Firearms Amnesty

Sparks

What with the prep for Zagreb and the Barr tribunal, I didn't see this one until now. From the Irish Examiner on monday:

Gun amnesty planned after spate of shootings
A nationwide gun amnesty is to be held in the autumn, it was confirmed today after a spate of shootings in Dublin left five people injured.
...
A spokeswoman for the Department of Justice said plans were being finalised for the amnesty but it would only be held when gardaí were prepared for it.

“It’s based on the Garda Commissioner (Noel Conroy) having looked at the Criminal Justice Bill provisions and having looked at how they will be able to manage it, including the amnesty,” she said.

It is understood it will run for several weeks in the autumn and will be one-off in advance of the introduction of the mandatory sentencing policy for gun crime.

There are thought to be thousands of unlicensed guns in the country.

A similar move in the United Kingdom in 2003 was seen as highly successful with the handing in of 43,908 guns and over 1 million rounds of ammunition, according to figures from the British Home Office.
...
This week the Criminal Justice Bill will be signed into law by President Mary McAleese with provisions for mandatory five and 10-year jail sentences for a range of gun offences.

Once signed into law attacks on emergency services will be dealt with more harshly. But it may be some months before other offences come under its remit.

Thomas_S_Hunterson

Sounds like a good idea, the only problems that could arise, is if it's used to offload potential case evidence i.e. a gun used in a crime.

Sparks

That's specifically catered for in the legislation sean - any firearm surrendered will be checked to see if it was used in a crime and if it was, the amnesty is void for that person. This was supposed to be used for people who had unlicenced firearms (heirlooms, old firearms they just stopped using and didn't renew licences for, etc) and who just want to turn them in but who've committed no serious crime with them.

Rovi

sean_keevey wrote:

Sounds like a good idea, the only problems that could arise, is if it's used to offload potential case evidence i.e. a gun used in a crime.

I doubt anyone would be dumb enough to hand a gun used in the commission of a crime in to the Gardai, but you never know, I suppose.

It depends if the procedure is an anonymous 'no questions asked' type thing, or some sort of fully documented/regulated system.

<edited to add> I see Sparks already clarified this, it's to be a fully documented/traceable system.

Chopperdog

Sparks wrote:

That's specifically catered for in the legislation sean - any firearm surrendered will be checked to see if it was used in a crime and if it was, the amnesty is void for that person. This was supposed to be used for people who had unlicenced firearms (heirlooms, old firearms they just stopped using and didn't renew licences for, etc) and who just want to turn them in but who've committed no serious crime with them.

So therefore law abiding folk will be the main participants of this amnesty.

Illegal guns will still be in the hands of the thugs and the spin doctors will have a field day in declaring that x amount of 'illegal' firearms were recoved by the authorities.

I reckon the authorities will then do their best to lead all to believe that the drugs gangs are being disarmed when in real terms it is only a collection of poor dead old uncle Paddy's shotguns that are bringing up the numbers of 'seized' weaponry.

In my eyes this appears to be more of a P.R. exercise than a counter gun
crime measure.

Or am I being too cynical ??

triskell

Rovi wrote:

I doubt anyone would be dumb enough to hand a gun used in the commission of a crime in to the Gardai, but you never know, I suppose.

It depends if the procedure is an anonymous 'no questions asked' type thing, or some sort of fully documented/regulated system.

From what I have read of the bill, full details name and address are required when surrendering the firearms. it's designed to get rid of unlicensed arms so that when the new law comes into force if you are caught with an unlicensed firearm you have no excuse

Clare gunner

Nice PR exercise after Abbylara of the we "are doing somthing" genere.Lots of talking heads standing over old shotguns,family heirlooms and airsoft pistols.
Criminals continue to stock up on state of the art stuff.
Nothing changes.

kowloon

I can see the pictures of a table of dangerous looking terrorist weapons in the news as a "representative sample" of a haul of antiques and farm guns.

If someone turns up with something rare will it be butchered with the rest?

Terrier

Irish Indo 02/08/2006

AN amnesty to allow illegally held firearms, knives and other weapons to be surrendered to gardai will operate during September and October.

The aim is to allow the weapons to be handed in before new penalties and minimum mandatory sentences are introduced for unlawful possession.

The amnesty was announced yesterday as a raft of new garda powers and criminal offences became effective. Gardai now have power to:

* Seek a search warrant for a broad range of offences.

* Seize and retain evidence.

* Designate a place a crime scene.

* Apply for a court order for information about property held in trust.

New offences to deal with attacks against emergency workers were also introduced, with penalties of up to seven years in jail and a provision for the admissibility of witness statements if a witness recants, refusing to stand over a previous statement.

In line with the Ferns report, a new offence of reckless endangerment of children was also introduced. And a system of fixed charges for certain public-order offences, such as being drunk in a public place, came into force.

As part of a crackdown on organised crime, three or more people carrying out a serious crime an a structured group can be defined as a criminal organisation. New offences relating to assisting the activities of gangs are also included.

The new measures are all in the Criminal Justice Act 2006 but they did not come into effect until signed yesterday by Justice Minister Michael McDowell.

It has also become an offence to illegally import fireworks with the intent to supply them to others and to set them off in public places. From October 2, judges will have a broader range of sentencing options. These include the power to: suspend all or part of a sentence; impose a fine and defer a custodial sentence; and impose a restriction-on-movement order.

Convicted drug offenders will have to give notice of their addresses and movements. From November 1, mandatory minimum sentences, of between five and 10 years, will come into effect for certain firearms offences.

These include possession in suspicious circumstances; with criminal intent; with intent to endanger life or cause serious injury to property; and while hijacking a vehicle. They also include the use of a firearm to resist arrest. A new offence will be introduced to outlaw modifying firearms, such as creating a sawn-off shotgun.

Mr McDowell said last night that serious gaps in the criminal law had been plugged by the new legislation. "The act will make life more difficult for criminals and will strengthen the hand of the gardai in their task of enforcing the law of the land," he said.

Clare gunner

Terrier wrote:

Irish Indo 02/08/2006

And after reading all that.Boy!Will I sleep safer in me bed at night knowing that!!:rolleyes: :rolleyes:

chem

Dont forget blank fire pistols are now seen as component parts of a firearm and need a licence, these have been sold over the counter for years so id say there were alot about. Has the gov or gardi printed this point anywhere so as to inform people who might get caught out?

Sparks

chem wrote:

Dont forget blank fire pistols are now seen as component parts of a firearm and need a licence, these have been sold over the counter for years so id say there were alot about. Has the gov or gardi printed this point anywhere so as to inform people who might get caught out?

They didn't have to - blank firing pistols have always needed a licence of some kind.
From the DoJ:

Starting pistols
Applications for a firearms certificate for a starting pistol, (used to signal the start of an athletic event) can be obtained from the Superintendent of your police district through your local Garda Station. You will be required to complete an application form in the presence of the Garda on duty who will forward your application to the Superintendent and make recommendations on your application. The Superintendent will grant or refuse your application. Starting pistols do not carry ammunition and there is no charge for this licence.

As I understand it though, normally it was an authorisation under section 2(4) of the Firearms Act rather than a licence.

Clare gunner

In todays Indo there is an article in which Mc Dowell states that he doubts that this firearms amnesty will reduce the amount of illegally held firearms by criminals.
[If I could out how to cut&paste this article ,I would.Somone tell me how to do this pleaseee ]

Well DUH!!! I think we could all have told him that!!So what EXACTLY will this Amnesty do??Apart from getting granddads old war souviner destroyed,or the family heirloom from the war of independance or civil war trashed.Or a bunch of terrified moms getting their wigga kids to hand over their airsoft toys to the police??The hard asses are still going to have their firepower,the rest of those who hand over innocently their pretty useless and harmless stuff will be marked in some data bank somwhere,to be used against them somtime when the oppourtunity arises.Mc Dowell and Co can smile over a bunch of airsoft weapons and rusty cutlery and say they are fighting crime.
The more things change the more they stay the same.:rolleyes:

Terrier

Clare gunner wrote:

In todays Indo there is an article in which Mc Dowell states that he doubts that this firearms amnesty will reduce the amount of illegally held firearms by criminals.
[If I could out how to cut&paste this article ,I would.Somone tell me how to do this pleaseee ]

Here ya go...

Gangs unlikely to give up guns, says McDowell


THE Justice Minister admitted yestersay a two-month amnesty for illegally held firearms would not significantly dent the arsenals of criminal gangs, writes Tom Brady.

Michael McDowell said he had never anticipated that criminals who went to the trouble of organising the importation of large quantity of weapons would be attracted by a government amnesty and hand over their guns.

But he added: "I do believe there are people with guns and offensive weapons, right across Ireland, who find it embarrassing to come forward."

"This gives them an opportunity to go into a local garda station and hand them up without punishment," he said.

The amnesty will be in force in September and October

Hagar

Sparks wrote:

That's specifically catered for in the legislation sean - any firearm surrendered will be checked to see if it was used in a crime and if it was, the amnesty is void for that person. This was supposed to be used for people who had unlicenced firearms (heirlooms, old firearms they just stopped using and didn't renew licences for, etc) and who just want to turn them in but who've committed no serious crime with them.

So basically this will not take guns which are/may have been used in crimes off our streets, it will just remove guns which weren't used in crime anyway. The mind boggles.

People may well be afraid to turn in any weapon in they are not 100% sure of its full history in case they get associated after the fact with a crime they were not involved in.

Amnesty - A definition

http://dictionary.cambridge.org/define.asp?key=2567&dict=CALD

2 [C usually singular] a fixed period of time during which people are not punished for committing a particular crime:
People who hand in illegal weapons will not be prosecuted during the amnesty.
The government refused to declare an amnesty for people who had not paid the disputed tax

It's either an amnesty or it's not.

civdef

In fairness, there are a lot of buckshee guns in attics and the like, some of them dating back to the 1920s and before. It's by no means an uneard of occurrance for builders to find guns when they demolish old houses, and I've personally seen an old lady bringing in a 1903 Luger into a gunshop after her husband died and she was cleaning out the house.

Whether the amnesty is needed or not is another thing, when people honestly hand in guns that were not being used illegally, I've never heard the Gardai make an issue of it.

Rovi

Have there been any definitive pronouncements on what's going to happen to the guns collected during this amnesty?

I don't doubt that most of them will be rusty junk, but there's bound to be a selection of interesting/valuable/historically significant items among them, and it would be a crying shame for these to go to the smelter.
Anyone remember the Car Scrappage Scheme a decade or so back? In among the thousands of rusted out Fiat Unos, etc, a number of irreplaceable cars went to the crusher too, and the powers that be at the time wouldn't even contemplate saving them.
I'm afraid the same sort of attitude will pertain in this instance too.

Whatever anyone's political/historical views, for a very long time, Ireland held a very prominent position at the centre of the biggest empire in the history of the world (you know, the one on which the sun never set?). As such, there's a wealth of historical artefacts from all over the world in this country, not least among them are firearms.
We have a long history of Irish citizens fighting both for and against the British Empire and the arms used in these conflicts are as much a part of the historical record as any other artefact from the period.

I suspect that the PR value for the Minister and the Garda supremos of looking serious but satisfied at a job well done as everything handed in goes into the smelter will be the over-riding consideration, but I hope a sane head somewhere in the system sees the merit in saving the significant stuff.

cushtac

I know a guy who found a rifle from the Howth landings while rennovating a house. He rang the National Museum & offered it to them, they said they've got loads of them & don't need any more.

It seems that for a gun to be historically significant, it would want to be suitably unusual or notorious ('the gun that killed Collins' etc.)

Clare gunner

You can be assured they will be con sawed to bits,smelted down and proably given to some "modern sculptor" [Read,an unemployable,art college type] to make into at our cost some hideous modern sculpture that symbolises somthing or the other that has a peace and anti gun message.
And YES many valuable pieces will be destroyed.Considering that Ireland has or had the best loot of Lugers of all types in the first world war.As the Irish regts faced off against the Kaisers Marine units in 1916/17.We had a load of Navy and Artillery Lugers in Ireland.So much in fact that in WW2,Ireland was the only country apart from Germany to issue the Luger as secondary replacement weapon to Irish officers!These were from captured weaponary of German crews and confiscated weapons during the troubles between the wars.
We apprently even have a full auto Luger carbine,in a museuem or barracks somwhere.
What happened to them?They were flogged off to a collector /dealer in Texas I belive. And the rest were destroyed. So no guessing what might happen to a bunch of Howth Mausers,Lugers,Lee Enfields,etc etc.That each have a historical story to be told.Dont expect sane heads to prevail in a beuraccy or politics when guns are concerned.:(

newby.204

First of all i love historical guns, mausers, lugers & .303's etc.
Second of all your making me weep..........

cushtac

I've been told that a firearm over 100 years old may be classed as an antique, does anyone know if this is correct?

Clare gunner

oh it would be an antique all right,but is still liscenseable.

chem

this is abit off topic but i had to tell yiz,

awhile back i was talking to a south african man about shooting etc... and the topic came up about unlicenced guns in south africa. He told me that they had an Amnesty too and all sorts were taken into police stations, brens, M60`s and every shape make and model of hardware you can think off. This was all well and good and half expected by the police anyway as the country is well known for its love of guns and lack of laws for same.

He then told me that himself and afew mates were on a good week long bender and decided that it would be a great laugh to take a trip into the closest waring country and see what arms they could find so as to try out do anything else, that was handed in in the Amnesty so far. So away they went armed with vodka and came across a HOWITZER:eek: so tought "dat el do" hooked it to the tow bar and made for home.

He said the next morning came and they woke up abit blery eyed and slowly started to piece together the night before, till they remembered the field gun that was sitting outside still hooked up to the truck (cold sweat and panic:o )

After awhile they got there act together and decided to hand it in under the Amnesty. He said it was priceless when he went into the cop shop and said he had an item for the amnesty.

Ok put it on the counter. said the cop.

Eh, think you might have to come outside. Said your man

you can just imagen the look on his face when he walked out the door and seen the 155mm field artillery hooked up to the back of a truck full of half drunk farmers:o

I wonder what the most unusual item will be that will be handed in in this country?