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

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.