World war museum and the law?

chem

Hi all,

A good friend of mine has a very large collection of de-act WW1 and WW2 items. He is intending to open a museum next year. I remember reading somewhere that the new firearms laws included a piece on museums. I have looked high and low and cant seem to find the piece in law.

Can anyone help please?

daveob007

not sure about museums but any deact firearm requires permission from local superintent to own,this is free but you must have good reason to own also,a museum piece is as good a reason as any and due to the historical nature of these firearms there should be no hassle,,tell him to ring the local super and detail each one,he will need a permission letter for each,he/she may also want proof that firearms are deactivated to a certain standard and may want to see some paperwork from whoever carried out the deactivation.
hope this helps.

check out the commishioners guidelines in the firearms section of www.garda.ie

meathstevie

As stated above, I believe that your friend will need acceptable proof of permanent deactivation for weaponry of WWII vintage as most of the calibers current then are still in use today.

Plus, according to what I read in the firearms guidelines literature on the Garda website; they all (unless your friend plans to exhibit a huge naval gun) fire ammunition consisting of a metal case with the primer, propellant and projectile manufactured into a single ready for use unit which prevents them from being regarded as antiques.

daveob007

above is correct also,pre cartridge guns ie. where bullet/powder and primer are seperate do not require permission but as your friends are well past that era they do require it.

Sparks

meathstevie wrote: »

Plus, according to what I read in the firearms guidelines literature on the Garda website; they all (unless your friend plans to exhibit a huge naval gun) fire ammunition consisting of a metal case with the primer, propellant and projectile manufactured into a single ready for use unit which prevents them from being regarded as antiques.

Thing is... that's not the law. There is no legal definition of an antique in the Act, not one I've ever seen anyway. And depending on who you'd ask, you'd get different answers. In some cases, different kinds of answer - like here, where we're going by design feature, whereas in other case, you'd get a date.

Antique firearm licencing/non-licencing is a really, really, really gray area from what I can tell...

Grizzly 45

Isnt an antique firearm classified as one pre 1850 here?? or summat around then??

MacsuibhneR

Grizzly 45 wrote: »

Isnt an antique firearm classified as one pre 1850 here?? or summat around then??

No, what sparks said is correct. In the Commissioners guidelines they talk about the pre-unitary cartridge rule, but that is not law, and as has been pointed out before these are merely "guidelines". In the UK the adopt the obsolete cartridge rule in addition to the pre-unitary cartridge rule (but again I think these are only guidelines without any legislative definintion of Antique to back it up) and I think in the US they base it on pre 1898 manufacture and an obsolete cartridge/pre unitary cartridge rule.

I think the original op may be getting the Irish laws mixed up with the UK ones, where there are special rules for museums. I don't think that a special licence can be obtained here therefore chances are the weapons would need to be approved etc. as being de-acts. Owning or operating a museum may or may not be a good enough reason for the local Superintendent, to get this approval but again there are no hard and fast rules here as to what is required to render a firearm deactivated, with different Supers having their own views.

chem

Thanks for the replies folks. The local super is on board and all the firearms are certed de-acts. MacsuibhneR You might be correct I might be remembering something I seen in UK law. Hopfully the museum will be up and running by this time next year. It will be the only one like it in the country. Planning permission is got and all is looking good so far. I will post more info here as the project rolls along. It will be called the Irish Military War Museum.

gunhappy_ie

chem wrote: »

Thanks for the replies folks. The local super is on board and all the firearms are certed de-acts. MacsuibhneR You might be correct I might be remembering something I seen in UK law. Hopfully the museum will be up and running by this time next year. It will be the only one like it in the country. Planning permission is got and all is looking good so far. I will post more info here as the project rolls along. It will be called the Irish Military War Museum.

Very interesting, Im looking forward to it !

GH