Political Parties (who should we vote for)

mickeyr1

I was not aware or any hikes to the licencing system until last week i am sickend everything was done on the quiet all i want to know was bertie and his cronies directly responsible if so they wont get my vote only a two fingered farewell. Who then should the gun owing public vote for.

maglite

dont think it matters once you stay away from greens

johngalway

As an aside -

There are posters up in Galway "Be a friend to the animals, vote Labour, Greens or Sinn Fein."

Now...

There are, IMO, certainly some animals in one of those parties but I don't intend on befriending ANY of them, or voting for any of the above given certain policies of the different parties.

Regards,

John

dimebag249

Couldn't agree more with that johngalway said.

CJhaughey

mickeyr1 wrote:

I was not aware or any hikes to the licencing system until last week i am sickend everything was done on the quiet all i want to know was bertie and his cronies directly responsible if so they wont get my vote only a two fingered farewell. Who then should the gun owing public vote for.

I think it really comes back to th DOJ and the head honcho of that is none other than Herr McDowell.
so if you want to point a finger then it should be directly at the PD's and their stablemates FF.
Going by the rest of the comments above me it would appear that if you discount FF, PD, Green, Labour and SG then the only possible option is FG?
apart from any wandering independants that may have broken loose:D

mallards

I know Martin McGuinness of SF is into Salmon fishing in a big way, can't see him letting the party ruining his pastime! They may or may not be into hunting but I don't think they are as bad as the greens in at least this respect.


Mallards.

Clare gunner

Got a reply back from Maurice Quinlivan our local SF canditate,stating that he and his dad had been hunters and gunowners as well[hmm:) ]and were shocked at the recent liscense doings. Think it will boil down to which individual canditate supports your views,as such it seems the parties dont really have[apart from Greens] a stance on fieldsports or paticullary on gun ownership.

bullets

And I got two different calls (or voice mails) from people
working for Willie O'Dea to say that they
had spoken to him about things and he was going to look into
the way firearms were licenced both before and after the election.

One was from Cahil and another from some guy called Derek,
both were able to recite all concerns we raised which ment they
actually at least had listened to us and made notes. The night
we met Cahil he took very little notes (I was watching him) he
only scribbled down a few one liners and yet he remembers
most of our conversation and the other lad Derek who was
not there was well informed too.

They also mentioned something about the public being very sensitive
about these things so it would be important to get the information
across the right way when/if changes are being made.

~B

demonloop

It would be fantastic to hear a SF candidate saying there should be stricter laws on guns in Ireland:D

Clare gunner

Bullets
You got the same guy and the same line as I did from that call I posted about last Sat!!Dereck,keeping it sthum,etc.Yah I watched Cahil that nite,he just took down pointers.So at least they listened,now will they do???

bullets

Well O'Dea Looks like a bit of a dithering ol fool sometimes, but I have
never yet heard anyone say a bad word against him in the Limerick
Area.

People have great time for him as he listens and
remembers. He's always walking the town and covers his patch.
One of the few you can see walking down the street in everyday life.

Dunno how effective he is as I dont know much about
politics but he does not appear to sprout as much
cr*p as some of the others and seems a bit more down to earth and
thats good enough for me to give him a vote, considering
if I did not vote it would go to waste and possibly aid to get
someone else that could possibly hinder the sport in power.


~B

cavan shooter

I seem to remember a couple of years ago Enda Kenny said that he was secretary of the Local Gun club when he was a teacher, Pat kenny was slagging him about a novel way he had with killing rats around the school.

I would go with the approach ask the canvasser at the door, but don't be abvious about you stance, try this approach

"Mr. xxx I am concerned about hunting, I love pheasants and duck......what will your party do about so called bloodsports????

Then clarify your point as in You think they are delicious??????

I've only got to pick on green party canvasser to date......::D

johngalway

I saw on the Farming Independent today a 2 page article on the proposed ban on fox hunting with hounds and that craic. I don't do it, or have any interest in it and it doesn't go on around me but strangely enough it fired me up enough to get emailing the candidates for the party I intend voting for. Very odd. Also going to drop a line to each and every other candidate in my area on a few shooting and country side access issues.

Time to speak up.

Sparks

bullets wrote:

Well O'Dea Looks like a bit of a dithering ol fool sometimes, but I have
never yet heard anyone say a bad word against him in the Limerick
Area.

People have great time for him as he listens and
remembers. He's always walking the town and covers his patch.
One of the few you can see walking down the street in everyday life.

Dunno how effective he is as I dont know much about
politics but he does not appear to sprout as much
cr*p as some of the others and seems a bit more down to earth and
thats good enough for me to give him a vote, considering
if I did not vote it would go to waste and possibly aid to get
someone else that could possibly hinder the sport in power.
~B

Vote as you please Bullets. But I've been told more than once of Willie sitting across a table from shooting groups telling them that pistols were too dangerous for civilians to have licences for.

BryanL

SF want to ban foxhunting
Labour want to ban coursing
Greens everything else
and they are their stated policies!!!!!!
alot of the SF guys don't know their own policy,i remind them that the first thing Daniel O'Connell did when he got out of prison in his 70's was to go hunting with his hounds(beagles)
some here are just target shooters,some hunt with a gun,some hunt etc. but we are all just a little similar and need to keep an eye out for each other
who had the article in the Farming Independant?
Bryan

Rew

SF weren't very helpfull during the committee meetings for the CJB amendments.

Sparks

And Brendan Howlin (Labour) was very helpful to us during the CJB debates, and the Greens were helpful prior to that point.

johngalway

BryanL wrote:

who had the article in the Farming Independant?
Bryan

I think it's time to ban politicians

The articles writer is Caitriona Murphy. There's a small section on polls about foxhunting, the one on radio in Cork and an anti poll taken by, well, anti's... Some wishy washy politico speak giving plenty of room for manouver from the main oposition parties, usual stuff then from horse groups, hunting and anti hunting groups.

Make a person feel like moving to a right country.

the demon

apparently the licence is going to be approx 170 euro now for 3 years (slightly less for shot guns) instead of the yearly 38 or whatever it is now, im told the reason for this was to free up garda resousces to do other stuff, so now there will be renewals only every 3 years but the licence is dearer even though the gardai do less paper work!!! that doesent sound right, so sporting gun ownership is going to get VERY expensive compared to other eu countries, NI for example is only £77 approx BUT in NI as in most eu states it is the person who is licenced not the firearm so their £77 covers several guns whereas here if you own a rifle and shotgun it will cost you 330 euro approx. Also in other eu states e.g NI and UK they have a five year licence!!! Once again we are being ripped off, but as usual as irish people we will moan about it but do nothing! if all the gun owners in the country marched on the dail WE WOULD change this flagrant robbery, In france for example they would riot!!! and things would get sorted!! but here, we moan, and nothing changes, then while we are moaning the government rip us off somewhere else, like making the tax payer pay for a tunnell that doesent work and charge us 13 euro to travel thru it!! LETS GET OFF OUR ARSES AND DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE!!! Carpe Diem! sieze the day!!! act now lets hold a rally and demand our licencing laws and licence prices be brought in line with the rest of the EU! LETS DO IT NOW!!! no point moaning when it comes into effect!

Sparks

Erm, Demon, you might want to read the sticky thread about this at the top of the forum...

the demon

very good sparks, i didnt see that, i seem to have just repeated what was already there,, didnt see any definite course of action in there tho, should we jus sit and wait till the election is over, or maybe threaten the door to door canvasser with our vote, i dont really see that working,. HOWEVER! If all 250,000 licenced gun owners marched in dublin WE WOULD be heard and WE COULD change this blatant rip off of the sporting gun owner!!! Like someone said in that thread if we spent less time and energy in correcting each other and more time actually doing something we wouldnt have this problem, but the government know we like to argue among ourselves and moan about our situation...... BUT!!! they also know they wont oppose them! What im saying is maybe its time we did something real except whinge n moan and write silly notes to each other on here correcting each other about things already said!! LETS PICK A DATE AND ADVERTISE IT AND IF YOU OPPOSE THIS BARBAROUS HIKE IN LICENCING MARCH ON THE DAIL UNTIL ITS CHANGED!! 250,000 voices will be heard!!

Vegeta

we have all already e-mailed and sent letters to every member of the oireachtas.

They are reconsidering their position on it.

Myself and a few others met Willie O'Dea's aide and Willie met with one of the lads and made a commitment to get this changed and improve the system.

We are doing something, now its your turn to send e-mails and letters

Sparks

Eh, demon, if you read the thread you'd see that the grassroots emailing and phoning and going to local TDs and so forth, is actually working. The issue's parked until after the election one way or the other though. But we need to be keeping the pressure on...

the demon

great!

Clare gunner

Sparks wrote:

Vote as you please Bullets. But I've been told more than once of Willie sitting across a table from shooting groups telling them that pistols were too dangerous for civilians to have licences for.

Yet he has said he will take up my offer once the election is over to come out to my place and try pistol shooting!Maybe we can do a road to Damascus conversion on him?:D Maybe like all humans the guy has preconcieved notions and has now seen a different side to things?

Sparks

Maybe like all humans the guy has preconcieved notions and has now seen a different side to things?

Maybe. But Willie's reputation and past record on this and lots of other topics strongly suggests otherwise.

johngalway

Considering the two most popular options available, communicating views and marching. I would favour the former. The problem with marches is certain folk will brand the people marching a mob, or crazed bunch of gun nuts etc. They will send photographers and publish the most ill suited photograph they can find. This will be bad.

The advantage I see in communicating our views by letter, phone, email and in person at constituency offices, on the doorsteps and anywhere else possible is that you immediately cut out the middleman. No naysayers, no s**t stirrers, no public gathering to be targeted and criticised. IF enough people do this it'll start being taken seriously.


On a side note.Scully in Athlone reckoned the licence hike was already cancelled.Anyone have any views on that comment?

Sparks

Anyone have any views on that comment?

Depends on the outcome of the election really.

sidneyreilly

Nope. It's not gone, just shelved for the moment:( We should not rest, battle won, not war.

Regarding marching etc.. Fair point by Johngalway, it could be turned back on us in the media. Is there another form of protest we could make that would make us look good? Something original (or not so)

maglite

work to rule?

chem

sidneyreilly wrote:

Is there another form of protest we could make that would make us look good? Something original (or not so)

We could march to the GPO in Dublin with our guns and nail our demands to the doors and.......Er no wait, I think this was done before.

just a point did FG not say they would go into partnership with the greens? With FG looking like they might have a good chance, should we be half expecting the greens to get in under the door?

the demon

we could try signing a petition and have one guy hand it in to the dail, or if there are any journalists out there who shoot maybe they could persuade their editor to print a story on our plight for equality in the EU and stop the RIP OFF REPUBLIC! I do believe though that the more noise we make in lots of places the better we will be heard! ( i dont mean firing our guns outside the GPO) sidneyreilly is right, lets look for more ways to protest and DRIVE OUR POINT HOME!!!!

Clare gunner

Trouble is at the moment a "spectacular" isnt going to have a snowballs chance in Hell in getting much attention with the election coverage.Then when the new crowd comes it it will be close to Dail Summer recesses,so not much will be done then until the Dail resumes in Autumn[Oct or thereabouts:rolleyes: ]
Best thing is to remind all and sundry by email phone,fax letters etc that we voted for them and now we would like our payment in the Budget 2008 that this farsce is reworked into a senseible price and that OMOL is implimented.
Whoever is in oppo will want to have somthing to slam the new lot with and the crowd that is in power will want to be seen honouring their promises,unless they want to see a media campain in Dec that they are no different from the last crowd that was turfed out.Then would be time to do a spectacular

Sparks

I'm not sure how relevant this will be to the non-ISSF people - or, as it went out late, even if we'll get replies from everyone - but we sent the following round to all the parties recently by fax and email. We'll see if we get any replies (and post them here and on the NTSA website, obviously).

Party Questionnaire

Candidate Questionnaire

dimebag249

That's a brilliant idea Sparks, and the questionnaire is well put together. I think the answers will be of great interest to all of us.

the demon

dimebag is right, the questionaire is really very well put together, However, the questions posed are VERY direct and require VERY DIRECT answers,bearing in mind they have been sent to politicians do you really think any of them will reply?? It might sound like i have no faith in our politicians but there is good reason for that................... I DONT!!!!

Sparks

do you really think any of them will reply?

Doesn't matter what I think - if you don't ask a direct question, you've little chance for a direct answer, and I think we don't really need roundabout hints at this point

Sparks

Responses so far...

[quote=Garreth McDaid
Green Party
Roscommon-South Leitrim]
I'm sorry, but I don't have the time at the moment to acquaint myself
sufficiently with these issues.

I feel I would be doing you a disservice to respond to your
questionnaire without having done the necessary research.

rgds
[/quote]

[quote=Sean Sherlock
Deputy Mayor, Mallow Town Council
Labour Party
Cork East]
I cant open the pdf to answer...can you send in word format. I will be making my own response to this document and basing my answers on my own position and not on the basis of what the Labour Party might say.
I represent a rural constituency and that would reflect the fact that many of my friends and neighbours hold gun licences..
If you can send on the questionaire again I would be delighted to respond
all the best
Sean


(The questionnaire was resent to Cllr. Sherlock and we await his reply...)[/quote]

[quote=Maire McKay
Green Party
Laois-Offaly]





[/quote]

maglite

Maire McKay seems honest anyway that is a big plus even if she does suppotrt thr increase##

Garreth McDaid I'm sorry, but I don't have the time at the moment to acquaint myself
sufficiently with you.

I feel I would be doing you a disservice to for you in this election without having done the necessary research

the demon

ok, lets see how it pans out. Dont hold your breath waiting for replies or positive reaction,.

Sparks

A few more replies of the "I've passed this on to my boss" variety but only this in terms of actual answers:

Dear Secretary,
I attach herewith my response to the NTSA Questionnaire.
Kind regards.
Yours sincerely,
PAUDGE CONNOLLY, TD.

thelurcher

The Sherlocks in Mallow are OK on hunting and shooting - or at least they should be - I got some of the best ferrets I've ever had off their family - good honest country folk

Clare gunner

Sparks,
I dont quite get this .I clicked on the link,get a password request,[guest being the password,leave name blank].Get to the doc and the questionare is totally unfilled in? Is this how he sent it back?Or has the details gone awry somwhere in the computor processes?

thelurcher

He has an (x) alongside the ones he selected.

Sparks

The password bit's wierd, I don't get that here (but maybe that's 'cos I'm using openoffice). Lurcher's right though, he added X's to the document.

civdef

Suggests a minimum age limit of 21, nice.

Clare gunner

Ok,second attempt,now the X's appear.... Weird.