Gardai uncover Racists gun cache

Flattop 15

Todays Sunday Independant.
www.unison.ie
GREAT!!! Just what we flippin need,this close to the CJB!!
25 airsofts and a deact Browning GPMG mounted on a tripod[thought that would be a Browning 50 cal??] found in a house of a bunch of wannabe stormtroopers in Crumlin.Bunch of feckin muppetts!!!Going around in cammo for three weekends catching the BUS to Donegal!!!

Think this kind of proved my point about what kind of people are attracted to and use airsoft.Apart from the article having some as per usual crap journalism linkage of airsoft to the kid who got shot in NI by a 22 rifle as well as to all the other ills that have occured over the last few years of airsoft misuse.
Not only that we now have the attempted linkage of"survivalism" with the right wing nazi groups in the US.
Get ready to dust off all the old eighties arguements from the antis that were used in the UK[to devestating effect post Hungerford] and the US about all the spurious linkage between guns,nazis,and survivalism.[survivalism has nothing to do with right wing para militaristic groups btw.It is a nifty catch all for the media for things they cant understand or explain.Like lumping all bikers in as bad ass Hells Angels type bikers.[Although any of the GENUINE color wearing Hells Angles I have ever met are sound out,pro gun ownership helpful decent folk ]
Well, any chance of deact collecting and airsofts becoming a free and relatively easy liscense thing has now gone down the U bend!!! :mad:
Watch for the backlash on this one,and watch that non entity TD /councillor from Waterford get plenty of airtime now!! :mad:
Enough to feck up ones Sunday! :mad:

Sparks

Great. What a load of crap all round. A group of muppets decide to get these things without getting licences, a paper reports it getting a dozen basic and well-known facts wrong (Darren Summers was not shot with a ball bearing, for example), and this will just add to the negative publicity that real target shooting athletes and hunters and farmers have to face

And taking this lot on a bus to Donegal? Apart from being illegal (Road Traffic Act, 1963), that's just... stupid!
Gah!
:mad:

I hope they throw several books at these idiots!

Citizen_Erased

Thats the hardest part for me to get my head round - A bus to Donegal? In full kahki's? How did it take the gardai to release something funny was going on?

Flattop 15

Citizen_Erased wrote:

Thats the hardest part for me to get my head round - A bus to Donegal? In full kahki's? How did it take the gardai to release something funny was going on?

About three to four weeks by the look of things.
Somhow i think that getting liscenses for these were the LAST thing on their minds Sparks :rolleyes:

Rovi

Here's the text of the article, for anyone who doesn't want to register for http://www.unison.ie/ (pasted as it appears on the unison site, complete with missing spaces and odd spelling)-

Sunday Independent, June 26, 2005 wrote:

Gardai uncover racist group's cache of weapons

JIM CUSACK

GARDAI are examining a general-purpose machine gun among 35 adapted or imitation weapons uncovered at the south Dublin home of a member of a bizarre right-wing group with links to religious fundamentalists based in Utah.

Four members of the small group, believed to involve young men aged from 15 to 24, were arrested when they were spotted dressed in combat fatigues and carrying haversacks while waiting in Dublin city centre for the 44 bus to Enniskerry last Saturday.

When gardai asked them to open the haversacks they were amazed to see an assortment of 10 imitation and adapted rifles, including replicas of the Heckler and Koch used by the Army's Ranger Wing and the British Army's SA80 rifle.

The 44 bus stop is at the rear of Pearse Street Garda Station and it is understood the group had been catching the bus at around the same time each Saturday while carrying the haversacks for several weeks.

In a subsequent search of a house in Crumlin detectives uncovered another 25 weapons including the tripod-mounted Browning general-purpose machine gun which is a copy of the weapon used by the Army as a "light support weapon". It is believed it might be a copy. They also found an adapted sniper rifle.

Details of the search were not released, it is believed, because of embarrassment at the fact that such a group of young fanatics could import what are perfect replicas of high-powered assault rifles as well as a machine gun that weighs around four stone.

They also found berets with Defence Forces insignia and literature relating to a fundamentalist church with references to Aryanism, the racist, anti-Semitic movement many of whose adherents live in communities in middle America, particularly Utah and Michigan.

What particularly concerned gardai was that the group was able to buy the weapons with ease over the internet and have them delivered to the Crumlin house without raising suspicion. Several of the weapons were adapted to fire steel ball bearings via a gas-powered system with lethal capacity.

There is concern at the proliferation of the gas-power weapons in the past few years and there have been a number of near-fatal incidents involving the gas-power ball bearing guns in the past year.

Five-year-old DarrenSummers was almost killed when hit in the head with one of the pellets while playing in the grounds of his school in Enniskillen, Co Fermanagh last month. Earlier this year, there were two attacks on Garda vehicles in which ball bearings passed through a Garda van and another smashed the windscreen of a squad car at the Traveller site at Dunsink Lane.

A man and woman wereinjured in another pelletgun attack on a bar in Derry last month. And a nine-year-old boy was shot and seriously injured with one of the weapons in north Belfast lastSeptember.

It is not known if the group uncovered by the gardai harboured any sinister intentions but gardai said they were alarmed at some of the magazines and material found in the search of the house in Erigal Road, relating to the activities of 'survivalist' groups in America who have been associated with sieges and attacks on US Federal institutions, black Americans, Jews and liberal groups.

No evidence has emerged to link the group with the recent spate of Nazi graffiti being daubed on synagogues, the Jewish cemetery and the Irish Jewish Museum, all in south Dublin.

In a separate operation, gardai arrested a man after the small Orthodox synagogue and the Dublin Synagogue in Terenure were daubed with swastikas inthe early hours of Friday.

The Drogheda man, who had been under surveillance, was later released from Terenure Garda Station and a file is being sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions relating to racial incitement and damage to property.

I love this bit (my emphasis in bold italics)-

The 44 bus stop is at the rear of Pearse Street Garda Station and it is understood the group had been catching the bus at around the same time each Saturday while carrying the haversacks for several weeks.

Isn't Pearse Street one of the biggest Garda stations in the country???
I guess no-one ever looks out the window :rolleyes:


.

I get the bus there most saturdays - I never noticed them!

Rovi

original_psycho wrote:

I get the bus there most saturdays - I never noticed them!

Looks like their ninja skills of stealth and camouflage were well developed anyway

.

holeyshoe

Unfortunatly their ninja skills arn't going to make life any easier for airsoft owners.

Citizen_Erased

Is there anyone here with a licensed airsoft gun or knows someone with one?
I have to say now that I have several friends with them also and no licenses or anything but they do have their parents permission. Imo , thats all that should be really required to obtain one or if you want more , simply a note from your local sergeant. I think a license is to much and in most cases cost more than the things do.

btw I am refaring to the one that fire 6mm plastic "plinkers"

Blackjack

Rovi wrote:

Isn't Pearse Street one of the biggest Garda stations in the country???
I guess no-one ever looks out the window :rolleyes:

.

I guess it's just not illegal to carry Haversacks at a bus stop.

in fairness to the Gardaí, it can get like clapham junction there, espcially on the weekends, and the buses themselve would obscure the view from Pearse St.

Rovi

Blackjack wrote:

I guess it's just not illegal to carry Haversacks at a bus stop.

Fair enough, I take your point.
We don't live in a police state, and it's not against the law to wear combat fatigues, I just thought it was a bit incongruous that they were using a bus stop outside a Garda Station to head off on their 'adventures.'

.

Rovi

Citizen_Erased wrote:

btw I am refaring to the one that fire 6mm plastic "plinkers"

AFAIK, they ALL use 6mm plastic BBs.
And therein lies the problem.
While the toy like ones (bright colours, odd/futuristic shapes, etc) probably wouldn't cause too much concern, an awful lot of them are pretty good/excellent replicas of the real thing.

For example, €30 plus a bit of postage gets you a Colt M1911 A1 Government

Got $237 to spare? Want to play at 'Irish Army?' here you go-
Steyr AUG


How about one of these?-
Mad Max Shotgun STD Model

Guaranteed to get you LOTS of attention!

Combine these realistic looking guns with the tactical/SWAT/Special Forces/Soldier of Fortune mindset of many of the hardcore enthusiasts, and you have something that doesn't sit well on an island that very recently had all too real combat clothing wearing, automatic weapon carrying (and using!) people roaming about doing their thing. Not to mention the ongoing habit of 'hard men' carrying all sorts of illegal weaponry for protection/enforcement.

I can kinda see the appeal of having realistic looking replicas of real stuff you'd never got a license for, but it all needs to be treated very diplomatically, and this sort of incident doesn't help.

.

Rovi

Rovi wrote:

Fair enough, I take your point.
We don't live in a police state, and it's not against the law to wear combat fatigues, I just thought it was a bit incongruous that they were using a bus stop outside a Garda Station to head off on their 'adventures.'

.

What were they doing anyway? Just drills and stuff, or had they actually used held up/shot at/terroised anyone/thing?

Sparks

What I'm still trying to figure out is how they got a "four-stone" GPMG onto a bus without the driver getting a tad irate....

woody

Flattop 15 wrote:

Todays Sunday Independant.
www.unison.ie
GREAT!!! Just what we flippin need,this close to the CJB!!
25 airsofts and a deact Browning GPMG mounted on a tripod[thought that would be a Browning 50 cal??] found in a house of a bunch of wannabe stormtroopers in Crumlin.Bunch of feckin muppetts!!!Going around in cammo for three weekends catching the BUS to Donegal!!!

Think this kind of proved my point about what kind of people are attracted to and use airsoft.Apart from the article having some as per usual crap journalism linkage of airsoft to the kid who got shot in NI by a 22 rifle as well as to all the other ills that have occured over the last few years of airsoft misuse.
Not only that we now have the attempted linkage of"survivalism" with the right wing nazi groups in the US.
Get ready to dust off all the old eighties arguements from the antis that were used in the UK[to devestating effect post Hungerford] and the US about all the spurious linkage between guns,nazis,and survivalism.[survivalism has nothing to do with right wing para militaristic groups btw.It is a nifty catch all for the media for things they cant understand or explain.Like lumping all bikers in as bad ass Hells Angels type bikers.[Although any of the GENUINE color wearing Hells Angles I have ever met are sound out,pro gun ownership helpful decent folk ]
Well, any chance of deact collecting and airsofts becoming a free and relatively easy liscense thing has now gone down the U bend!!! :mad:
Watch for the backlash on this one,and watch that non entity TD /councillor from Waterford get plenty of airtime now!! :mad:
Enough to feck up ones Sunday! :mad:

Sorry off subject the Browning GPMG they found was a FN MAG on a Sustained Fire Tripod

Citizen_Erased

Yes , Frabrique Nationale are the chief makers of the browning machine gun (eg The large .50cal one etc) But they are the only company that browning worked for that actually put his name on the gun . So it would be correct to call it a browning or an FN or even an FN Browning. And the MAG is a GMPG just by another name (or in French I think)

woody

Correct Dude well French/Belgian

Flattop 15

original_psycho wrote:

What were they doing anyway? Just drills and stuff, or had they actually used held up/shot at/terroised anyone/thing?

Either which way they are goosed[stepped?].If they were drilling and doing tactics,the offences against the state act [?] comes into play.As reciving instruction,drilling with the use of arms is an offence thereunder.It was specifically brought in to prevent the RA&Co from organising training camps,etc.Trouble with it is it could also be used to shut down any gun club as well,due to it's broad wording.
If they used any of the replicas in above mentioned crime.Well, the normal law appropriate gets them.
What gets me,is the blatant obviousness of these idiots.Didnt any of them think that sooner or later that the goon platoon outfits wouldnt attract attention??Considering it must have looked like the Hitler Jugend was boarding the bus????Basic principle of a gureilla unit,camoflage your activity and look normal .

Rovi

Is this what we're talking about?-

FN MAG / M240D pintle-mounted machine gun of late manufacture (with Picatinny rail on the top of the receiver)
Image from http://world.guns.ru/

On a tripod???


How on earth do you get something like that on the bus without attracting attention?


.

the_syco

Sparks wrote:

What I'm still trying to figure out is how they got a "four-stone" GPMG onto a bus without the driver getting a tad irate....

Maybe the fact of a group of people, in full kahki, possibly with

berets with Defence Forces insignia

on them, the bus driver assumed they were from the local FCA force, going on a weekend training course up north. Also, if they went reguarly, no-one would think twice.

I wonder why they were caught, tho. They must have been doing something pretty stupid.

civdef

I'd be more worried if those idiots had catapults, knives or any one of a million other items, all of which have more potential to do harm than replica firearms.

A catapult with a ballbearing poses a much greater risk than some toy gun.

That article imust have been written on the back of a cigarette packet about 2 minutes before deadline. It's no coincidence either, I'm sure, that it's following close on the heels of recent media scares in the UK about replicas - usual story, Irish "journalists" feel the need to ape their British tabloid cousins.

Rew

Rovi wrote:

Is this what we're talking about?-

FN MAG / M240D pintle-mounted machine gun of late manufacture (with Picatinny rail on the top of the receiver)
Image from http://world.guns.ru/

On a tripod???


How on earth do you get something like that on the bus without attracting attention?


.

This is it

Sparks

That article imust have been written on the back of a cigarette packet about 2 minutes before deadline.

True, and the Sindo's had a spree recently of having to make some very public apologies
and rather hefty settlements over stories they've published which turned out to be wildly incorrect - and not in minor details, but in actual accusations of criminal behaviour which the named parties were innocent of!

Citizen_Erased

It doesnt actually say that they took the Machine gun with them , they just found it at their house.
I would also have to agree with CivDef , I'd be more worried if they had pointed sticks or fruit.

Flattop 15

the bus driver assumed they were from the local FCA force, going on a weekend training course up north. Also, if they went reguarly, no-one would think twice.

I wonder why they were caught, tho. They must have been doing something pretty stupid.[/QUOTE]

Errr,Is the Irish army that poor nowadays that we have to ship the FCA by Bus Eirenn??I think we can still ship them by truck.Plus they were wearing cammo not khaki.The FCA AFIK still wears khaki,plus Irish army cammo ,current issue is hard if not impossible to get on the civvie market.There is only one maker and supplier for it,PROTAC in the Curragh army camp.
They were pretty stupid allright.By being so blatantly obvious.
On another point tho.Has anyone seen ANY followup to this story inthe papers or media???I would have thought ths would be getting full attention.
Neo nazis with guns and doing manouvers in Donegal??
Maybe there is somthing rotten here?

Rew

No such thing as the FCA anymore its all the RDF and they are all in full Irish cammo. Protac only make/sell rucksacks and webbing in irish cammo, no uniform bits. The odd bit of uniform crops up on EBay but its illegal to sell or buy the stuff so its rare enough.

Citizen_Erased

Firstly , what to say they didnt do an enlistment in the FCA and still had the gear. Its not that unlikely by the sounds of them . My brother still hass his full kit complete with insignia and was unenlisted about a year ago. And hes only 21.
Secondly , not everyone is an expert on cammo.

Old Ladies wrote:

"That khakis hes wearing there"." No, no , they're not , they're just standard cammo , you can't buy civilian khakies. They only make them in the curragh"

Rew

Citizen_Erased wrote:

Firstly , what to say they didnt do an enlistment in the FCA and still had the gear. Its not that unlikely by the sounds of them . My brother still hass his full kit complete with insignia and was unenlisted about a year ago. And hes only 21.
Secondly , not everyone is an expert on cammo.

There supposed to take back all the gear and burn it but its very dependant on the indvidual units. Ypu would hope neo-nazi's wouldn't pass the security check for joining the reserves.

Citizen_Erased

Why , is there a check box beside marital status called neo-nazism?

FCA - free clothes association, whats its called up around here cause in the past that was all it was for really.

civdef

All this FCA stuff is not really relevant to this section.