Shootin stuff on the radio...

jaycee

The Pat Kenny show ..has a very firearms based core today
Might be worth getting a transcript

Sparks

All about gun crime or all about our sort of thing JC?

macnas

Gun crime, the Coolock murder and a piece on the 10th anniversary of Dunblane.

jaycee

Theres a documentary in the next week or so , the Minister for justice was
on earlier too .. (Only caught the end of it..)

Sparks

Hmm. 'twas to be expected, given the Taoiseach's remarks earlier this week I suppose. I wonder if the Dunblane documentary will cover the recent support in the UK for the reintroduction of pistols for the Olympics?

macnas

There was a discussion re sentencing for drug offences and the 10 year mandatory term that is not being imposed by the judiciary, this is what McDowell spoke about and there was some discussion about the difference between possession of an unlicensed weapon with intent to commit crime and the unlicensed shotgun that is being used to shoot grouse. He said that the CJB would differentiate between these.
The documentary is about Dunblane and is on Channel 5 tomorrow night, I think. The guy said that the programme was made to remind people why these laws about firearms and the scrutiny of people working with children were brought into being, as there was ongoing debate re the relaxing of UK firearm laws in the run up to the Olympics.

Sparks

The guy said that the programme was made to remind people why these laws about firearms and the scrutiny of people working with children were brought into being, as there was ongoing debate re the relaxing of UK firearm laws in the run up to the Olympics.

*sigh*
Well, three guesses as to how that will go so

macnas

Sparks

Still though, at least the debate is happening; there was even a olympic pistol shooter on the front page of the Times recently.

macnas

Here's the link, about 1hr 17mins into the programme

Clare gunner

Caught some nonsense from an RTE report,where the reporter assured the great unwashed that 9mms are a "military calibre"and not available to the shooting community in Ireland and that the most pouplar drug dealer weapon is the "powerful ANGRAM [read Ingram]submachine gun"that can fire "thousands of rounds a minute".
Oh well lets here it for subjective in depth reporting to keep the hoi poli out there properly informed.:rolleyes:
Was it Charlie Bird who reported this??Well that might explain it.The booting he got in the head last Sat week in Dublin obviously affected him more than he realised.

Intrestig that Dunblane is coming up again in conjunction with the relaxation of the pistol ban and the Olympics.Sounds like Gill Marsh Andrews and her coven of six are off stirring the ol anti gun cauldron in the UK again.Not to mind that the national firearms register in the UK ,another Blair ban pet project wont work till 2007 at the earliest.According to an article in the Sunday times two days ago.

Sparks and Mods.
How about a sticky here on gun crime in Ireland??

Sticky on gun crime?

You might just end up doing some half assed anti gun reporters job for him...

Was it you who said a while back that this forum is becoming popular in google??

Rew

Clare gunner wrote:

Sparks and Mods.
How about a sticky here on gun crime in Ireland??

We are about the sport not the crime.

civdef

More about guns on Liveline apparently, anyone hear it?

civdef

It's online, lots of talk of banning handguns etc, worth a listen:

http://www.rte.ie/rams/radio/latest/Tue/rte-liveline.smil

Sparks

Clare gunner wrote:

Sparks and Mods.
How about a sticky here on gun crime in Ireland??

I'd be of the opinion that it'd have as much place as a sticky on ramraiding in a forum on formula one car racing.

I would disagree Sparks - our sport is dependant upon public perception, and you yourself have commented about the importance of good PR. If this were a closed forum, then I think that a thread on gun crime would be important, if only for the sake of combating bad PR and negative spin.

As it stands, this is a public forum and I would not agree with CG putting up a thread, simply because its findings could very easily be used against the sport. However ignoring it, is in my view, a very myopic stand to take.

Sparks

There's a difference, OP, between not ignoring such negative coverage and making it one of the most important topics in an open forum on shooting sports and sport shooting. And if anything, you're preaching to the converted

Clare gunner

OTOH on the UK Cybershooters website [which Sparks is a member as well I belive]It is a well read and commented site.Here it might attract an anti gun reporter..So what??All he will be reading is our comments on which scumbag broke the law and/or what halfwitted reporting or sentencing was handed down.Not to mind the same parrotted in different versions of his colleuges articles from different papers.
Not only that they might actually LEARN somthing.That would be unique in Irish journalism and newsworthy in itself.:rolleyes: Plus I think that if we are willing to discuss this sort of thing it shows that we are not afraid of this topic or have anything to hide either.After it would be Crime with firearmswhich implies we are discussing illegal firearms and their use which kicks back on the ligit use and ownership of firearms by us.
But if we wish to remain ostrich like on this matter and not discuss things that might influence negative vibes in everyones karma.So be it.

Clare gunner

An antigun reporter might read this???So what??All he will find is the news from his colleuges and our comments on what sort of a scumbag this person was or what inept reporting,handling of the case or prosecution .Good man if he can cobble a headline out of that.OTOH the silence and the non discussion of somthing like gun crime would make him think that Irish shooters have in general somthing to hide,as all they discuss is the "sport"of shooting.

Folks,let's stop being so paranoid about everything we do,or read or type here.If anyone read some posts here they would conclude we are paranoid on everything from planning permission to publicity,via that every word we are typing here is being examined by the Gardai and the antis.News for you they might drop in occasionally,if they know this forum exists.But they are not monitoring us every hour of the day.More important things to monitor or be involved in.
But if such a thread might upset us more sensitive and delicate souls here.Lets not bother.

civdef

One thing for definite, if we start out with an adversarial attitude towards all journalists, we can expect no favours from them. The experience of Britain in 1996 shows just what working in an environment with overwhelmingly negative media coverage is like.

The shooter on Liveline yesterday did a good job of explaining his position, that legal guns are not the problem & that they have legitimate uses, this seemed to be accepted by the other contributors. This is the approach needed.

Gun crime seems more appropriate for the politics forum than anywhere else at the moment.

Rew

Its not "ostrich like" we dont move existing threads ont he subject out, but we aren't going to sticky them either.

Sparks

Clare gunner wrote:

OTOH on the UK Cybershooters website [which Sparks is a member as well I belive]It is a well read and commented site.

To be honest CG, I gave up on that forum some time back simply because there wasn't any kind of dialogue going on there, merely dogma.

Here it might attract an anti gun reporter..So what?

So we don't have a dedicated bunch of people acting as PROs to put forward our side of the story in the press with the necessary attitude and professionalism. And we do have some poor excuses for newspapers in this country who are perfectly willing to publish inaccurate reports to sell copy; and since we don't have people feeding them ready-to-print positive copy, they tend to print the negative stuff which tends to write itself.

Not only that they might actually LEARN somthing.That would be unique in Irish journalism and newsworthy in itself.:rolleyes:

From the PRO training seminars I've been on, the one thing that is always stressed is that no newspaper has the time to afford a journalist to go off and learn everything about a story. That's why a good PRO will give them almost ready-made copy with background reading and executive summaries; and why a bad or overworked PRO won't get things published in the media.

Plus I think that if we are willing to discuss this sort of thing it shows that we are not afraid of this topic or have anything to hide either.

I've no problem with us discussing this CG, and I think most people would agree that this forum's purpose is to get away from the "hide it under a rock" philosophy that we've seen for 30-odd years in this sport; I'm just saying that a sticky would take up space on the forum's front page that we don't have. Hell, even the Parlimentary Questions thread isn't a sticky!

silence and the non discussion of somthing like gun crime would make him think that Irish shooters have in general somthing to hide,as all they discuss is the "sport"of shooting.

True, but we hardly qualify as silent on the topic! We do have a sticky on the new CJB, and more posts on that than you can read in one sitting comfortably; and there are posts on gun crime all over the forum.

Folks,let's stop being so paranoid about everything we do,or read or type here.If anyone read some posts here they would conclude we are paranoid on everything from planning permission to publicity,via that every word we are typing here is being examined by the Gardai and the antis.News for you they might drop in occasionally,if they know this forum exists.But they are not monitoring us every hour of the day.More important things to monitor or be involved in.
But if such a thread might upset us more sensitive and delicate souls here.Lets not bother.

I agree with the sentiment CG, and frankly with the tone of most of what's printed in the Irish Shooters Digest, I think we're a very long way from being shooting's biggest PR problem, but I just don't think we should have a sticky for tracking every gun crime story out there; that's more a news forum or politics forum's job. By all means, create a thread on a story if you think it's relevant; but to be honest, most of what we hear on the radio isn't relevant, it's more how the politicial authorities react to it that counts. For example, the recent indiscriminate shooting of a 22-year-old mother, tragic though it was, has little to do with F-Class benchrest or ISSF 10m Air Pistol; but the reactions of the Taoiseach and the Minister for Justice to it most certainly are.

thelurcher

How about a sticky on:
Legally held firearms v's guns used in crime.

It could dispel the common misconceptions e.g. banning legally held handguns will stop gun crime etc.

Statistics on how many legally held firearms, by type, are ending up being used in crime - and how many people who legally hold a license use that gun in crime.

I don't think that hunting/handling accidents should be mentioned as obviously they're not a crime.

Journalists write what they think people want to hear - people want gun crime stopped - journos need to write how this will be achieved so the 'obvious' soft target :rolleyes: are us - they know that's not the solution - we know it - deep down the public at large know it - politicians sure as **** know it - the guards know it - but everyone needs to be seen to be doing something - they can't control the actual channels that the illegal guns are entering through - so they'll eventually ban some facet of our sport!

Sparks

thelurcher wrote:

How about a sticky on:
Legally held firearms v's guns used in crime.
It could dispel the common misconceptions e.g. banning legally held handguns will stop gun crime etc.

Except that currently, according to the National Academy of Sciences (the blue-ribbon group on such things), there is no known statistical survey which supports or disproves such an assertion. We believe it's common sense; but as yet, it remains unproven in the stricter sense.

What we do have right now (and there's no reason we can't add to them) are the following in the boards.ie Shooting FAQ :

Why would anyone need a gun?
People here have them for a lot of reasons, ranging from the farmer who has a single-barrelled shotgun for scaring dogs away from sheep and foxes from hens, through vets who use them for humane dispatching of large animals, hunters who shoot animals (from rabbits through to deer - though deer need a special licence) or birds for meat, doctors who use air rifles as part of physical therapy for patients with spinal cord injuries or strokes (the fine muscle movements needed to aim a rifle are what they're trying to replicate and the novelty of the activity means that patients find it easier to spend more time in therapy), through to target shooters at all levels from the plinkers through to those whose goal is to win a gold medal in the olympics. The thing to remember is that they're not toys and they're not treated as such.

And the NTSA FAQ:

What do you shoot?
We shoot air rifles, air pistols, smallbore rifles, smallbore pistols and fullbore rifles.

Are these real guns?
Yes, they are real firearms. And they fire real bullets. Which is why safety is always one of our prime concerns. Ranges are constructed so as to be safe, and target shooters are trained by competent and qualified range officers and coaches so that they can shoot safely. And in all the time we've been shooting, we've never had a single injury. You run an enormously higher risk on the drive to or from the range than you do while shooting on the range.

Has anyone ever gotten shot while target shooting in Ireland?
No. There haven't even been any accidents. In the past fifty years of target shooting, the NTSA has a perfect safety record. (I told you we were careful!)

Is this even legal?
Yes. This is perfectly legal and above board. It's an Olympic sport. In fact, it's the oldest sport in the modern olympics, the largest sport in the games and always the first medal given out. Target shooting as a sport takes place in over one hundred and fifty countries world-wide. And it has been a sport in Ireland for quite some time - the earliest record we have of target shooting in Ireland dates to a target shooting competition in Trinity College in 1840.

Statistics on how many legally held firearms, by type, are ending up being used in crime - and how many people who legally hold a license use that gun in crime.

We asked for those in a Parlimentary Question (check the thread) but the answer was that such statistics are not kept by the gardai.

Journalists write what they think people want to hear

And what they have time to write!

Sparks

On the whole topic of PR relations, btw, I'd urge clubs to send their PROs to this.

scout

Ye should listen to the Marian Finucane show on this sunday at around 1120 -1135 the knolage or lack of should i say is almost amusing is it possible to get a PRO on to them to explain the situation!!!:mad:

johngalway

I heard a bit of that this morning too Scout. According to them rifles are illegal, god bless the RTE researchers

scout

ya lots of forms to fill in for shotgun? , rifles realy hard to get and hand guns illegal!!!

johngalway

Recently took possession of my new semi shotgun. After answering one or two questions from the Guard, signing my name on the form and waiting 15 calendar days I was walking out of the shop with it! So that'll tell you exactly how hard it is to get one, and I'd be very confident others have been approved much faster.

I did agree with one comment though, that there isn't so much a lack of laws to do with guns in Ireland but definately a lack of order. If the laws were enforced properly we wouldn't be seeing as much gun crime as is happening now.

Clare gunner

scout wrote:

Ye should listen to the Marian Finucane show on this sunday at around 1120 -1135 the knolage or lack of should i say is almost amusing is it possible to get a PRO on to them to explain the situation!!!:mad:

Got a call from the Joe[God ] Duffy show on this re Mr O Deas gun exploit awhile back.Dont expect to be on very long if you [a] sound articulate knowledgeable on the subject [c] are not over awed or kowtowed to be gracing the presence of the Irish airwaves or the great God whomever behind the mike[d]Are not for shifting on a position or can give as good as you get with smart arse remarks from the presenter.