[Feb 6] FCP Conference on Range Standards

Grizzly 45

As regards the 'evidence' issue, we all know that the Gardai have quite a bit of knowledge of what goes on in the criminal underworld, but actual evidence is far harder to obtain.

For example, they could know who broke into a house and stole a firearm, have no evidence to arrest them but would know that the firearm will be used in a crime, even might know which actual crime, but again have no evidence to arrest and make a conviction.

There's been quite a bit of discussion in the media in recent months about the type and quality of evidence the Gardai can use. It's probably very frustrating to be in a position to know what's going on but not be able to act on that knowledge.

Then RR they would want to word it better,especially when addressing a group of gun owners.Because they that sounded it read like the whole awkward evidence and procedure bits were being dispensed with altogether here.Plus it also sounded like
"Well yez all have handguns,so you will be comitting crimes with them soon and we know this....So now!"

The above example well,if they have knowledge..that has to suggest evidence in some shape of form of comitted crime,stealing a firearm,and knowledge therof by Gardai,enough grounds to arrest,for B&E,illegal possesion,etc.Also if knowledge of an intended crime,I do belive you can be arrested for suspicion of intent to comit[?] Think they work more on the princple of give whomebver more than enough rope ,sllow them to make the knot,put the rope around the ir own necks,then we act just as they went off the chair.IOW be 1000% certain of catching in the act. Fine,no problem with that.But to suggest that a body of people that posses an item will allow it or ,it to be used in a crime is abit much!

BornToKill

Now, in fairness, 'they' (the Guards) didn't word it. This account of the conference has come from Sparks (and thanks for it to him). The Guards said they had no evidence that legally held handguns have been used in crime but that handguns are attractive to criminals. I mean no offence but I think you might be reading too much into what has been reported.

Sparks

Actually BTK, believe it or not I wasn't paraphrasing. Supt.Healy literally said 'there is no evidence that licenced handguns are being used in crime. But we know it's happening.'
It really was that straightforward and uncouched a statement, and it raised a few eyebrows.

rrpc

Grizzly 45 wrote: »

Then RR they would want to word it better,especially when addressing a group of gun owners.Because they that sounded it read like the whole awkward evidence and procedure bits were being dispensed with altogether here.Plus it also sounded like
"Well yez all have handguns,so you will be comitting crimes with them soon and we know this....So now!"

Well, that wasn't the meaning or the context. The question was asked about stolen firearms being used in crime and hence the answer was that they had no evidence (meaning nothing you could bring to court) but that they knew it was happening which isn't that hard a leap to make.

I never took it to mean that licensed owners were responsible for criminal use of firearms and I would be hard to convince that that was the meaning.

The Garda speakers were at pains to stress that they had no problems with legitimate sporting use or users of firearms.

I honestly believe that the Gardai and ourselves agree about a lot more things than we disagree about. The guys in the FPU are very strong on contact between the shooting organisations/clubs and themselves and the district Superintendents.

When you think about it, the shooting community is one of the few sections of the public that they are in constant contact with that doesn't have to do with crime per se.

Dvs

The next question was one we've asked here and in PQs repeatedly: how many licenced handguns are used in crimes. The answer from the FPU was that there was no evidence that they were used in crimes, but that the FPU regardless knows that they have been used in crimes.

Are there contact details for the FPU,
Because I want to ask them what the Lotto numbers for tonight's draw will be, as they obviously have some type of psychic ability, perhaps Mystic Meg is a member?

Seriously,
This is indefensible tripe,
If this type of thinking was applied to any other subject but firearms, there would be calls for the individuals using this approach to resign their positions.

Our legal system requires evidence to prove a case,
with only one exception, that being the special criminal court in which the word of a Garda Chief Superintendent is accepted as evidence in relation to membership of a illegal organisation.

It now appears that the FPU at least is applying this approach to Sport Shooters, Now we have graduated from being alledged criminals in waiting or alleged providers of firearms to criminals, to alleged threats to state security!

Is it just me, or has our country become a dictatorship,
with all the trimmings of self justified paranoia that goes with it.

Viewing the Irish people as a problem to be dealt with,
and apparently believing the Irish people to be,
less trust worthy, less capable, less intelligent than our European neighbours, whom have legally held centrefire pistols to engage in their chosen Shooting Sport, their various shooting disciplines are recognised as sport, irregardless of whether they are Olympic disciplines or not.

And the fact that when participants in a shooting sport, namely the IPSC discipline have developed and actively taken part in their sport in our neighbouring European countries, they have been recognised, commended, and praised, for their great sporting achievement by their governments and police forces, rather than is the case in The Republic of Ireland lambasted for, "moving to fast to quickly" and threatened with a ban in legislation as a result.

It has been the case throughout the past,
the government of the day has been happy to claim those successful in relation to sporting and other achievements as Irish,
It seems that being Irish, and doing something well,
is great as long as you don't attempt to do it in Ireland.

If an Irish man or woman was to become IPSC world champion in the future,
the government of the day would no doubt have great praise for this wonderful Irish achievement also, as long as they didnt,
move to fast to quickly, maybe twenty or thirty years might do.

Perhaps they could consult the FPU, they might sacrifice and interpret the entrails of a goat to decide what the appropriate timescale should be.........



Dvs.

Grizzly 45

Well, that wasn't the meaning or the context. The question was asked about stolen firearms being used in crime and hence the answer was that they had no evidence (meaning nothing you could bring to court) but that they knew it was happening which isn't that hard a leap to make

Well,if Sparks is quoting verbatim,and I have no reason to doubt that he isnt.Thats a pretty dangerous mindset for a law enforcement body to have.What next,we keep all pilots in Ireland who are Muslims or have ever read the Koran or the Seven Pillars of Wisdom under obs,as we have no evidence that they will comit another 911,but we know they are all fanatical followers of Al Quieda???That is the same kind of logic being applied to us here.

I never took it to mean that licensed owners were responsible for criminal use of firearms and I would be hard to convince that that was the meaning.

The Garda speakers were at pains to stress that they had no problems with legitimate sporting use or users of firearms.

A vey odd way of showing it!Implying guilt by suspicion and association without proof!.

I honestly believe that the Gardai and ourselves agree about a lot more things than we disagree about. The guys in the FPU are very strong on contact between the shooting organisations/clubs and themselves and the district Superintendents.

So do I..But why do we always seem to be playing on a sloped table???
We put our cards on the lines,and there never seems to be any sort of prompt response,or whatever we say is somhow used against us or whatever,it never seems that us gunowners get a good deal from all this legislation.

When you think about it, the shooting community is one of the few sections of the public that they are in constant contact with that doesn't have to do with crime per se.

Yeah,but it seems to be all one way traffic ...You gun owners MUST do this,that and the other,and if you dont we will throw the books at ye...There never seems to be here in Ireland in these issues,you MAY do xyz if you fulfill these preconditions.Easy to have a good relationship with anyone if you are holding a big stick over their heads.

Ironic the only shooting Gold that was won last year ASFIK was by the bad boys in practical pistol!!!Okit wasnt an olympic sport,but it still was a gold.Little recognition we got for it too here in Ireland!!

Sparks

Grizzly 45 wrote: »

Ironic the only shooting Gold that was won last year ASFIK was by the bad boys in practical pistol!

Shotgun must need to do some more PR work, it seems...

rrpc

Folks, you are completely missing the point, or maybe it is just paranoia.

What's so hard to believe about somebody stealing a firearm to use it for criminal purposes?

What other reason would they have for stealing it?

Perhaps they just couldn't afford one and they needed to practice for the next competition.

Cop on FFS :eek:

ivanthehunter

Just a quick question here!
There seems to be a large emphasis on range membership, non-shooting & shooting members, logs of dates when shooters attends and SI's to ensure that clubs/range contact Garda super's when some one leaves or has failed to attend within six months..

It seems to point at a new Irish order that will make range membership mandatory whether or not you shoot a rifle,shotgun or a handgun.

or is this over indulgent system concerned with hand-gun users only???

There is no reason why rifle and shotgun shooters should be forced to fork out hard earned money on an annual basis for their entire life IMO

Grizzly 45

rrpc wrote: »

Folks, you are completely missing the point, or maybe it is just paranoia.

What's so hard to believe about somebody stealing a firearm to use it for criminal purposes?

What other reason would they have for stealing it?

Thats not the point RR.We are Not debating the fact that somone would steal a firearm for criminal purposes.We are debating the fact that there is an ASSUMPTION on the Gardai's part that we gunowners are somhow being complicit that LEGALLY held handguns are being used in crimes,DESPITE them haveing NO evidence to prove this point.
after all when a firearm is stolen,it can hardly be considerd legally held anymore can it??
Sparks,
Who won the Gold in shotgun disipline? Missed who won what in the shooting last year.

On the proposed ranges legislation....
What is the situation with,say you want to advertise a "try before you take it up" shooting hour?? IOW supervised fun hour for a newbie .Is this considerd a "day membership" ??

Does the range owner [who owns the buildings,property,and buildings,fixtures&fittings]necessarily have to set up a club?Or can the club be formed by a totally different group?

Does the range have to have the entireity of alarm systems etc,if there is no secure storage for firearms,or club guns on the premises??

More pending

Sparks

Range membership is already mandatory in practise Ivan, if you have a licence for target shooting.

Clay pigeon shooters do seem to be exempt from all this though, at least for now (because their ranges don't seem to be included in all this).

And it's not really over-indulgent. UK clubs have much, much more in the way of duties and restrictions. Though there are some aspects that need fixing - nonshooting members in the clubs SI, and who reports to whom when a club member has a licence revoked, for example.

Sparks

ivanthehunter wrote: »

There is no reason why rifle and shotgun shooters should be forced to fork out hard earned money on an annual basis for their entire life IMO

Get your licence for free, do you?

Sparks

Grizzly 45 wrote: »

Sparks,
Who won the Gold in shotgun disipline? Missed who won what in the shooting last year.

Tom Allen took home the gold from the British Olympic Trap Grand Prix (Derek Burnett took it the year before). It was a quiet enough year for them last year, apart from Beijing, but they had a pretty heavy year in '07, taking the silver in the world championships as well as team bronze, and at least one silver in a world cup in slovenia.
Not that IPSA didn't bring home a nice wheelbarrowfull of medals themselves, it's just that so did a few other groups

Meyer

For Clubs, there are membership constraints:

• the club must have a set of rules
• it must charge an annual fee for membership
• there can be no 1-day or temporary memberships
• there's a minimum of ten members
• each member must be proposed by at least two current members
• a register of members must be kept
• a log of members' shooting activity must be kept (not performance, just that they're shooting) - if they don't shoot at least once every 6 months, the secretary has to notify the local superintendant
• you cannot be a member if you are disentitled under the act from holding a firearms certificate (training cert holders excepted)
• there are security rules regarding alarms and construction standards
• the club must have an officer who meets every 6 months with the Superintendent to discuss any issues
• the club secretary must inform the Superintendent if anyone leaves the club
• the club secretary must inform the Superintendent if anyone loses their firearm or licence

"each member must be proposed by at least two current members"

That's a bit over the top! and would in theory prohibit the joining of a fair few prospective new members. I am a member of two clubs, but prior to joining I didn't know one member of either club and neither do many who joined given that I brought up the topic today while shooting. If this rule had been in place I and the people I talked too would never have been able to get into target shooting.

Sparks

Yeah, but all of those apply to members, not probationary members. From what was said, the idea seemed to be that you'd join as a probationary member and later be admitted to full membership, at which point all this stuff kicked in.

ivanthehunter

Sparks wrote: »

Range membership is already mandatory in practise Ivan, if you have a licence for target shooting.

Clay pigeon shooters do seem to be exempt from all this though, at least for now (because their ranges don't seem to be included in all this).

And it's not really over-indulgent. UK clubs have much, much more in the way of duties and restrictions. Though there are some aspects that need fixing - nonshooting members in the clubs SI, and who reports to whom when a club member has a licence revoked, for example.

i only hunt with my rifle- except when i check my zero or i test new ammo to see its trajectory

ivanthehunter

Sparks wrote: »

Get your licence for free, do you?

Perhaps i should have said rifle and shoot gun hunters

Sparks

ivanthehunter wrote: »

Perhaps i should have said rifle and shoot gun hunters

They don't get their licences free either!
And if they're not in a shooting club, this obviously wouldn't apply to them.

rrpc

Grizzly 45 wrote: »

Thats not the point RR.We are Not debating the fact that somone would steal a firearm for criminal purposes.We are debating the fact that there is an ASSUMPTION on the Gardai's part that we gunowners are somhow being complicit that LEGALLY held handguns are being used in crimes,DESPITE them haveing NO evidence to prove this point.
after all when a firearm is stolen,it can hardly be considerd legally held anymore can it??

Grizzly, I was there and I know what the context was. It was in no way what you have outlined above.

Literally, they knew that some stolen firearms had been used in crime, the same way that they know that x is a drug-dealing scumbag, but have no evidence to bring to court on either.

Nothing about complicity or fault on the part of license holders, they didn't even suggest that they were at fault for having them stolen.

ivanthehunter

Sparks wrote: »

They don't get their licences free either!
And if they're not in a shooting club, this obviously wouldn't apply to them.

So your saying
This mandatory range membership will only apply to handgun user (as it currently does) and to shooters of shot guns & rifles who have either failed to submit/secure/apply for a hunting endorsement etc etc or have simply only been interested in Target or Clay shooting.(as it currently does)



I feel that its of great importance that the experienced hunters within the Irish jurisdiction are not railroaded into a mandatory system that requires annual club/range membership,

Some hunters i know only go out once or twice a year!!

ivanthehunter

In terms of the panel only receiving one proposal in favor of reloading, did we here on the boards not compile a thread that voiced our reasons why each of us thought reloading should be allowed.

What happened to that thread? did it go to the DOJ.

Traumadoc

I also contacted the FCP (talked to the head guy directly) prior to the meeting in mullingar
- I emailed him and telephoned him.

Sparks

ivanthehunter wrote: »

In terms of the panel only receiving one proposal in favor of reloading, did we here on the boards not compile a thread that voiced our reasons why each of us thought reloading should be allowed.
What happened to that thread? did it go to the DOJ.

I've no doubt they saw it Ivan, but it wouldn't count as a submission unless someone actually sent it in (and that's a good thing, submissions should be deliberate).
Traumadoc's contact should count as a submission, though ideally it'd be in writing. Did anyone else email or write to the DoJ about reloading?

Sparks

Posting this here as well, following email with John Guinane today.

John clarified that what he meant at the seminar (about the number of reloading submissions received) was that the DoJ had received only one "substantial" submission. Legally, reloading is complicated by propellant being classified as an explosive (even through in reality it isn't), which drags in the Explosives Act (which is now being redrafted in its entirety). (As an aside, that came up in the seminar as well - John's not saying propellant is an explosive, just that that's what the law defines it as and he has to work within that framework.) He confirmed that they have received other representations on the subject, both through TD's and from individuals, but without any substantial detail that they could use while re-drafting the Explosives Legislation.

In his own words:

Any submissions, in whatever form, will be considered in the re-drafting process.

Submissions should be sent directly to:

Crime 4,
Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform,
92-94 St Stephen's Green,
Dublin 2,
Ireland

Grizzly 45

Suggestion here...Should we put in a group submissin from members of Boards.IE,as a for want of a better word as the voice of the average Irish gunowner.Cos despite our many difference of opinions on everything we are by and large Gunowners first these days ,different shooting disiplines second.As well as individual submissions?Think it wouldnt be bad idea as atl east the DOJ would be hearing seeing the grassroots level and opinion on things????

Sparks

I don't really think boards.ie should be seen as a seperate entity like that Grizzly, we're a forum for people - a mechanism more than a group (it'd be like the N11 putting in a submission to the Road Safety Authority). And I think we can all agree there are a sufficiently confusingly large number of such groups allready!
But by all means, use us to coordinate such a submissions from the grassroots, it's what this place is most useful for.

Grizzly 45

OK,
As Sparks said,
lets hear what you folks out there would like to see in the legislation on reloading,how or what should the training be to make sure we dont blow ourselve s up :eek: What sort of storage should it be considering saftey of theft and fire.How much powder should we have,the amount specified per our ammo limit or more?
Discuss.

Sikamick

Grizzly 45 wrote: »

OK,
As Sparks said,
lets hear what you folks out there would like to see in the legislation on reloading,how or what should the training be to make sure we dont blow ourselve s up :eek: What sort of storage should it be considering saftey of theft and fire.How much powder should we have,the amount specified per our ammo limit or more?
Discuss.

_________________________________________________________________

I don't think having a big debate on here will have the same affect as individuals making their submissions to the address posted by sparks.

We have seen on here in the past what should have been a good debate and dissemination of knowledge ending up with ridicules ideas, something like (I will need a stone of powder so I can reload for my 50 cal) .

My opinion only.


Submissions should be sent directly to:

Crime 4,
Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform,
92-94 St Stephen's Green,
Dublin 2,
Ireland

Sparks

And for those who're wondering what 'substantial' means in the above context, read IRLConor's post here for a good indication of the level of depth.

Sandy22

Sparks wrote: »

Did anyone else email or write to the DoJ about reloading?

Yes, both before and after the Conference - in writing.

But it was only a few pages on each occasion, and wasn't laden with references to statutes, so I presume it was condemned as not "substantial"