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Blanket Ban on Handguns

124

Comments

  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,290 ✭✭✭dresden8


    i can't believe shooters who come on here and deny the purpose guns are for to kills things more easier, more rapid, and repeatable, from a distance.


    Eh, what?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 46,938 ✭✭✭✭Nodin


    i can't believe shooters who come on here and deny the purpose guns are for to kills things more easier, more rapid, and repeatable, from a distance, then any other handheld weapon.

    You might provide a quote to back that up.

    In any regard, thats not the use, outside of hunting, that licencsed owners here put them to.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 40,038 ✭✭✭✭Sparks


    Firstly, I'm actually quite personally offended at the idea that we need to raise the age at which you can apply for a firearms licence for handguns in order to mitigate risk. Mainly because that's an explicit statement that there is a significant risk, and that it stems from people like me. People certified as safe by the Gardai. People subject to onerous inspections and who have to abandon several areas of privacy to obtain the licences they use. The perceived level of risk simply does not exist. The risk associated with licencing firearms is negligible and to argue otherwise is disingenous at best.

    As to comparisons with "ridiculous" events like meteorite impacts, the simple fact is that both are comparable in terms of liklihood, and the reaction to the comparison is instructive.

    As to ridiculing comparisons with cars, you've obviously completely missed my point, which was not that cars are a similar threat (they're not, cars are a far more dangerous risk, killing hundreds of people each and every year). My point was that the degree of familiarity with a risk has enormous impact on how it is perceived.

    This is a proven fact - humans are appallingly poor at accurate risk perception. Observe the many examples throughout even modern history when society became concerned with a threat publicised in the media. SARS, bird flu, travellers, muslims, GM foods, global warming, ebola, HIV, MDR TB, MRSA, terrorism, airline crashes, and so on - every single one inaccurately assessed by the general population. Either very serious threats were not seen as serious threats (like TB) or things were seen as more of a threat than they actually posed (like ebola). Firearms in Ireland are in the same position - few are familiar with them, so the public's perception of risk with them is heavily overestimated. In Finland and in Switzerland, and indeed across the continent, the degree of familiarity is far higher and so the risk is perceived more accurately.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,153 ✭✭✭✭Lemming


    lykoris wrote: »
    Cars are a means of transport to get from A to B...it is without doubt the most retarded argument in favour of guns I've ever heard.

    when was the last time a licensed permit driver drove their car around a university campus on a deliberate killing spree?? Never.

    Actually, there was an incident about 4 (maybe 5?) years ago in Dublin. It was most likely not intentional per-se, but nonetheless highlights the absolute ease with which large loss of life could be carried out with a car.

    A failed asylum seeker, in what I can only presume was panic and completely irrational thought after receiving his failed asylum & deportation notice, drove down a busy pedestrian-only street (Henry Street) at speed on a weekday morning. Thankfully nobody was killed but 32 people (if I recall) were put in hospital.

    So how's that? He managed to hit 32 people in about 20 seconds ...


    But as Sparks has said, we are aware of what cars are and their risks from an early age and hence we do not perceive them as a great risk. We don't just allow people use cars (well, we shouldn't be at any rate) either. You need to jump through several hoops in order to be allowed use a car and then you have to go through yearly monetary costs in order to keep using a car.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 63 ✭✭lykoris


    Lemming wrote: »
    Actually, there was an incident about 4 (maybe 5?) years ago in Dublin. It was most likely not intentional per-se, but nonetheless highlights the absolute ease with which large loss of life could be carried out with a car.

    A failed asylum seeker, in what I can only presume was panic and completely irrational thought after receiving his failed asylum & deportation notice, drove down a busy pedestrian-only street (Henry Street) at speed on a weekday morning. Thankfully nobody was killed but 32 people (if I recall) were put in hospital.

    So how's that? He managed to hit 32 people in about 20 seconds ...


    But as Sparks has said, we are aware of what cars are and their risks from an early age and hence we do not perceive them as a great risk. We don't just allow people use cars (well, we shouldn't be at any rate) either. You need to jump through several hoops in order to be allowed use a car and then you have to go through yearly monetary costs in order to keep using a car.

    This line of argument is poor at best.

    firearms were designed to kill

    just as cars were designed to transport from A to B

    if you cannot discern the difference between the above or the fact that nobody has used a car to "kill" 32 (not injure) people within a university campus.

    Shooters with these arguments are grasping at straws and desperate to deflect the deaths a firearm can call with extreme ease, instead you ought to be addressing the concerns of firearms and not deflecting the concerns of the public.

    As a shooter it's an embarrassing argument to hear.


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,153 ✭✭✭✭Lemming


    lykoris wrote: »
    This line of argument is poor at best.

    firearms were designed to kill

    just as cars were designed to transport from A to B

    if you cannot discern the difference between the above or the fact that nobody has used a car to "kill" 32 (not injure) people within a university campus.

    You asked the question. I answered with an example of just how easily it could have been carried out. The current proposed legislation is working off a lot of "ifs" and "maybes", and so I will use "if" and "maybe" to show just how short-sighted it is and ineffectual it will be. Why is it acceptable to claim that legal firearms must be banned on the possibility of something bad happening, when you can equally extend the same to cars to pick an obvious example. After all they are several tons of fast moving metal that can kill with alarming ease above 40mph - circa 60kph (and on Irish roads regrettably do all too frequently)

    Shooters with these arguments are grasping at straws and desperate to deflect the deaths a firearm can call with extreme ease, instead you ought to be addressing the concerns of firearms and not deflecting the concerns of the public.

    As a shooter it's an embarrassing argument to hear.

    As I have already said; I. AM. NOT. A. Shooter.

    What I want is action by the government that will actually f*cking work, not play a cynical PR game that amounts to precisely DICK


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 63 ✭✭lykoris


    No reputable shooting organisation be it hunting/target shooting orientated uses this line of argument in discussions with government vis-à-vis firearms legislation, it has never once been mentioned in anything I've read these past years from FACE, BASC or any other representative organisation of shooters in Europe.

    It's beyond naive as a basis for arguing in favour of firearms.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,290 ✭✭✭dresden8


    I'm confused.

    You claim to be a shooter who is supportive of the right to shoot under certain restrictions.

    We have the most restrictive hand-gun legislation in Europe and yet the minister is not happy and wants a blanket handgun ban, purely for short-term political gain because they have let the gangsters and street thugs take control.

    The judges and police who have allowed this to happen are attacking legal handgun owners in the absence of a real criminal justice system.

    Taking handguns (and possibly more, when the Criminal Justice Act is passed) out of the hands of those who have been passed fit to hold them is not going to solve our current gun-crime crisis.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 13,203 ✭✭✭✭jmayo


    Heard discussion earlier on Marian Finucane show.
    They were discussing East Wall shooting and how kids can get use of handguns so easily. Of course one of the muppets on the show said he thought the minister was right in banning all handguns, since there were so many in the country.
    Then one said that the handguns were coming in with drugs shipments.
    Affectively according to some RTE guests law abiding target shooters must be getting their hand guns with drugs shipments :rolleyes:
    Of course Finnucane agreed there were too many guns in the country and something had to be done. Did anybody distinguish between legal and illegal handguns ? NO.
    I' ll bet the text I send asking them to apologise to law abiding gun owners that are affectively now labelled drug dealers was filed under cranks :rolleyes:

    So with this level of eejits be they politicans, journalists, commentators, etc believeing this sh***, then where the f*** is this country going.
    Yet again the easy option is taken and all the smug know it alls can all go off happy knowing they have done something.

    Of course the bleeding hearts all stated that the poor children were neglected and the parents needed to be taught parenting skills. One guest actually surprisingly mentioned how suspended sentence was bad in one case of 18 year old caught with 20 grands of herion.

    Oh Finucane went on to mention how lots of tax payers money was wasted.
    I would add that her own salary is a waste as well.

    I am not allowed discuss …



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 40,038 ✭✭✭✭Sparks


    Lykoris, you cannot on one hand say we are naive to say no risk exists when we in fact mean that the risk is so small as to be negligible; and on the other say that comparison with other, larger risks is ridiculous because Henry Ford wasn't inventing a weapon when he invented the model T. The fact is, my handgun isn't designed to kill and neither is either of my rifles. They're olympic target shooting firearms, and are as designed to kill as an olympic javelin or olympic recurve bow is (and in fact those would be far more efficient at killing someone than mine would be). And most firearms held in Ireland are designed for killing magpies and foxes. If you want to claim design purpose is relevant then the argument doesn't apply to 99% of the firearms licenced in Ireland; and if you say that killing foxes and killing humans is the same thing, then you're not looking at design use, but abuse, in which case you have to consider cars as possible weapons.

    There's a logical inconsistency in your argument.


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,290 ✭✭✭dresden8


    Sparks wrote: »

    There's a logical inconsistency in your argument.


    I suppose that is the polite way of saying he's full of sh1te.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 8,570 ✭✭✭Rovi


    jmayo wrote: »
    Heard discussion earlier on Marian Finucane show.
    Here we go-
    http://dynamic.rte.ie/quickaxs/209-rte-marianfinucane-2008-12-14.smil

    Needs RealPlayer, segment begins at 36:50.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 13,203 ✭✭✭✭jmayo


    Thanks Rovi
    listening to it again just infuriates me even more.
    I think Finucane and RTE should apologise to gun owners who have legally held firearms.
    They have affectively being labelled drug dealers and murderers by these half wits.
    Nice to see Avril Doyle is trying to screw up sport shooting in this country like her and her gang screwed up the Irish showjumping team :rolleyes:

    I am not allowed discuss …



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,632 ✭✭✭ART6


    I don't own a gun. I never have. I have no interest in the ban. But I can only reiterate what many others have said in this thread. Banning legally held handguns is simply another example of the pathetic and simplistic thinking of the current government. If they do this in this case, what other infringement of people's freedon of decision will be next? Ban pizzas becuse some people might get fat and die of heart disease? Ban dogs because someone got bitten? While we're at it, let's fill in the Irish sea in case someone drowns in it.

    It is said that the people get the government they deserve. Oh what sinners we must be!!


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 13,034 ✭✭✭✭It wasn't me!


    ART6 wrote: »
    It is said that the people get the government they deserve. Oh what sinners we must be!!

    I tend to believe that the people who vote for the government deserve it when they get screwed by it. When you didn't vote for it, having to smile while they screw you sticks in the craw somewhat.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 63 ✭✭lykoris


    Sparks wrote: »
    if you say that killing foxes and killing humans is the same thing

    Sparks,

    Where did I say the above ? Reread any of my posts and quote me where I said killing foxes and humans is the same thing. Obviously you'll state you said 'if' before and you're assuming that is what I meant. Any individual not looking to spin my words into their own convoluted meaning understands clearly what I said.

    I've nothing further to add on this debate/forum - please delete my account as administrator.

    Dresden,

    I'd suggest you learn to be civil or simply learn to hold your uncouth tongue, stating I'm full of ****e as you so eloquently put it does nothing but highlight your level of 'intelligence'. I'd suggest you buy yourself a dictionary and a thesaurus for Christmas if you wish to converse in a civil debate among 'mature' adults. Until then crawl back under your rock where you belong.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 199 ✭✭Stones85


    OP, I think Australia's handgun laws are pretty sensible - basically you are not able to own or buy and hangun unless you are a registered competition shooter, even then you must visit an official shooting range 3/4 times a month and document it, otherwise you loose your gun lisence and all your guns.

    I see no reason for someone owning a handgun unless they are some sort of competition shooter. Why would you need that style of weapon?


  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 16,778 Mod ✭✭✭✭Manic Moran


    Stones85 wrote: »
    I see no reason for someone owning a handgun unless they are some sort of competition shooter. Why would you need that style of weapon?

    Since sporting purpose is the only thing that handguns are currently licensed for in Ireland (and also requires club membership and recommendation) I don't much see the practical difference between the Australian and Irish philosophies on the issue.

    NTM


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 199 ✭✭Stones85


    If thats the case, then it does seem a bit of an immature, short-sighted decision.

    Do we have the regular documented visits to a shooting range legislation in order to keep the gun and lisence in place here in Ireland?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 13,034 ✭✭✭✭It wasn't me!


    Stones85 wrote: »
    OP, I think Australia's handgun laws are pretty sensible - basically you are not able to own or buy and hangun unless you are a registered competition shooter, even then you must visit an official shooting range 3/4 times a month and document it, otherwise you loose your gun lisence and all your guns.

    I see no reason for someone owning a handgun unless they are some sort of competition shooter. Why would you need that style of weapon?

    That's actually very similar to the regulation we have at the moment. All handguns are licensed either for target shooting or for humane dispatch of deer, though those cases are very rare. I wouldn't agree with writing it in law that you need to attend a range 3/4 times a month, as that's simply very difficult to do. I get to my range every couple of weeks if I can, but it might be less if I'm busy in college (which I am, fairly constantly). As is, the authorisations for ranges usually stipulate that a detailed record of who's there with dates has to be kept and is available to the Gardai at any time. People want pistols because they want to shoot pistol disciplines, is the only way of looking at it. It's no use telling them they can go off and shoot shotgun or rifle instead, because that's like telling someone who loves driving cars that there are always horses to ride instead; the two are just so different. Frankly, I think our current legislation with regard to firearms is practical and effective, and I think that to presuppose a boom in the numbers of pistols licensed and a threat arising as a result undermines the licensing procedure we do have and the position of Garda superintendents who've signed off on the licensees as being safe and competent. Legislation introduced in respect of this is unnecessary, will not tackle the crime problem it professes to tackle and undermines the authority of those Garda superintendents who've previously decided that those holders of licensed pistols had *good reason* and were of *suitable character* and could hold them *without posing a threat to public security or the peace*. Given the persona designata status of the Garda superintendent in matters of firearms licensing, it's a rather serious thing to allege that the superintendents have licensed these firearms despite the fact that they pose a threat to the peace. In my mind, either the minister is either suggesting that the issue of pistol licences is in contradiction of the firearms act (if, by their nature, pistols pose a threat to the public security or the peace) and accusing superintendents of wrongfully issuing them, or he is allowing that no pistol cert granted to date has been wrongfully granted, but suggesting that one will be, which again undermines the position of the Garda superintendent.


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,290 ✭✭✭dresden8


    lykoris wrote: »
    Dresden,

    I'd suggest you learn to be civil or simply learn to hold your uncouth tongue, stating I'm full of ****e as you so eloquently put it does nothing but highlight your level of 'intelligence'. I'd suggest you buy yourself a dictionary and a thesaurus for Christmas if you wish to converse in a civil debate among 'mature' adults. Until then crawl back under your rock where you belong.

    If you wanted to be a licensed hand-gun holder in Ireland you'd want to develop a thicker skin than that.

    I only said you were talking sh1te and you throw a strop.

    The judges, police and Justice Minister have branded licensed hand-gun holders as drug dealing, street thug hit-men.

    Welcome to the "outraged" club.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 9,082 ✭✭✭lostexpectation


    i think target shooters are bit self obsessed the ban isn't about you


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 13,034 ✭✭✭✭It wasn't me!


    i think target shooters are bit self obsessed the ban isn't about you

    Well, the ban proposes to tackle gun-crime, by targetting legally held firearms, so target shooters being the only ones affected by the ban, it really is about them.

    Unless you have information nobody else does to suggest that it will in fact tackle gun-crime? Or remove illegally held handguns from the streets?


  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 16,778 Mod ✭✭✭✭Manic Moran


    i think target shooters are bit self obsessed the ban isn't about you

    Who else would be? The only people the thing is going to affect will be target shooters.

    NTM


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 46,938 ✭✭✭✭Nodin


    i think target shooters are bit self obsessed the ban isn't about you

    ???????


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 11,909 ✭✭✭✭Wertz


    i think target shooters are bit self obsessed the ban isn't about you

    lol

    On a side note, I wonder if Minister Roche's assailants were carrying licensed firearms today?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 9,082 ✭✭✭lostexpectation


    and they care even less about airsoft


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 9,082 ✭✭✭lostexpectation


    Who else would be? The only people the thing is going to affect will be target shooters.

    NTM

    yes 'target shooters'


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,290 ✭✭✭dresden8


    No, seriously, what are you trying to insinuate? Get it on out there.


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  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 16,778 Mod ✭✭✭✭Manic Moran


    yes 'target shooters'

    If one counts that very small number of 'coup de grace' pistols used in hunting, unless I miss my guess about 99.9% of legally-owned handguns in Ireland are used on a club range, at targets set up on the range for the purpose. Be they steel plates, pieces of paper, or bowling pins and so on depending on the discipline, but targets none-the-less.

    NTM


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 9,082 ✭✭✭lostexpectation


    some people are there to shoot targets others are there to shoot guns


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,153 ✭✭✭✭Lemming


    some people are there to shoot targets others are there to shoot guns

    Some people go to golf courses to play golf. Some people go to golf courses to 'network'
    Some people go to football games to watch football. Some people go to football games to drink and hang out with their mates.
    Some people watch tv because something holds their interest. Some people watch tv because they've nothing better to do.

    The four important questions to your comment are; yeah? and? so? what?

    Your point is?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 46,938 ✭✭✭✭Nodin


    some people are there to shoot targets others are there to shoot guns

    And you're here to provoke some sort of hostile reaction.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 9,082 ✭✭✭lostexpectation


    no i just want to know the real reason ahern is banning handguns. but nobody wants to talk about that they want to talk about 'target shooting'???


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 46,938 ✭✭✭✭Nodin


    no i just want to know the real reason ahern is banning handguns. but nobody wants to talk about that they want to talk about 'target shooting'???

    Well then, what do you think the "real reason" is, exactly.


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 11,393 ✭✭✭✭Vegeta


    no i just want to know the real reason ahern is banning handguns.

    Well isn't that obvious, he wants to be seen to be doing something about gun crime.


    It will make fcuk all difference to gun crime, but he will be seen to be doing "something"


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,153 ✭✭✭✭Lemming


    Vegeta wrote: »
    Well isn't that obvious, he wants to be seen to be doing something about gun crime.


    It will make fcuk all difference to gun crime, but he will be seen to be doing "something"

    Therein lies your motive. RS owners, like pensioners and students (school & third-level) in other recent government hatchet jobs, are perceived to be a soft political target with little fallout. A 'minority' whose vote loss wont be that damaging. Of course, pensioners gave the government a very bloody nose, and it looks like the students, teachers & parents are gearing up to give the government two black eyes to follow suit.

    The minister thinks he can look good for little effort. Of course it'll all fall down by the end of the year when gun-crime is still occurring in numbers akin to the previous couple of years. The minister will then shrug his shoulders and say "what do you want me to do?! Shurrre didn't I ban all dem handghunhhs!!! Aren't I great!!"


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 9,082 ✭✭✭lostexpectation


    Nodin wrote: »
    Well then, what do you think the "real reason" is, exactly.

    he has been bs'ing about guns being robbed and stuff and i want to highlight populist politicing as much as the next guy but he wants to ban handguns, not target shooting.

    he is anti-gun, as they would say in america. i don't think he thinks the public should have guns, and certainly shouldn't be better armed the beat cops.

    he's trying to be father to the nation :/ he couldn't a flying f*** about target shooting
    He said that the increasing prevalence of handguns had not come about as a result of any deliberate policy decision by the Government or the House.

    He said he had previously made clear his concern at the number and type of handguns being licensed and a review of the firearms laws was at its final stages.

    "My bottom line is this: while I recognise that the vast majority of handgun owners are responsible people, as Minister my concern is the safety of the public, particularly at a time of concern about gun crime," said Mr Ahern.

    "I will make a detailed statement in the near future on this matter." He asked if they wanted "as a country to go down the road of America, Finland and others, where there is a proliferation of handguns".

    Mr Ahern said that from the early 1970s, in the light of the Northern troubles, all handguns were banned in the Republic until a few years ago.

    Following a series of judicial decisions, that was no longer the case, although there was no public policy decision to lift the ban, he added.

    http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2008/1119/1227026414265.html


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 11,393 ✭✭✭✭Vegeta


    Lemming wrote: »
    The minister thinks he can look good for little effort. Of course it'll all fall down by the end of the year when gun-crime is still occurring in numbers akin to the previous couple of years. The minister will then shrug his shoulders and say "what do you want me to do?! Shurrre didn't I ban all dem handghunhhs!!! Aren't I great!!"

    That's it in a nutshell really

    If the Minister wants to do something about legally held firearms getting into the wrong hands all he has to do is review every license at renewal time under the new legislation brought about in the CJA 2006.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 46,938 ✭✭✭✭Nodin


    he has (.......) shooting

    Seeing as the vast, vast majority of hand guns are used for target shooting of some description, it amounts to the same thing. It's a distinction not worth making, at all.


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 9,082 ✭✭✭lostexpectation


    this is the polictics thread, theres another forum for target shooting fans, here we can discuss the politics of handgun ownership as it is dealth with by legalisation.

    I think in both a populists manner and a political position dermot ahern and co don't want handguns here, you think its simply a populist motive, but i think your missing out the political position thus leaving out half the argument people need to have with dermot ahern about whether we should have handguns here.

    unless somebody can come up with old progun comments from dermot ahern, but considering where he's from i doubt it.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 40,038 ✭✭✭✭Sparks


    i think your missing out the political position
    The political position is that they don't have the money to fund the Gardai to do the job of enforcing the legislation they have, so they're going to draft more legislation (in the process engaging in group punishment of us for the crimes of others) to be seen to be doing something.
    That's it in a nutshell.
    And frankly, pro/anti-gun leanings are as relevant to this as fish are to bicycles. This is cover-thy-posterior politics, plain and simple.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,153 ✭✭✭✭Lemming


    this is the polictics thread, theres another forum for target shooting fans, here we can discuss the politics of handgun ownership as it is dealth with by legalisation.

    Ummmm ... yeah.

    Sure.

    You want to debate the politics of a hand-gun ban (in this case) without actually dealing with the subject matter to be banned (in this case hand-guns).

    Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.

    Ok then.

    Righty-ho.

    And lets all have a cup of tea whilst waiting for reality to come walking into the room ....


    [edit: Sparks beat me to it]


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 737 ✭✭✭sfakiaman


    your missing out the political position

    We won't miss out the political position come the next election


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 9,082 ✭✭✭lostexpectation


    handguns were banned people went to court and overturn the ban fair enough but against the wishes of the last few governments this isn't sudden position ahern adopted after the geoghan or east wall murders stop pretending that it is.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 13,034 ✭✭✭✭It wasn't me!


    handguns were banned people went to court and overturn the ban fair enough but against the wishes of the last few governments this isn't sudden position ahern adopted after the geoghan or east wall murders stop pretending that it is.

    There's actually been very little antipathy before Ahern. McDowell and Lenihan were both reasonable. Ahern is the first to really display an agenda against firearms, handguns in particular. He's stated that he wants to address gun crime and gun culture, without rationalising that, he's used these murders to highlight the importance of his policy, and then he's gone and done something absolutely useless. He might as well have made it illegal to grate cheese for all the difference this ban would make to gun crime.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,290 ✭✭✭dresden8


    no i just want to know the real reason ahern is banning handguns.


    Little Dermo needs to be in the papers to keep his profile up as he has ambitions to take over when Cowen's little group of hangers on implode. However, he needs to be in the paper for the right reasons.

    He can't be in the paper or on the telly discussing the state of the economy because he can't be linked to the collapse. You may notice he hardly, if ever, discusses the economy. His public support for the current leadership is less than stellar.

    He is talking tough, taking "decisive" action and waiting in the wings.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 40,038 ✭✭✭✭Sparks


    handguns were banned people went to court and overturn the ban fair enough
    Actually, not fair enough. Handguns were never actually banned in the first place. In 1972, under Dessie O'Malley, a temporary custody order was issued and all legally held firearms were handed over to the Gardai for a period of one month. At the end of the month, people returned to reclaim their firearms but found that those who owned pistols or fullbore rifles (anything over .22 calibre) were not being granted licences - without licences, the firearms could not be released as it would have been illegal to possess or use them, and so they remained in Garda storage (at the state's expense, by the way), for the next thirty-odd years. This turned out to be a Garda and Ministerial policy, and a cynical one at that. At the time, shooters protested that this was illegal (and it was, it was in contravention of the Firearms Act and was in fact technically a case of the Minister and Gardai subverting the Dail) and we were told that if we went to court we'd win; and the Minister would draft a new Firearms Act before the end of the week to overrule the court. Given the security situation up north, we knew we'd never be given a fair trial so it was left go until the peace process got solidly established, at which point we started meeting with the DoJ again to have our firearms returned. We were told that these firearms, which we'd had since before the founding of the state, were now too dangerous to own. By guys like this, which rather rubbed salt in the wound:

    boomboom.jpg

    So we went to court and the court agreed the policy wasn't legal and ordered that it be set aside. And it was. And now, four years later, with no negative impact on the state as a result of this, and just as the sport was finally starting to get its legs back, the Minister is proposing banning these firearms for the first time not only in the history of the state, but in Irish history as a whole.

    This is purely a PR exercise, with the Minister playing to the media in order to not look as inept as the rest of the Cabinet currently look; it is group punishment of innocent people for the crimes of others, whom the Minister doesn't seem to be able to affect. And in the meantime, the 16-year-old who planned and carried out the premeditated murder of Aidan O'Kane and sparked off all of this, is after being released on bail for less than the price of a large-screen TV. FFS.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 9,082 ✭✭✭lostexpectation


    so hey weren't banned for 30 years right, semantics.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,153 ✭✭✭✭Lemming


    so hey weren't baned for 30 years right, semantics.

    In law, an argument can hang (literally) on semantics, so it's Sparks has made a very, very important point regarding the stance of the State.

    Further, I should add AFAIK that the State has never stood against people challenging decisions regarding the licensing of fullbore pistols ('fullbore' is it? my knowledge of the technical terms of firearms is lacking. I am referring to hang guns of larger calibre like 9mm, .357, .45mm, etc.). Why do you think that is lostexpectation? Because they knew that there was no legislature against such firearms in law and did not want to set precendent by a ruling in court that they were not certain of winning. Thus no rulings were ever made one way or the other.

    Now you have a Minister who is wanting to actually enact legislation banning hang guns in a move that is PR-related and nothing to do with reality or practicality.

    Edit: if I recall as well, something similar happened with paintball markers (yes, they are classed as firearms) back in the 1980s whereby owners of markers were forced to surrender their markers to gunsmiths to place in holding since the state wouldn't re-issue licenses. In effect, "outlawing" to use your argument, the ownership of private paintball markers. So ... have you played paintball?


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