Security versus Publicity for Shooters

les45

Rew has summed up the situation , the level of security that we have installed is daunting to say the least, it would be much easier to simply buy or rent a gun from his or her local unlicenced firearms dealer. IPSA advice is that the pistols are broken down and stored in different safes in the house , and if for some reason you are going to be away from home then leave the sport pistols in the local station for safekeeping. In relation to my own local Garda Staion this has never being a problem. This topic has raised a very interesting issue ,like many pistol shooters I am not anxious to have my name or location shouted from the rooftops. To promote our sport ie sport pistol shooting we need to highlight the people taking part , without the neecessary pictures and bios we are at a disadvantage.
Or am I wrong !!!!!!!!!

Sparks

les45 wrote:

if for some reason you are going to be away from home then leave the sport pistols in the local station for safekeeping.

Couldn't do that here, my local station has no facilities to do this. I don't think many stations have either.

This topic has raised a very interesting issue ,like many pistol shooters I am not anxious to have my name or location shouted from the rooftops. To promote our sport ie sport pistol shooting we need to highlight the people taking part , without the neecessary pictures and bios we are at a disadvantage.
Or am I wrong !!!!!!!!!

No, not wrong. And a very interesting topic as well, so I'm actually going to fork the thread at this point to start a new thread on that point.

Sparks

Okay, on that point of les' it's a paradox. Yes, there are genuine security concerns. However; it's a bit daft to think that if we don't print your name or photo in a newsletter or on a website that you're somehow more secure. For a start, there's a list of everyone's stuff in Garda HQ. And given the number of times we hear of filled out application forms being just lost in the system, there's no real reason to think that list is as secure as you'd like.
Then there's the question of surveillance. If you want to know who has a firearm, sit out and watch a range on a weekend for a week or two with a camera and a telephoto lens. Get faces and car licence plates.

Leaving aside the whole "steel door on a grass hut" mindset it takes to get worried over people reading a list of scores and names on a website, there's the simple, acknowleged-by-the-gardai fact that all the guns being used for crime right now are either ex-IRA arms or are brought in with drugs shipments. Our stuff just isn't that useful for criminal purposes.

And then on top of that there's the simple truth that a sport that never publicises itself is never going to be popular. And we have few enough people, and our average age is so damn high, that we can't really afford to not strive to be popular

There are exceptions; but mostly these are those covered by law (the Code of Ethics for Children in Sport, for example, says you shouldn't identify under-18s in photos, that you should give out their first names only and not identify who is who. Of course, when you have only one guy and three girls in the photo, or when they're holding the gold, silver and bronze medals, that becomes a bit of a joke, but anyways...). The rest of us need to come to a better arrangement with regard to publicity!

conce452

It is up to every individual to make his firearms as secure as possible, but I know many shooters that are very reluctant to spend money on security.

When you walk into my house you would have to do alot of rooting to figure out that I am a shooter and you would have a hell of a job even finding the safes. This alone makes a big difference. Monitored alarms are not worth a sh!t if the burgler can cut your phone line, always think about that. One way of making the harder is to use expanding fome to fix the plastic box at the side of your house in securley and then fill the box with it. A bit messy but it will do the job and makes it much harder to cut the phone line. Eircom might not be impressed though!

les45

If we want to see our respective sports develop then we must promote sport shooting to a much wider audience . And going forward this promotion will involve the use of photographs ,bios etc. I feel that perhaps we were all slightly nervous in relation to having our sport pistols, we had them but they were only on loan ,and maybe if we kept quite and didnt publish any articles about our sport then we could keep them. This is perhaps a somewhat simplistic view of the pistol climate here over the last 24 months, but I feel that with the enactament of the CJB that maybe we are in a better position to promote the sport, and going forward offer a sport that is enjoyable and interesting .

Sparks

I feel that perhaps we were all slightly nervous in relation to having our sport pistols, we had them but they were only on loan ,and maybe if we kept quite and didnt publish any articles about our sport then we could keep them.

That's not a simplistic view of the pistol scene since '04 les, that's the mindset that's pervaded most levels of all target shooting since '72, so far as I can tell. Sooner it's dead and gone, the better.

I feel that with the interdouction of the CJB that maybe we are in a better position to promote the sport, and going forward offer a sport that is enjoyable and interesting .

Now that I don't understand. The 2006 Act is probably the most threatening thing I've seen for our sport in the thirteen years or so that I've been shooting, and the most threatening thing I've heard of since '72.

conce452

At least with the CJB decisions on who can and cant get a pistol will be more black and white. At the monent it is grey. It depends on who you are and who you know. I know one guy , not a RFD that has 7 pistols only 1 is a rimfire! No he is not a garda.

Sparks

conce452 wrote:

At least with the CJB decisions on who can and cant get a pistol will be more black and white. At the monent it is grey. It depends on who you are and who you know. I know one guy , not a RFD that has 7 pistols only 1 is a rimfire! No he is not a garda.

Except that it won't be. The CJB introduced nothing to clear up the issue of there being no guidelines, it merely created the legal framework to produce them. We've not seen word one of them since, and we have heard even less. And the most likely way the Act will be used to ensure uniformity is to declare all pistols to be restricted and to let the Commissioner's office sort the mess out, and that's not likely to make things that much more black and white

And there's no reason you couldn't have seven or even seventy pistols, by the way. No legal reason anyway.

maglite

why would you want 7 pistols????????/


on the point of droppin off your guns what facilities should a station have or can you drop them up to the barrix for safe keeping while you are away ,,,,how much will a gunsmith charge you

Sparks

Why would you want seven golf clubs?
(Let's see... ISSF 10m air pistol, ISSF 25m standard pistol, ISSF 25m rapid-fire pistol - I know they're both .22lr but the RF has different needs, ISSF 25m centre-fire pistol, ISSF 50m pistol. That's just ISSF and we have five. Add in silhouette or fullbore shooting and you've got many more...)

maglite

cost though

and its 6 fullbore

les45

The introduction of the CJB may as you rightly point out Sparks restrict the free issue of target pistols nevertheless I feel alot more confident of our position . We have two competitions this weekend one in Fermoy and another in MNSI , the IPSA are sending a team to Holland at the end of the month to compete in a Level 3 International Competition . The sport is active and growing ! as you say maybe we are all going to get a bite in the ass, in the meantime lets try to increase our profile and deal with each difficulty as they may arise.

Sparks

nevertheless I feel alot more confident of our position

I just don't understand why though Les. It's like someone gave a bigger hammer to a chap who not only has a history of not working well with us but whose department has a history of acting against us going back over thirty years, and everyone's saying that this means that it's far less likely that we'll get pounded now...

The sport is active and growing !

Indeed, and that's a grand thing, but it had nothing to do with the new Act. And it's the bite in the rear end that the Act could bring about that has me worried.