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Shooting Forum - Firearms licencing information


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Wasteful system

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  • 18-11-2019 8:00pm
    #1
    bmmb88
    Registered Users Posts: 53 ✭✭


    Recently I had to submit a license substitution. It annoyed me that I had to fill in all the same details as the original application and I also have to do this for each firearm at renewal time.
    It got me thinking about how much paper is used and how much time is spent by AGS on licenses.


    So a quick calculation later we have the following


    187,445 licenses as of 1st Jan 2019
    9 sheets of A4 paper per license is 1,687,005 sheets
    That’s 3,374 reams of paper (500 per ream)
    2.58kg per ream is 8,705 kg
    That’s 8.705 tonnes or 9.6 tons
    That’s not including extra sheets for photocopying
    a) license or passport
    b) club membership card
    c) extra info you may need to include
    d) landowners’ details
    187,445 id photos
    Then there is the envelope you put the application into.
    The letter and envelope used to say that AGS have received your application
    The grant letter and envelope
    The license and envelope
    That’s 749,780 envelopes
    And 562,335 letters from AGS
    AGS resources
    Public desk to receive the application.
    FO reads the application
    Application sent to district office
    Superintendent reads application
    Or
    Chief Superintendent reads it
    Decision is made and application filled in by AGS
    Enter details into Pulse.
    Say 2 hours off hand for all that for each application
    That’s 374,890 hours, not including if you need to meet any one of them for some reason.
    That’s over a 3-year renewal cycle
    Does not include new applications, substitutions, alterations for change of address etc.

    Does this qualify as a wasteful system.

    In case anyone says its easy to criticize and not come up with a possible solution I've thought of one as well (too much time on my hands).
    It involves technology and is something I think that could implemented
    but I'm no computer nerd, I work in construction:D


    Please feel free to come up with your own figures if I have forgotten something or made a mistake somewhere


Comments

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    #2
    BattleCorp
    Registered Users Posts: 11,758 ✭✭✭✭BattleCorp


    Don't forget the sizeable number of us who have had to submit our paperwork twice due to stuff 'getting lost'.


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    #3
    Ubbquittious
    Registered Users Posts: 6,189 ✭✭✭Ubbquittious


    I suppose the easiest saving would be to do away with all the sheets for the renewal. Send people a reminder text slightly before the renewal thing saying they can renew if no details changed and include a link to some online payment site. If they don't pay the renewal on there they still get the ream of paper sent out to them.


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    #4
    oldgit1897
    Closed Accounts Posts: 286 ✭✭oldgit1897


    You can do so much now online, why not renewals or applications ? With a method of doing it by paper for people without internet, or people without computer skills, older people for instance. Borrow elements of the UK and German systems, eg. One certificate with all your guns on it, and a centralised civilian staffed office that does all the paperwork. The guards would only provide a background and criminal record check.

    The thing is a lot of state employee's don't want to do the work, and don't want anyone else to do it either.


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    #5
    Sparks
    Registered Users Posts: 40,038 ✭✭✭✭Sparks


    oldgit1897 wrote: »
    One certificate with all your guns on it, and a centralised civilian staffed office that does all the paperwork.
    Those two would require large scale rewrites of the Firearms Act that we've been asking for for 20 years and nobody is willing to grant so far.
    Also, modifying the Firearms Act when the smell of an election is in the air and every backbencher looking to get into the papers is sortof like juggling with chainsaws - looks impressive, is very noisy, rarely accomplishes much beyond the spectacle and there is never, ever, "just one mistake" - the minute even one thing goes wrong, it's always just the begining of a bad day.


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    #6
    oldgit1897
    Closed Accounts Posts: 286 ✭✭oldgit1897


    Sparks wrote: »
    Those two would require large scale rewrites of the Firearms Act that we've been asking for for 20 years and nobody is willing to grant so far.
    Also, modifying the Firearms Act when the smell of an election is in the air and every backbencher looking to get into the papers is sortof like juggling with chainsaws - looks impressive, is very noisy, rarely accomplishes much beyond the spectacle and there is never, ever, "just one mistake" - the minute even one thing goes wrong, it's always just the begining of a bad day.

    I doubt anything will ever happen, it just daydreaming and wishful thinking.


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