shotgun or pistol. Ideally the fundamental firearms safety course should be standardised and certified by a recognised body. Additional training for the individual disciplines could be run at club level. The recognised body is the sticking point. Who would the DOJ and Gardai consider to be the certifying authority in this country? I am guessing that there is none yet. Pity!! What happens is that we end up doing courses up and down the country( and no harm) but we are in danger of not getting the credit we deserve from the authorities.
I agree that concerns about compressed CO2 cylinders are valid and a cause for concern, and that how to cross obstacles with shotguns and rifles while on a hunt are of paramount importance, but these are different disciplines. A basic safety course run by a club should mention these risks as part of the core curriculum, but covered in detail later when your clubs chosen discipline is expanded on. For example, what do do in the case of misfire. Different for air guns than cartridge guns. No risk of hang fire with air guns. So an airgun club will concentrate on its specific safety requirements which are a lot of the time different to clay shooting clubs for example.
But equipped with the fundamental firearms safety knowledge, a shooter can go to a host gun club and need to be aquainted with only the "house rules" to successfully conduct ones self safely.:D