SCOVI part 2

cavan shooter

Any truth that The Sports Coalition of Vested Interests are making a come back and were at a big pow wow the other day. Chatting to a lad in Cork who reckons the FCP is backup too. ???????

Can anyone confirm??

BSA International

Backroom deals & more shafting coming so !

otmmyboy2

MOD - moved to the main shooting forum

richiedel123

I was talking to a lad today actually that was saying something along them lines. I thought he was making it up but surely there is no smoke without fire

Grizzly 45

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058427265/scovi-part-2

Yes there was a meeting hosted by the DOJ in early October in Dublin for the gunowners of Ireland. It certainly was NOT SCOVI mk 2 or FCP mark 2 for that matter.

Again let me start off by saying there is and assured by DOJ/AGS There is nothing in immediate or for- seeable future in legislation changes either on national or EU level. So keep calm and carry on! These meetings, which DOJ has been having with the gun dealers now for awhile are this new idea of getting groups being affected by legislation or legislative changes to participate in discussions between Govt and intrested parties.

There were reps there from NARGC, both old gaurd and current, three gun dealers, FUNI,PRI,two NPWS reps,the AGS firearms heads, the deer organisations had reps present and the former NARGC legal rep, William Egan and even the main man of the original SC[ovi] was there. So basically all those who had ticked the box on wishing to be contacted by the DOJ after adding their submissions to the FEC report a couple of years ago.

As one gun dealer put it at the conclusion, this was one of the most productive and coherent meeting between the Irish gun lobby and Govt bodies that he had attended in 40 odd years of flying chairs and water jugs which seems to have been the norm of such previous meets.

The jist of the meeting is it was a more detailed meeting with more specific points than the Mullingar meet.

In fact AGS came under immediate and direct attack, as no doubt some of you are aware they have started with this "looks like an assault rifle" nonsense with .22 rifles in recent time, and were told in no uncertain terms from the floor that this will be challenged in the courts if need be and it was pointed out that,they lost,badly with this on SACFs and the same reasoning will apply,and that if they are going to show good faith,that this looks like cluse should go,along with the 5 shot mag ban in .22 pistols.

John Guinane of the DOJ was chairman and basically said the DOJ wanted 10or 12 points to take to the minister on things that could be changed in our legislation. Also he made this pertinent point. IT IS UP TO THE IRISH GUNOWNERS TO DEMAND CHANGES.WE do not lobby enough or hard enough off the ministers,and have for this time in the states history two mostly pro shooting ministers for Justice who want to hear us and involve us in any changes. The DOJ can only craft the law,but it is up to us to demand change, and as the only group of people in Ireland with paperwork and Gard vetting to prove we are the most law abiding citizens,we should and must make more use of this .Says a lot if a govt offical is saying this to us.

So the points from the floor that went back are. In no particular order

[1] Centralised licsensing, AGS came in for a rough time from everyone about delays, in re applicatios"lost" [their explanation as to why this happens came across rather weak to me] applications being a national malady,the post code lottery of licsensing,and that it is high time it is all centralised in one location and dept.

[2] License the man not the gun. Along with being able to do the like for like swop.[It should be pointed out that many things and demands we have will come too in sub headings of of the main points here, so there are more pints than just the original ten]. There is a possibility of this being done alright under the new EU digitised ID card and wallet scheme, which will start digitising our paper work onto a digital form. However, the cure might be worse than the disease for some ,depending on how you view national ID cards and "Big Brother" intrusiveness into our personal lives.

So long as all information is firewalled to the specific depts ,it could be a good thing, but not say that the taxman can see your doctors report on your ingrown toenail, or the Dole office can see how many guns you own.Or that AGS can demand your social media access to consider whether you a a risk to own firearms[Has happened in Europe a few times already]. Anyhow this is the shape of things to possibly come.

[3]Remove the IPSC ban. Ireland is the only Western country that has this ban ,and time has moved on and it is time there are proper definitions of what exactly the AGS/DOJ consider combat training and dynamic shooting.If Germany has had a ban on combat training since 1945 can be the largest growing IPSC participant,why cant Ireland follow suit with the same rules that lay out what scenarios and courses of fire are legal?

[4]Remove the CF pistol and SACF bans. It is ridicilous that some of us have these firearms pre a certain arbitary date and are legal, and fought in the Irish court systems to posses them.Yet having one liscensed post another arbitary date and with retroactive legislation are deemed unfit and a possible public saftey issue to own the exact same type of gun makes no legal sense and is unbalanced law. Sub topic here too was do away with the looks like clause for ANY type of firearm as un work able ,as proven internationally and judicially.It was even suggested from the floor to do away with the restricted/non restricted category as it makes little sense in reality and just confuses the issue. This is also another sub topic was the removal of the ten round magazine ban,as it makes little to no sense in reality and has no proven "public saftey" benefits.

[5]Remove NV/Thermal/silencers from the firearms legislation where they are classed as restricted firearms and make them either totally free to posses weapons mountable or not, or that they can be held if as previously described, as purchase and posses on ANY firearms cert. it was pointed out that you can posses a NV/Thermal unit that is weapons mountable on a Airsoft gun and engage in combat training to your hearts content with no liscensing or backround check,but are prohibited in owning such a device as a certified responsible vetted citizen for predator control on a real firearm.

6]Review of the ammo reloading situation. Subtopic black powder shooting and the possibility of it becoming more common in Ireland

7]Airguns and Xbows being brought into a lower security category to encourage younger, and people who are more into archery than firearms coming into shooting sports.

8] Firearms appeal board? Pros and Cons. This is like the digital ID and wallet idea.You either love it or hate it.

Set up properly it could be a good solution,on the negative side .the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.

9] Irish licsensing requirements coming more on par with the EU standard? Without a doubt ,sooner or later it will happen that our PTB on behest from Brussels will want some sort of training formula to be brought in.what wil that be like, one gent from South Africa suggested that the South African system could be adopted to Ireland.In that it is modular and you do, from what he described to me as a very simple one day test both written and practical.IOW something like our Deer stalking cert or different types of firearms.So say you only ever wanted to shoot shotguns for clays.you just do that module for shotguns, or for target .22 rifles,etc. It has possibilities, and some faults as well but again it needs thorough and serious participation by gunowners.Plus I would say,if they want somthing modelled on EU licsensing,i would say we demand then the same rights to own the exact types of firearms our EU neighbours are entitled to own and shoot the same disiplines and reload ammo as well.

CONCLUSION

It is intresting to definately sit and have lunch with your opposition, as we did, and a lot of things of more import get discussed at the bar or over dinner than in the conference room, and to hear the opposite side is always intresting and eye opening.Like how minister James "No soul at all" Browne didn't want to hear anything about the semi auto rifles and retroactive legislation,and how we literally did shoot ourselves in the foot with the IPSC years ago.

Or howThe DOJ firearms dept works and how legislation is concieved and made. Like Churchill said "Making sausages and law is best not seen by the public."

There will be future meetings,on different topics and subjects of this meeting in the coming year[s] or so we have been told.General consensus is that these are constructive,open dialouge with all parties able to state their opinions and gripes. As long as I'm involved in these there will be reporting on them ,and I'll not be participating in any backroom deals.

Mea Culpa for not reporting this story earlier which I did want to, but the last couple of weeks have been messed up with work,health issues ,balky computers and family. So I've been unable to write lengthy posts.

Take this away with you folks,it's good, and there is nothing sinister, at least that I can see sofar in these meetings and pretty much anything I have said here can be verified by those people or orgs that were present.

Grizzly 45

BSA International

Thanks Grizzly

cavan shooter

Phew,,,,Thanks for the up date. Ill keep an ear out. There was a lot of messing the last time if you remenber, I was hoping there not ressurected.

TheEngineer1

Am I right in saying so that FCP recommendations are currently not being planned to be put into law as of now? No chance of .22 pistol mag increases or legalising reloading/ black powder in the near future?

Grizzly 45

Dunno about the FCP recommendations,but most of those recommendations from our side in the fCP were reiterated at that meeting.The minister wanted,shall we say,quick fix points that don't involve mucking about with primary legislation.Some can certainly be done with the minister having the testicular matter ,from his desk ,some are 50/50 chance and others are major works of changing primary legislation that minister and dept dont really want to go there unless they have to. As it stands we have given them what we want,and lets see what they come back with.

BSA International

https://nasrpc.ie/meeting-with-the-department-of-justice-on-1-december-2025/

Came across this .......

ESetter

Am i right in thinking that the proposals regarding moderators now mean that they will have to be licenced as a non restricted firearm? From my reading of it, there is a proposal to put thermal scopes as non restricted devices now, rather than restricted.

Grizzly 45

Meeting 2 with the DOJ/AGS Kilmainham hotel Dec 1st. [Long read]

Present and hosted by DOJ/AGS and chaired by DOJ cheif range inspector John Guinane. AGS Firearms Policy Unit personel.

Gunowners side. NASRPC,NARGC[old gaurd and current chairman],FURG,FUNI,two of the Deer hunting groups, two of the rifle and pistol ranges,PRI,four gun dealers, 4 well kown individual firearms rights campaigners.[Any omissions my apologise and not intentional]

[Minutes of this, and future meetings are supposedly going to be available .So they will be hopefully more detailed than my reporting]

Agenda;4 Items for discussion.

1] The looks "like an assault rifle" clause [Was last on the agenda]

2] Five round magazines,

3] Night Vision

4] Silencers[or now PC termed "Moderators"]

5] Any other Biz

Taking the first last. The "looks like an assault rifle clause". The floor voted overwhemlngly for this to be removed from the SI Even AGS admitted it would make their own life alot easier for their own personel decisions and book work. As SACFs are now technically impossible to license anymore[For now…More on that to come!]. This legislation is becoming irrevelant, and the definition offered up by Garda Ballistics as to what consists of looks like an assault rifle is so convoluted and easily bypassed its laughable.

To wit; according to AGS Ballistics, a "assault rifle look alike"[my term] MUST resemble exactly an issued to some military force full calibre genuine assault rifle. It's apprently not enough for the super to say "Ah shure that looks like an assault rifle[referring maybe to a dressed up Ruger 10/22].They have to specify It looks like an M4 issued to US troops for example. [For the purpose of this conversation I'll use the Tipman M4,and this will apply to any of the other models & brands that are having problems being re licsensed] Our German friends had this problem too with the M4 Tipmann under the control of war weapons legislation.As the "cheese grater" fore end with the "M Lok"feature was considerd a military accessory[A very simplified explanation but lets keep it KISS]. So for it to be sold in Germany the cheese grater hand gaurd had to go and was replaced with a solid tube and the Flash hider was replaced with a lookalike "muzzle break"

Now it does not look like an issued M4 assault rifle and is free to be sold ,and that's from the German Federal Technical police firearms and weapons lab in Weisbaden.

THATS ALL YOU NEED TO DO IF YOU WANT TO KEEP THIS FROM BEING RESTRICTED!!! CHANGE YOUR GUNS LOOKS OR A PART! If you want to go one better. Maybe get some spray cans and give your gun a nice "Muddy girl" pattern. Or paint it in the Tri colour. Its just paint and you can always respray or cerakote if you have the bobs.

The idea is to keep you shooting, and to show how ridicilous this definition is. Cover your cheese grater fore end with a nice "Fallout" or "Mad Max" leather wrap maybe,or order a solid forend, just modify or replace it. Send in a picture to your Super of your modified gun if you get such a letter and ask which military uses a "Hello Kitty "pink and white or muddy Girl pink camo with a solid tube "assault rifle " with no sights? As per the definition of what an assault rifle lookalike is from their own Garda Ballistics?

Any hoo, the reasons given from the floor were. Variations of these points

[1] They are already licsensed firearms with a 10 round capacity, and are impossible to convert to select fire. Which are prohibited from civillian ownership under Irish and EU legislation.

2] The definition of an assault rifle is in the SI already, Capable of being select fire. Everything else re looks is subjective and form does not follow function and not even the US Supreme court could agree on the "looks " part either. Hence the US let the infamous 1994 "Crime control bill " sunset after 10 years.

3] The Govt/AGS have down this road with the SACFs back in the Oughties, and it did not go well for them in the courts on the looks like POV. So there is precednt ,and also high court precedent from the 1980s in that a item being legislated on in law must be described in the legislation.

4]It is adding more confusion and creating more unnecessary headaches for Gardai for an item that is in reality no more dangerous than any other semi auto .22 rifle, and is inflating unnecessarily the "restricted firearms "category.

Should add. That this discussion also included the Bullpup designs as well, and this was called for being removed too as it was originally aimed at the Walther G22 bullpup design,that didnt really become a thing in Ieland.And I always thought it was to do with the the IDF using a bullpup design in the AUG…You live& learn!

Night Vision/Thermal [1st agenda item]

The floor again voted for these items to be brought back to authorisation status to be held on any firearms license. Had present one of the main NV/T dealers in Ireland speak about various aspects of their products and were informative on the points of civillian Vs "Military Spec" equipment being for sale and that Milspec equipment is geneaally not for sale to civvies without ITAR and end user certs. This seems to be the reason we have NV/T licensed here…The fear of DUAL USAGE EXPORTS. As this was questioned by the DOJ and AGS on this being a concern with the Dept of commerce and Ireland becoming a "leak" for such. FUNI pointed out that in the age of Temu, Ebay,AliExpress and Ryanair flights. HOW exactly do or can AGS enforce the legislation on purchase,possesion and use of NV/T bar demanding liscense for optical equipment,when those with bad intent [IE casing out someones property for theft] can literally buy NV betimes on special offer in their local Lidls,or order it from China for a couple of hundred euros?Which gurrier is going to go to a gun dealer and spend thousands on a Western brand name,when they can get a Chinese copy for hundreds and by pass any legislation on ownership and possesion? With clip on/off handheld viewers doubling as NV/T scope add ons that can be removed in seconds, Technology has bypassed legislation again.

Also,that state of the art Milspec equipment,once it is on the civillian market is old hat technology,once it is over a decade old,it is heading for obsolete and surplus. So really said the whole point of whether the Irish gunowner is importing current issue US Gen 5 plus NV is both moot and academic.[Even if they could afford it somehow]

AGS suggested that Chinese cheapo units might not be licensed as a "Saftey risk" due to their low LUX capability. Ignoring the point that it is becoming better and that there are Ukranian models for sale in the EU that have been combat tested in the Russo/Ukranian conflict over the last 4 years and are under 1000 euros too.

In conclusion it was another thing that we want brought back to an authorisation to hold with a firearms liscense.

5/10 round magazine capacity.

Again an overwhelming consensus to bring ALL .22 rimfire mags be it long or short firearm to the default capacity of ten rounds,as that is mostly nowadays the default number provided by manufacturers.

Other reasons given were.

Invalidating safety warranties and garuntees given by the makers on firearms from two gun dealers. No prescribed method or process in law of actually converting any magazine to a five round capacity. Extra cost of having to convert such mags and damaging the value of the gun overall if it is a rare or classic .22 pistol.As well as damaging revolver cylinders by again having to move plugs around in six or more chambers in some newer models

There was some humour from the FPU reading a statement that was provided by AGS ballistics section in where they stated that they would "Have no problem with magazine capacity being brought up to six shots in both magazines and revolver cylinders"… Progress!!!

So the floor consensus was to bring this point forward. However the Chair also pointed out that in fact there is no primary legislation stating any mag capacity, so in fact here is an opportunity to also bring fwd legislation to have NO mag capacity limits either, but it would require primary legislation.& voted for this point but were defeated,so the 10 round over all for long and shorts is going forward.

Silencers [or as they are to be referred to for a "better image" Modifiers]

Silencers/Modifiers IMO semantics and a case of you saying Tomato and I say Tomatoe.

Hiriam Maxim jnr patented his device as a "silencer" in 1910.So the correct LEGAL term is a "silencer" and has been for over a century. "Modifier/suppressor" is the correct TECHNICAL term, the latter being military jargon.IMO what we call them is not going to do much to to change any image of gunowners or hunters in the public eye. So in future unless I'm talking specifics I will refer to them as CANS

So Silencers /modifiers for ALL Long guns of all calibers [inc Shotguns] but NOT handguns. back to a purchaseable part held on a license for the firearm

This last bold bit came from our shooting reps! Two[?] range operators called for this as they consider it a "bad image" for the public perception of shooting and that we are already using eye and ear protection on ranges. Despite the fact that anything that reduces noise from source should be considerd a good thing and that silencers, etc are considerd great training aids for newbies to reduce flinch from the gunshot. Another long term advocate called for the same and that as handguns can be only used on ranges,there is no other reason for them to be with a handgun. This point was overwhelmingy voted for [bar FUNI and one other gun dealer opposing this part of the motion]. So if you cant get a "S" for your .22 pistol for whatever reason in the future, or worse lose it, you know why.

This also goes for those lucky few who also got their CF pistol with a can. AGS /DOJ were utterly surprised that such a thing existed for the restricted CF pistols and that there are a few .22 pistols with such.

The whole crack about people not being able to hear gunshots while out walking came up and was dismissed ,as well as the EU hearing /noise reduction at source legislation only applying to professional stalkers/wildlife rangers, this is also gone as it is applying inequality. Why is a professionals hearing more valuable than a laypersons ?Also, if you as a layperson have done a deer hunting course,and butchering course, and passed an exam on both, does that not make you a professional too?

Any other busisness.

Call for the revocation of the SI on CF handguns and Semi rifles,as apprently the topic no 1 and wishlist on any range in Ireland.

Clarity on what is exactlymeant on a pistol gripped shotgun stock[As defined in the act with no mention of prominent in the act]. With removal or adding the wording to define a restricted shotgun having the following features;

A barrel under 24ins,AND a folding ,telescoping, Or pistol grip only AND a mag capacity greater than three shots.

The removal of the section regarding Sabot ammo,as it isnt a commercial thing for a long time,bar maybe the French Sauvestre shotgun slug, but as Shotgun slug ammo is restricted already. So its moot.

Reworking/removal the entire part regarding military ordinance ,bombs rockets, landmines grenade launchers , T80 battle tanks ,etc. As this is now coverd anyway by EU legislation and is CAT A prohibited goods like full auto.Would be better to be reworked to dealing with INERT military ordinance

Removing the restriced category on calibers over 308 and going for a kinetic energy limit of 17,000 [?]joules So somthing like .338 Lapura would be available before hitting a restricted category.

CONCLUSION

AS per usual this is our WISHLISTS of things that could be easily and should be changed on the SI legislation.But as Mr Guinane pointed out what goes into the beuracratic departmental machine once Ministerial/AGS top brass advisors and the Attorney General get their say comes out usually mangled and totally different.

So we can hope that whenever this is considerd and changed by the minister that we possibly get maybe 33%of this thru and back . We can live in hope.

So TO BE CONTINUED.

Grizzly 45

Grizzly 45

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124056660#Comment_124056660

More like back to authorisation on a held firearms liscense.