Politics

civdef

Are legitimate shooters likely to get caught up in the current political ballgame re gun crime? Do you feel any parties are setting up to use firearms licencing as a political tool?

jaycee

I would think not and also hope not....

I own legally obtained , properly licenced sporting firearms for which I have passed safety courses .They are stored in a manner exceeding Garda requirements and protected by an approved monitored alarm.

I have every reason to believe that I may continue to enjoy my chosen lawful pastime.

Sparks

It's a strong possibility civ, given the current line in recent days on needing to "get tougher on gun crime" (which we've all seen in the past prior to kneejerk leglislation that only affected us in the end); though I think it's more likely to affect directly those of us who shoot Practical courses of fire, whether with shotgun, rifle or pistol. The image of shooters shooting at humanoid targets is just a PR nightmare, and PR is where this particular argument will be won or lost.

Problem is, our side versus their side, even when taking place on the net where you can sit back and take a breath and compose your responses with some elegance and tact, tend to look like this one. Or worse.

Clare gunner

Unless I am getting old and doddery in my 40s,and am missing somthing.I haven't seen anything that suggests any major move to ban anything from the main political parties.Unless we get some sort of young turk out to make his or her name as being an anti gun crusader or have somthing like [God help us] a Dunblane or Hungerford,it seems all quiet on the Western Front.[Apart from the no hopers and green nutters of course]
The firearms part of the CJB impresses me as a "tackon catchall" by Mc Dowell,in case there is an early election for FF to say they did somthing on gun crime.Anything a govt in power in Ireland does,will of course be ripped by the opposition parties.Sure we are still fighting the civil war in the Dail on a daily basis.
Plus the CJB is so flawed on other more important issues,the firearms side is going to be sidelined.As it stands we got quite alot of what we shooters wanted,but as usual there is alot of ambiguity and nonsense in it.
But it can be changed still,IE the "economic necessity" prohibition on reloading is gone and is now an accepteable reason to issue a reload liscense.Or so I am reliabely told.If you have gripes with it now is the time to speak up anfd get your organisations to put in their/your problems with it.The minister seems to respond favourbly to us on this sofar.Sitting around bitching&moaning after it is law is too late.We snooze .We loose.
And it does seem to be accepted that most are talking about illegal firearms and not about our legal stuff.At least the media have got it right about the illegal stuff coming in with the drugs shipments.
All we have to keep pointing out is that we must be the most law abiding citizens in the state,as if we were not,we couldnt be liscensed to posses firearms by the Gardai.And as drug dealers and criminals generally dont obey the law of the land this is a crime problem,not a ligit shooter problem.

I see Sparks is sparking off at practical shooting again.:D Ah those who refuse to learn from history are destined to repeat it.:D The same arguement was used in the UK,appeasement,sell the nasty practical practical pistol shooters down the swannee after Dunblane to save the pure correct olympic pistol shooting.Sell the nasty semi auto rifle crowd down the same river to save correct bolt action paper target shooting.
Been to any .22 olympic target pistol training in the UK recently???Been to a few practical rifle/shotgun and pistol events in the UK tho.The pistol crowd simply changed to airsoft,and the rifle went to speed pull straight bolt action mods of semi autos.Even the deer stalkers got some of their stuff back under humane dispatch.BTW Sparks I would hardly call those targets humanoid anymore,compared to what is out there still.

Sparks

Clare gunner wrote:

I see Sparks is sparking off at practical shooting again.:D

*sigh*
Where am I doing that then?

Vegeta

"The image of shooters shooting at humanoid targets is just a PR nightmare, and PR is where this particular argument will be won or lost"

Think that's what CG is talkin bout

I agree with both of you before a fight breaks out ok

Sparks

Argh! That's not a slating of Practical shooting, it's a comment on its image in the media. It's no more a slating than it would be to note that newspapers always cover the births of panda bears...

civdef

Shooting baby panda bears would definitely be bad PR....

Anyway, my thinking in starting this thread comes from hearing public figures (for good or ill) like Joe Duffy saying "why not just ban handguns to be on the safe side" on Liveline last week. Which is just the sort of thing a politician could run with.

Sparks

And did, in the UK. And it can't be far from too many minds given that yesterday was the ten-year anniversary of Dunblane.

Vegeta

Sparks wrote:

Argh! That's not a slating of Practical shooting, it's a comment on its image in the media. It's no more a slating than it would be to note that newspapers always cover the births of panda bears...

I know i know as i said i see what you're sayin and i see where CG might have got the idea. We're all friends here

My fear is the same as civdef, nothin worse than the "Why not ban it altogether" statements. What these people need to see is how hard it is to legally obtain a handgun and that banning them will only stop potential sportsmen and women like us from having them. Criminals don't care if they are banned, they will still have them.

Rovi

I saw a wonderful quote somewhere recently, something along the lines of: "Why not ban stripy jumpers and bags with 'Swag' written on them? That would stop burglaries overnight!"



.

civdef

Actually, making the wearing of a hoody/tracksuit bottoms/white trainers and baseball cap ensemble an arrestable offence probably would reduce the number of burglaries!!

Clare gunner

Keep death of the roads.Ban semi automatic car transmissions.!
As for Joe [God Almighty] Duffy saying somthing like that ,it doesn't surprise me that fat simpleton would say somthing like that.He obvisouly doesnt live in the real world.Anyone could tell him that gun bans have never worked or never will.But,obvisouly facts are not important to monsuier Duffy.
As Sparks pointed out about being a pro gun politico in a post awhile ago and it being a non runner,applies to an anti gun politico as well.Proably more so as it isnt a major issue here in Irish society,as it is still scumbags killing off scumbags,mostly.At the moment we have media ****e stirring and political blame laying.TSWHTF when we have a rampage shooting,then be assured the GCN and co will be over here and we will have the UK style media and political hysteria over here.THEN we had better have a good contingency and PR plan in place.

PR shooting in Ireland.Dunno what sort of image it has here,it is a minority of a shooting sport here,at the moment.Plus it is getting more pouplar in Europe,so it will proably get media attention,but it is media concious as well.