Statement from NASRPC

Sparks

yubabill1 wrote: »

Reading these points in isolation, I see an emphasis on tackling gun crime, while mentioning the review as a garnish?

While I wouldn't roll over and pull the duvet back up just yet, that makes sense -- the Minister is in the job a metaphorical wet week, the Commissioner is still just the acting Commissioner, and there's more than enough scandal flying around them that neither is probably all that interested in us, unless they find they suddenly need a distraction. The worrying part is that that possibility may have now been raised.

yubabill1

Pretty sure the distraction option remains firmly on the table.

They will always weigh up the pros and cons, then take the easiest high-profile route - preferably one which costs no money.

... call me a cynic....it's true.

I do detect an infinitesimally small shift from Shatter's stonewalling replies, however. May very well mean nothing, as they have ruled nothing out.

Dian Cecht

I'm no expert on all this but I reckon if there has been a lot of correspondence/badgering/contact or whatever you want to call it from some of the shooting community on one hand it may get their noses up but on the other hand they might think twice before thinking the can ride rough shod over us. Politicians have just got a wake up call from the electorate that none of them will forget for a while. I reckon they'll not be looking to make any new "enemies" in the electorate. The more "noise" people make in this country the more they get what they want.

Sparks

Dian Cecht wrote: »

on the other hand they might think twice before thinking the can ride rough shod over us.

It's thinking like this that has screwed us over so many times in the past that you would think even the rocks would have figured it out by now.

There is very literally nothing we can do to stop them riding roughshod - or riding in any manner they choose - over us. The minister signs one TCO and every last one of us has to hand in our firearms the next morning to the Gardai. She signs another, we lose any kind of firearm you care to name to the restricted list. And if she really wanted to, she could do *real* damage. That's the whole point of the office of Minister.

Anyone telling you different is either lying to you or is incompetent. I leave it to you to judge which.

Dian Cecht

I'm sure if she went down that road that there'd be a lot of hunters & farmers a little bit cheesed off. That's voters in the next election, which is going to be a major shakeup in the Irish political scene and every vote will count I reckon

Sparks

Even the daftest estimate for how many votes we can shove together is 100,000 distributed across the country in a way that the TDs and their electoral directors can directly see (by reading the PQs that listed how many firearms licences were issued in which counties).

And it wouldn't be 100,000 because the farmers are far more concerned with farming and vote according to farming policy, not firearms policy. And all those target shooters and hunters have lives - meaning that jobs, the economy, education. healthcare and a hundred other things affect them more directly. Would you vote based on a firearms issue when it meant voting against healthcare or education for your family?

And the politicians all know this. Its their day job to know this. They have experts who study this for them. This is how they pay their mortgages, you can't bull**** them about it.

Worry about losing 10,000 votes from "the coalition"? They're thinking of the 500,000 they'll gain by "doing something about gun crime". And no, I didn't drop a zero there, and if you think they don't know that 500,000 is greater than 10,000 then you're underestimating them badly.

Dian Cecht

Yep, way over my head

Simple version..............shooters should bend over & bring their own Vaseline

Sparks

Dian Cecht wrote: »

Simple version..............shooters should bend over & bring their own Vaseline

Simple, accurate version, if you're a pensioner in poor health, don't pick a fight with Mike Tyson in a dark alleyway.

meathstevie

Call me naive if you want but I tend to lean towards Spark's earlier post. The ministerial statement in the Dail appears to be concentrating on serious crime more so than legal firearm ownership which she acknowledges as already tightly regulated. I think this may be an indication that it's the gun toting criminal who can expect some serious changes in the rules of the game as in possibly stronger powers of search, more legislation around matters like possession with intent, longer mandatory sentences etc etc...I'm hopeful when reading through that statement that the Minister actually says that we're not part of the problem as far as she's concerned but that some tweaks here and there may be required. When it comes to those tweaks and consultations I hope that our representative organisations finally start making a bit of sense rather than trying to be the big lad in the play ground.

Grizzly 45

Its the tweaks and consultations that worry me the most.Minorities in the being oppressed group by govt have a nasty tendency to be sacrificed on the alter of expediency..