dc99 wrote: »

It occurred to me - that If you don’t need the end user cert/licence, couldn’t I as an individual, import the Firearm (pistol) to the RFD myself, while I’m waiting for the Licence?
(Having paid for the firearm in full).

Yes and no.

Yes it can be imported without the license, but you cannot do it as you have no license. However the RFD could import it for you, you just pay the import fees, postage, etc. as well as the cost of the firearm.

The risk you run is if refused a license the RFD has your property/gun, and you cannot possess it.

Now after saying that, and here is a scenario. If the firearm is unrestricted and your range has an onsite RFD, then you could, legally, import the firearm via the RFD, have it stored on the range, use it on the range, and keep it stored on the range all without having a firearms license. You just cannot bring it home/off the range.

Was that court case specifically for Short Firearms?

No. It was all firearms. It involved one RFD specifically, but another took a similar case and as Ireland doesn't have class action they were heard separately, but both won IIRC.

And if they took the case to obviously win it (which they did) then why didn’t they go ahead and start improrting stock.

I couldn't answer that for them. I can surmise that it was done so they could import one or a few "examples" of each type for viewing purposes and sale. Ireland is not a big enough market for any RFD to have dozens of every type of firearm.

I understand that they wouldn’t want to be left holding a Firearm (I’m only talking about Pistols here) but there aren’t that many .22lr Pistols (that are any good for competition) that they would always sell it anyway.

The court case was not so much about quantity, but about the ability to for the RFD to import any firearm they want without needing someone to have a license for it. It's why you see some RFDs actually stocking (keeping to pistols) pistols while other RFDs only have a catalog of available models.

You'll often hear RFDs saying "i don't want to be left with XXXX in stock as its too costly to have that much stock" and because of Irish laws on firearms licensing they have a point. They may end up sitting on sold stock for up to 3 months. That's three months of staff wages, utilities, etc. that must be paid while the customer awaits their license and are able to go in pay the balance and collect their firearm(s).

Pistol shooting is popular enough, but if you look at the numbers (which i don't have new figures for so i must go on estimates from years back) for pistol in Ireland which stands at between 800 to 1,000 for unrestricted (some estimates have it clsoer to 2,000 but i've not seen data to support this), and less than 200 or so (recent figure) restricted its not a huge proportion compared to the total number of firearm owners or even firearms currently out there. Less than 1% of total firearm owners and under 0.5% of total firearms.

So if people can license unrestricted pistols, but it only stands at 0.5% of total firearm numbers, along with the fact that you need to be a range member, etc. it would appear that pistol shooting is not as popular people think it is. So for an RFD to stock even 20, 30 or 40 pistols may take them months if not years to sell. At an average cost of between 700 to 1,000 per gun that is a lot of stock/cash to be sitting on.