Petition to simplify the Firearms Act and make the FCP permanent

Sparks

Following on from this thread...

Petition to call for a review of the Firearms Act and to extend the remit of the FCP:

We wish to call for a review of the Firearms Act and to have the remit of the Firearms Consultation Panel extended

Firearms law in Ireland is currently spread across 19 Acts, 2 EU directives and well over 60 Statutory Instruments, before case law and the Garda Commissioner's guidelines are taken into account. It is estimated that fewer than two dozen people in the state have a working understanding of Irish firearms law as a result of this.

Since 2006 - since which time three acts, approximately twenty statutory instruments and an EU directive have been added - the Law Reform Commission has been calling for a restatement of the Firearms Act to simplify this situation. High Court Justice Peter Charleton has stated, in McCarron-v-Kearney, "the piecemeal spreading over multiple pieces of legislation of the statutory rules for the control of firearms is undesirable. Codification in that area is almost as pressing a need as it is in the area of sexual violence."

Since 2006, an expert panel has existed, consisting of representatives of the target shooting and hunting community, their insurers, the firearm dealers trade, the Gardai, the Department of Sport, and chaired by the Department of Justice. This panel, the Firearms Consultation Panel, has advised on technical aspects of firearms practice and how that practice and firearms legislation can best coexist. However that Panel's remit was only to oversee the implementation of the 2006 and 2009 acts and as such is now coming to a close.

We, the undersigned, wish to call upon the Minister for Justice to review the Firearms Act and the Law Reform Commission's call for a restatement of that Act, and to extend the remit of the Firearms Consultation Panel to become a permanent advisory panel to the Firearms Unit of the Department of Justice. We believe that the current state of affairs with regard to firearms legislation in Ireland is unacceptably complex and that dismissing the Firearms Consultation Panel at this time would be a significant mistake in light of that complexity and the urgent need to address it.

Click here to sign the petition.

extremetaz

done!

daveob007

done also

Sparks

Moved to a seperate thread and stickied, and mentioned in other places - feel free to pass it on to anyone else who'd be of interest (airsofters, paintballers, crossbow shooters, farmers with shotguns, the more valid signatures the better for all of us).

virgindrummer

I signed, what harm. I agree more with the call for a review of the firearms legislation than the extension of the FCP. If a notable achievement of that group is that it has "advised [the Guardai] on technical aspects of firearms practice" then, given some of the bull Guards have come out with in courtrooms up and down the country, they have not done a good job. Even the restricted list was obviously written by someone that had as much knowledge of the technical aspects of firearms practice as John Woo. I guess they didn't advise strongly enough.

Also, given what I know of some of the prominent personalities in the Irish shooting scene, I'm not sure I want to be represented by them! They can petition and lobby away in their own interests as far as I'm concerned. Still, I signed the thing. The FCP could serve a useful purpose if the right people sat on it.

dCorbus

Done

garv123

Done. will pass it on to a few of the lads too.

Why not stick a thread in the Airsoft forum sparks? wouldn't it benefit them too?



Edit, by the way for any one who signed it you must confirm the signature in your emails

Sparks

I'll mention it to them garv, but I don't run their forum

garv123

Sparks wrote: »

I'll mention it to them garv, but I don't run their forum

I'm sure they'd like pellet guns over 1 joule without a licence though

Grizzly 45

Signed ,FWIW!:D

firefly08

Look at how many people put their county in the "country" field I did it too. :eek:

garv123

firefly08 wrote: »

Look at how many people put their county in the "country" field I did it too. :eek:

I hit the first letter of my name and let auto fill do the rest.

Sparks

firefly08 wrote: »

Look at how many people put their county in the "country" field I did it too. :eek:

D'Oh! So did I...

Grizzly 45

D'UH:o

garv123

I tried it again. Its the form thing not us. i put dungarvan and ireland down and it changed it too Waterford ireland.

LB6

done and fb'd for all the help it needs!

Cass

Signed it, and waited for the confirmation e-mail. It came through and as i was about to click on it my bloody spam filter caught it, and deleted it - permanently. Had to set up a second (e-mail) account to re-sign. :rolleyes:

Kryten

Signed it. More than likely make f*** all difference. Wont get me my centerfire pistol licence back either

Galway Elvis

Done. From the new country of Loughrea. God dam dyslexia.

Sparks

Paintballer.ie carrying a link to the petition now.

Paper34

done

thebull09

Done

Norwayviking

Done

Constab2

That's done

Steve

Posted a link to this in Airsoft.

ghostmantra

done

Sparks

58 signatures at the moment after about 36 hours. To really get noticed, we'd want at least ten times that, and I'd really rather see a number in the thousands if we can.
Given that there's 200,000 licenced shooters or thereabouts, and that there's a dozen shooting sports before you bring in airsoft and paintball and crossbow archery, that target ought to be reachable...

Indubitable

Sparks wrote: »

58 signatures at the moment after about 36 hours. To really get noticed, we'd want at least ten times that, and I'd really rather see a number in the thousands if we can.
Given that there's 200,000 licenced shooters or thereabouts, and that there's a dozen shooting sports before you bring in airsoft and paintball and crossbow archery, that target ought to be reachable...

I agree, that target would be easily achieved, we only need to spread the word.

zlezlius

I'm in

Sparks

Someone asked, by the way, what a restatement was - it's not just another Act tweaking what's gone before. A restatement is a specific thing (the Statute Law (Restatement) Act 2002 proscribes how it's to be done - in this case, you basicly take the 1925 Firearms Act, then apply all the subsequent amendments and repeals and so forth from all the subsequent relevant Acts according to their commencement SIs, until you wind up with a document that looks a bit like this, and then all those acts (or parts of acts) from the 1925 one onwards are repealed (struck off the books), and the document you prepared from them becomes the new official Firearms Act. So it's still messy, but now it's all in one single document so (a) it's easier to read; and (b) it's more obvious what's broken.

bud2000

done

J.R.

signed it

Sparks

And that's 75...

johngalway

Ezridax wrote: »

Signed it, and waited for the confirmation e-mail. It came through and as i was about to click on it my bloody spam filter caught it, and deleted it - permanently. Had to set up a second (e-mail) account to re-sign. :rolleyes:

Nice, vote early, vote often

Off to sign up now

bullets

Done! (and will pass on link to friends)

Hands up who's keeping track of people's names from their own locality
and comparing them to boards handles
(I for one am interested in the amount of people Locally that shoot and are active online)

I'm actually surprised that there was no paranoid persecution complex like
replies to this thread with people bitching about filling in their Real Names in the petition.

eg: shooters objecting to posting their real names on a public petition for fear of criminals that will look up the phone book with their names,
break into their house and steal their guns like vibes :eek:

~B

johngalway

bullets wrote: »

Hands up who's keeping track of people's names from their own locality
and comparing them to boards handles

Cass

bullets wrote: »

Hands up who's keeping track of people's names from their own locality
and comparing them to boards handles

I'm still looking for Boards handles. As in someone signing up using their name here by mistake.:D

johngalway

Posted the petition link on The Hunting Life, British Farming forum, and also in the Farming & Forestry section on here.

Boiled-egg

Done

Sparks

...and that's 100 signatures...

Sparks

...111 signatures...

BigBoi83

Signed

sfakiaman

And another one!

kieranfitz

That's me signed, as both an airsofter and someone who wants to get a real rifle, been put off in the past by the bs.

323

Done

Sparks

...132 signatures...

Steve

Sparks wrote: »

...132 signatures...

Can you see all our details??

perv..

Sparks

...140 signatures...

Typhon

sign and being passed on

Xplor.er

done

Shane.sf

Job Done