How are you treated by your local Garda w.r.t. licencing & applications?

Sparks

Suggested by ammoman, here's a thread for posting experiences, both good and bad, with your local garda when getting your licence. Just don't go slandering anyone and getting boards.ie in trouble, please?


I guess I ought to start the ball rolling, my local garda in Greystones is a decent chap. He's quite approachable and pragmatic about firearms. Gotten two licences from him so far, and when they lost the first form in the park somewhere, he came out to the house personally to go through the forms again. The only problem I've had is with getting my ammunition limit extended - he's said that he has no problem with doing it but doesn't think it's necessary until I'm actually going off and doing the batch testing. He's also told me that he has no problem with my applying for pistol licences (though that's probably helped by the fact that I was talking about ISSF air and .22 pistols).

Citizen_Erased

Very helpful all around the board , we actually live in quite a small district so everthing is on first name basis aswell.

Sparks

Hmmm. I wonder if we should include the area names in this?

Citizen_Erased

Probably wouldnt help much either way , but the area I'm in is the Creeslough District but that doesnt help at all. Hands up if you have heard of it?

Dvs

Sparks wrote:

Hmmm. I wonder if we should include the area names in this?

Yeah,and you could call it top of the cops!


Seriously,no that might not prove helpful, when we are all subject to the whim of the superintendent under the firearms act in our own areas.


Dvs.

sharp shot

i find local garda brill i just have to ask and i have no prob next thing is hand gun see how i get on from there

Umiq88

Well i wouldnt call my experience good went a couple of times to the station and she wasnt there even rung up and they said she would be then when i finaly got my licence after a month or so the date on the superintendant stamp was about a week or so before i doubt i would have heard that the licence was in if i hadn't gone in but then when i was in there she was nice enough just doesnt seem to bothered about firearm certs this is in kilkenny

Flattop 15

Local crowd are fine to deal with.They know my passion for shooting since an early age,and that I proably know more than them on the FA.However we have a new Super down here in "Stab City"who is supposedly very anti gun,and is being remarkably silent about my pistol application after I answerd all his questions,and he seemingly has run out of any further questions to ask,and has now gone to the fallback tactics of ignore the problem,or stall until the CJB comes thru. :mad:

Cravez

My Local Garda Station is Greytstones also, the Garda there is a very nice chap and helped me get my second shotgun quickly without hassle. Which club do you go shooting at Sparks?

Sparks

Mostly in Wilkinstown for air rifle, Cravez, (hell of a haul though, right round the M50 and out the N3 ) and 50m; in DURC for 25yd. Looking to join RRPC soon though, especially with their new range coming online soon. 20 minutes from here so I could be training every day again like I was doing in DURC while I was in college and training.

I take it you mostly shoot in the Bray club?

Rew

Is there a list of clubs available?

Sparks

Not a full list Rew, for various reasons (including the worries club officers have over personal security should their home addresses be given out). It is something that needs addressing, and probably some assistance from head office (buying a ready-to-go mobile phone for member clubs to use as their contact point, for example).

There's a partial list on the boards bikipages here though.

Rew

Know of any in the Waterford area?

Cravez

Nah i shoot in the Fassaroe Sporting club ( soon to be East coast Shooting ) in Roundwood. Nice chaps down there, havent been there in a while though, doing exams at the moment but finished them tomorrow so might head up there at the weekend. The Last time i went down to my club they were setting up Pistol Ranges and some of them currently owned Pistols ( this was about 2 months ago though the last time i went to my club ) has legislations regarding Pistols changed since then? i Remember reading in past posts that no range yet was approved to have a pistol range?

Sparks

Michael Cravez wrote:

Nah i shoot in the Fassaroe Sporting club ( soon to be East coast Shooting ) in Roundwood.

Used to shoot there every so often when they were in Enniskerry, DURC held it's 50m Open there every year. Didn't realise they had a rifle range going again, I thought they were still shotgun only!

Nice chaps down there, havent been there in a while though, doing exams at the moment but finished them tomorrow so might head up there at the weekend. The Last time i went down to my club they were setting up Pistol Ranges and some of them currently owned Pistols ( this was about 2 months ago though the last time i went to my club ) has legislations regarding Pistols changed since then? i Remember reading in past posts that no range yet was approved to have a pistol range?

The problem is that there is no legal process for authorising any range for anything, so far as I can see. No standard advocated by the DoJ/Gardai that we can comply with. And that's been used a tad cynically by some untrained-for-the-job Gardai who are suddenly finding themselves looking at applications for sidearms and who know that if they fluff the job, their necks are on the line. It's a big mess, on both sides of the desk

Sparks

Horror story on this topic today in the Irish Farmer's Journal on page 35, about a chap from Monoghan who was truly put through the wringer to the tune of several months and €1600 euro or more before having his .308 licence application turned down.

Have to say though, though I understand the motivation (and you'd have to be daft not to understand it), I'm not impressed by the loose language and the bandying about of legal opinion that doesn't hold up to the light of day in these articles, it's not going to do anyone any good in the long run.

For example, the article said that the superintendent telling you that you have to be cleared by the CPO before getting your licence is illegal because of the gun safes case. There's two errors right there. Firstly, calling it "the gun safe case" is a horrific PR slip. A case in the supreme court so gun owners don't have to have gun safes? What member of the public who doesn't know about firearms (ie, 95% of the electorate) is going to think that's a good idea? The case wasn't even about gun safes! It was about making the Gardai apply the firearms acts as written. Call it the do-what-the-law-says-to-do case if you have to

Secondly, it's not illegal for a superintendent to set out preconditions on you getting your licence that are above and beyond those in Section four of the Act. The do-what-the-law-says-to-do case explicitly mentions this in the supreme court judgement in paragraphs 38 and 39:

38. At the end of his judgment, the learned High Court judge said
“I am of the opinion that the provisions of [s.4(b)] of the 1925 Act are such as not to restrict the ambit to consideration as to the personal attributes of an applicant for a firearm certificate but may relate to the circumstances in which he/she may have a firearm in his/her possession without danger to the public safety or to the peace... I wish to state that this court expresses no concluded view as to how far a superintendent may go in the context of the exercise of his powers under s.4(b) of the Act of 1925 other than indicating that he may not impose preconditions of the nature sought to be imposed by the commissioner in this case and the commissioner is not entitled to interfere with the superintendent in the exercise of his functions under the Act.”


39. That passage, admittedly obiter, would appear to suggest that, in the view of the learned High Court judge, it would be open to a superintendent, in the circumstances of a particular case, to stipulate that the holder of one or more firearms could be required, as a condition of being granted a licence, or obtaining a renewal of a licence, to keep the firearm or firearms, when not in use, locked in a firearms cabinet. No notice to vary was served in respect of that passage, and understandably so, since this did not form any part of the reasoning by which the learned High Court judge arrived at his decision. It is, accordingly, unnecessary to express any view as to the circumstances in which the imposition of such a condition might constitute the appropriate exercise of a discretion vested in a superintendent under the 1925 Act or the implementation of a policy by him of an inflexible and rigid nature which would be inconsistent with the proper exercise of that discretion.

In other words, if your super tells you, as an individual, that you have to meet some condition before he'll grant the licence, it's not illegal. It's never even been challanged in court before.

Remember, the Minister is a Barrister. If you want to get into a toe-to-toe with a barrister, don't use sloppy language...

gouda

psittacosis wrote:

Well i wouldnt call my experience good went a couple of times to the station and she wasnt there even rung up and they said she would be then when i finaly got my licence after a month or so the date on the superintendant stamp was about a week or so before i doubt i would have heard that the licence was in if i hadn't gone in but then when i was in there she was nice enough just doesnt seem to bothered about firearm certs this is in kilkenny

I hate to be picky,and do not want to cause offence,particularly as none of us are perfect, but is there any possibility that you could use the occasional comma or full stop as it would make your posts easier to read?

daithi

Im under Ballyhale/Thomastown cop station in Kilkenny. Had absolutely no problems, got asked the kind of questions i should have been asked and the firearms officer contacted me as soon as he got confirmation my licence was approved.

In the Wexford area, and the Gardaí went well out of there way to help me get a license - thanks lads!

Rovi

In Portlaoise, I find the 2 Guards (both women) who deal with gun licenses to be most pleasant and helpful, returning phone calls and answering queries promptly, and they're generally up for a chat and a laugh when I call into the station.
As regards the Superintendent, I've had no particular problem licensing 3 rifles (2 x .22LR, 1 x .243) and the shotguns. Not exactly speedy mind, but well within the time scale others here have experienced, and once his Crime Prevention Officer had signed off on my security, the extra licenses arrived shortly thereafter.

For example, I'm just back from a few days away, and I find a message on the machine telling me that my application for an increased ammunition limit has been approved and to call to the station to have the license amended.

They DO however, get a bit twitchy when I mention handguns. The 2 Guards I mentioned above didn't make terribly encouraging noises at the notion, but said to go ahead and apply for one anyway, "and we'll see how it goes."

Looks like I'll have to give it a go sometime soon then


.

Terrier

All good in my district in county galway, only problem is trying to get to the station when its open. Never opens the same hours any week..

Keelan

Hi all,
New to this forum, have just discoverd it .
Im not badly treated, but not that good either .
I had a .22 Hornet for foxes and target shooting up untill last november.
I had allways wanted a .223 but never botherd to liecence one as they were not available here untill recently.
My local firearms dealer had got in a .223 and I got excited in the hope of swaping my Hornet for one .
I did the necessary paper work at the firearms dealer and proceded to take the ammendment to my local Guards.
A guard at the desk took the appllication and said he would pass it on to the firearms officer.
3 days or so later I got a call from him telling me that in no way i could apply for such a weapon, as only the army are allowed to have such weapons and that i should not bother to try as it would be a long process with no outcome :eek: .
I just agreed and put the phone down.
I contacted Declan Keogh at the time and he phoned the supt who new nothing about this at all. Obviously, the Firearms officer did not even mentioned it to him and had just decided himself to turn the appllication down .
The Supt said he would send it off to billistics, which he did.
When it came back I phoned him up and he said he would let me know within 48 hours.
He did not.
I phoned him again and he said that he had decided not to ammend my Hornet cert to a .223, which by the way was a CZ 527 bolt action.
I was gutted and after a few days wrote a letter to him but to no availe.
He said that he is sticking to his guns :rolleyes: .
I now have a .204, which is deadly on foxes up to 300yds, but ammo for it is limited, only Hornady v,maxes available.
The .223 has far more ammo brands available for it.
Thats how my local guards are, they have this thing of not licencing anything over a .220 .