Pistol Licence Recalled

Clare gunner

cushtac wrote:

I was recently talking to one of Walther's reps in Ireland, he told me that several gun shops that he deals with had reported an increase in weirdos coming in looking for handguns. One dealer said that they had 'the look of Dunblaine' about them.

How do you look like a town in Scotland??
Hmmm,judging books by their covers and all that.
The progress thru idea,is fine in theory,but it didnt work in either Dunblane or Erfurt Germany either.Plus with the more availability of illegal guns on the street thru drug dealers etc "weirdos" will have an easier job of getting a full auto Uzi or whatever,than going thru the tedious process of joining clubs etc.

cushtac

Clare gunner wrote:

Hmmm,judging books by their covers and all that.

Fair point, but given that this was coming from firearms dealers used to the ordinary shooter I think it's worth noting.

The last thing pistol shooters need is an incident involving a nutter and a handgun.

Sparks

Two points (I'd make more, but I've been away from the Wicklow area for the past fortnight for personal reasons);
1) The withdrawl of pistol certs is not only fully legal under the CJB, we were talking about just this problem in the CJB thread. It's not pleasant to have your concerns validated like this

2) The CJB (now the Firearms Act 2006) is in force. The parts which are not in force yet do not apply here. So the idea that the DC will throw this out on a prima facia examination is a bit off. Odds are that they'd be more likely to support the Gardai here, because the new Act is quite specific in saying that the Gardai can apply conditions to the licence; and saying the range must be inspected could hold up under that. It is not the section 4A part of the Act though (that isn't in force yet), so you might have a case that might delay things for a month or two. At most. And if pressed, the Minister could sign the SI today if he wanted to.

Best method of approach here may well be to get ranges certified by the Gardai and just get it over with. It's a bit late now that the Act is passed to be shooting and yelling, unless you want to spend your money on soliciters and barristers rather than shooting

Sparks

Clare gunner wrote:

Hmmm,judging books by their covers and all that.

True, but I've been hearing stories back and forth for a few months now of a new breed of rifle shooters who go out, buy thousands of euros worth of top-of-the-line rifles and then destroy them in a single day's shooting by running lots of rounds through without due care and cleaning for lack of knowlege of how to shoot properly. So far it's all funny ha-ha, but there's always been the underlying "what if someone with no training damages more than the firearm?" question being put at the end. I won't say the concerns are fully justified, but I'd have a lot more tolerance for a bit of caution on the part of the dealers at the moment.

After all, we've not had pistols for 30-odd years here. The more safety courses we run, the more training people get, the better in my humble opinion.

Degsy

Its not just pistols either,rifles and shotguns are still lethal and the ability to get a licence does not imply any safety training whatsoever,i recently watched somebody out shooting rabbits with his expensive,fully accesorised .22 shooting THROUGH a hedge.When i pointed out the folly of doing this he said "ah sure there's nobody on the other side"!!!

conce452

Sevral people have panicked and handed pistols in as the letter from the inspector requested. I have talked to many pistol shooters across the country and this seems to be unique to Wicklow and only to the part of Wicklow that is under superintendent Roche. Every single individual in this area with a licenced pistol (.22 or center fire) has been sent a letter over a week ago insisting that they hand them in within 21 days "under the 1925 Firearms Act". I found out this morning that this inspector is a "lone ranger" and has no approval to do this whatsoever from the department of Justice. They are telling him to row back and issue licences asap, however nothing will be done until the super is back from holidays on monday next. Most people are not going to hand pistols in and pretend not to have recieved the letter. Solicitors letters were sent to him on Tuesday last.

chem

All gun owners in my area were asked to bring there firearms into the station so the numbers could be checked with that on the renew licence. This is the 1st time this has ever happened in my 10yrs of owning guns. No letter was sent out it was just passed on by word of mouth and by been told at the station that you had to go home and get the firearm.

The gard on duty seemed abit out of sorts with at least 5 men in the station with at least 2 guns or more each.

Has this happened to anyone before? Or why might this be? Area is Ardee Co. Louth and comes under the Navan super.

allnight_2002

chem wrote:

All gun owners in my area were asked to bring there firearms into the station so the numbers could be checked with that on the renew licence. This is the 1st time this has ever happened in my 10yrs of owning guns. No letter was sent out it was just passed on by word of mouth and by been told at the station that you had to go home and get the firearm.

This happened to me last year and some of my friend have to do it this yea. It is to check that the S/N on guns match the papper work and that the gun was in the possion of the licence holder.

While i was there with my 2 guns last year this fellow shows up with a side by side as old as the hills. It was his grandfathers. The gun hadnever seen a drop of oil in all it life by the condition it was in. The poor lad could not disassemble the shotgun to check the S/N. The local garda ask me to have a look at it to see if i could find the S/N on it. But i Failed to disassemble it. The realse system was locked solid with age and neglect.:eek:

FLAG

This is reasonable practice, it appears that they pick a few districts each year and require all firearms owners to bring in their firearms to verify serial numbers, it is really an audit to check the accuracy of their files, it is reasonable and should be complied with. A few years ago we were asked to investigate the legality of this and it came back as reasonable from the solicitor.

A bit of kop on is required however, if you are the owner of several firearms, try not to land in the Garda Station reception, generally the sort of individual on our side of the counter would be very interested in someone showing off their wears, I knew of some one who requested the garda to view the seial number from the boot of his car, in the car park of the station, the guard had no issue and it saved dragging 7 guns into the station reception.

Cooperation is advised.

Rovi

We had to do it here in Portlaoise District 10 or so years ago, approximately.
My brother and I had 2 rifles and 2 shotguns between us at the time, and the Garda at the desk had us land them up on the counter for him to have a look :rolleyes:

Clare gunner

Brilliant firearms saftey concisiousness for gun owners by the Gardai ,I must say!!!:mad: :mad:
Pitch up at the station with a lot of long or short gun cases over a period of time.All any copped on criminal has to do is sit out the local cop shop and tail back anyone he sees carrying gun slips from and to their cars,back to their homes. I think this is one thing that shooters should object to strongly.If the Gardai want to verify their records,they can come down to a shooters house and verify the numbers there.They did this when we had two murders here within a mile at the beginning of the year.The local lads called around and checked the serial numbers.Exactly because they were worried that the opposition was checking out the station for easy pickings.

Keelan

Had my SN checked on my rifles and shotgun, 2 years ago at my local station.
Keelan.

maglite

aparently there are alot of farmers who have guns go missing and are too afraid or dont know they are missing

so presenting the gun makes alot of scence also it might give the gards an idea as to how safe you are with a gun and if you can care for one that comment about the rusted gun should have been delt with but i know of no course that he could have been instructed on its care

jcatony

original_psycho wrote:

Point of Information:

This is one district so lets not tar them all with the same brush

My local garda has bent over backwards to help me with my applications and process. He fully supports target shooting, and has been very helpful in all my dealings with him

Same goes for the Super in the club I deal with. He has always helped in any paperwork problem, and is really interested in the sport.

As for confirmation: until i hear from a source like CivDef, Sparks etc.. and I hear the whole story, no direct comments will be passed by me

Same with my super. Very reasonable and on the ball when it comes to licence applications. A pro shooter who actually knows what he's talking about. They're not all bad!

Clare gunner

maglite wrote:

aparently there are alot of farmers who have guns go missing and are too afraid or dont know they are missing

Hate to say it,without being lynched by our farming friends here,but some farmers look after their equipment abyssmlly,so I wouldnt be surprised that there are some guns out there that would pass for WW1 battle field finds.

so presenting the gun makes alot of scence also it might give the gards an idea as to how safe you are with a gun and if you can care for one that comment about the rusted gun should have been delt with but i know of no course that he could have been instructed on its care

That would also be a brilliant idea if we could bring that in with the NCT.

flight93

Is this the thin edge of the wedge????