License the firearm or License the Owner

ironsight

Here's a question for you all.

In your considered opinion's which system would appear to be the best, Should we license the firearm or license the owner, how do you see the difference having any effect on the shooting community.

I look forward to reading your replies.

Stay safe

CJhaughey

OMOL is IMHO the way to go, many other jurisdictions have used this and found it to be successful.
The current setup (I am not calling it a system) is poor and expensive to run.

Clare gunner

OMOL is the way to go.Saves time,yours and Gardai time,and should save money as well.Should be easier to do in this computor age with PULSE etc.Can see it a bit tricky to redo the liscense,it wont be the old A4 sheet of paper,and will be intresting to see the mechanics of doing the removal/adding of firearms.

.243

in the north they are just removed on one line and the new one inserted in a fresh line underneath,your ammo consumption is on the back,every time you buy ammo its written on the back how much and stamped buy the gun dealer

Traumadoc

In Australia I had a firearm licence which was renewed every 1, 3, or 5 years which ever you could afford at the time.
It gave details of which classes of firearms you could buy and what you could use them for (target shooting, club use, hunting etc).

Firearms were then were registered to you and there was no recurring charges.

Sparks

I don't think there are any shooting groups in the state who support the one-firearm-one-licence model over the one-person-one-licence model.

mcguiver

Licence the shooter makes more sense, get rid of the paper and get a proper licence/i.d. with security features.

Always seemed crazy that a piece of paper that most teenagers could forge easilly can be used to get ammunition!

Clare gunner

.243 wrote:

in the north they are just removed on one line and the new one inserted in a fresh line underneath,your ammo consumption is on the back,every time you buy ammo its written on the back how much and stamped buy the gun dealer

Must be a pretty big liscense book then!:eek: If you are practical pistol or claybusting you are talking hundreds, or thousands of rounds a month if you are a pro.So how does that work?Am intrigued

rrpc

Well you're probably buying in the quantities that you're using. My old NI licence used to have five or so pages which would give quite a bit of space to ammo purchases.

Clare gunner

Clare gunner wrote:

Must be a pretty big liscense book then!:eek: If you are practical pistol or claybusting you are talking hundreds, or thousands of rounds a month if you are a pro.So how does that work?Am intrigued

Target shooters as well..

I buy ammo in quite large quantities.

Clare gunner

Did you have an ammo limit up in NI??And was it dually recorded in a dealer logbook of ammo sales like down here?

astraboy

Practically, how about this:

Each person wanting a license for a weapon for the first time gets a license.(after proving you are buying the firearm for target shooting or hunting and have made all usual provisions for a license) This could be represented by an ID card type thing with the persons picture. You are given a license ID that will be on your card. This ID is used in the pulse system to link you to the firearm you have purchased, and also any additional firearms you purchase in the future will be added on the system under you ID.

As for ammo etc, perhaps you could receive an "ammo sheet" when you recieve approval for each firearm for that class of ammo, and use this to prove to a dealer you can purchase ammo. The sheet could state the limit you have on possession of such ammo and maybe, if there is a need for it, have areas where the amount you bought, where and when is filled in. If the sheet gets full(say there are 5/6 pages to fill) you can request a new one at the guarda station. Each license and firearm sheet will be replaced every 5 years.

This is just something I had a brief think about, it would mean each shooter is licensed, and easier and quicker approval and addition of new firearms to your license, plus there is a way to prove you can buy ammo for each firearm you have. Any thoughts on this people?

Vegeta

Nice Nice

Clare gunner

Why not simply have it that each gun on the liscense card has a ammo limit written in under it?IE shotgun no1 description,cal serial no ,ammo limit 500 rds,handgun 500 rds, rec. Info on how much is bought is still recorded in the dealer log book.
Keep It Simple Stupid.:D

astraboy

The idea for the license was that it would be just that, a license to own a firearm and would be simple, ie credit card sized. For instance, you don't have the registration and make of your car on your driving license. Your car documentation is separate, when you change your car your license stays the same. Whit your idea every time you need to add an new gun to your record your license has to change. I though by keeping the license and gun docs separate it would mean less hassle every time you added a new one to your collection, or sold one on. You still have to apply for approval for each new firearm anyway right?

rrpc

Astraboy

That system is not workable. If you don't carry a list of firearms on your licence, then noone can ascertain as to whether firearms you are carrying are licenced or not. This would be especially true if you are travelling out of the country or even outside your area.

The europass is the form we should be following in this. Has photo ID, list of firearms and quantity of ammo beside each one.

Clare gunner

Clare gunner wrote:

Why not simply have it that each gun on the liscense card has a ammo limit written in under it?IE shotgun no1 description,cal serial no ,ammo limit 500 rds,handgun 500 rds, rec. Info on how much is bought is still recorded in the dealer log book.
Keep It Simple Stupid.:D

CG - I buy 0.22 ammo by the thousand, but Jimmy down the road will only have the standard 500.. I could see the system going horribly wrong if it went your way..

I like RRPC's idea; maybe tack some form of an ammo log book onto a europass-esque license and there you go.. a complete list of all the rifles you are allowed to hold, and associated ammo. Restictions and the like would plug in easily as well.

.243

Clare gunner wrote:

Must be a pretty big liscense book then!:eek: If you are practical pistol or claybusting you are talking hundreds, or thousands of rounds a month if you are a pro.So how does that work?Am intrigued

the licence is about the size of an a4 page with your photo and firearm details on the front,on the rear is where your ammo details are written down,so when its full,you just get a fresh one off the f.o officer at your local station,plus i think the restrictions on ammo consumption are alot higher,

here's an even better one,i go to midland game fair in england every year where there are about around 150 gundealer stalls alone,so your thinking of upgrading? no problem bring your firearm and cert,do the deal on the spot the dealer does a temporary amendment to the cert and staples the dealership transaction to it and you walk away with your new firearm you then have 5 days grace to go to your local police station to get it done by the f.o,if you forget (very rare i hear)policeman arrives at your door after recieving an e-mail from the seller who has sent him a list of who bought what in his area.

mcguiver

It's 2007, no need for paper!
Credit card type licence, chipped or magnetic strip. Swiped when buying ammo.
De-cativated if licence isn't renewed, Re-activated when it is.

Clare gunner

original_psycho wrote:

CG - I buy 0.22 ammo by the thousand, but Jimmy down the road will only have the standard 500.. I could see the system going horribly wrong if it went your way..

Just using as an example.. If Jimmy down the road says he needs 10k worth of .22 ammo as well,well his liscense can be ammeded to such.Whats the problem??

Mac G is right..This thing should be brought down to a credit card sized liscense.Only trouble is I see dealers having to be connected into a central database with the Gardai.This involves computors and such,also it opens another Pandoras box of Data protection,information storage etc.
I think we should run away from that idea quite quickly,for the moment.
Seeing that we are not very good with large computor networks here in Govt hands,like the E voting machine,PULSE,and the Social welfare computor.

243.Yeah,a great system that is in the UK
But the fact is the UK has a greater network of computor data bases on each individual than Ireland has .
Weather this "big brother" style society has it,s advantages or disadavantages,is open to much debate.You are easier tracked on the UK mainland than here.[Hence the reason many dodgy heads from the UK flee over here].So unless we become more an intrusive surveillance society on the individual,that system would be much to open to abuse,unfortuneatly.

Simple system,get the weapons details on somthing like a passport sized booklet divided into the revelant categories of firearms. Under each entry of the guns details there is another line that is for the sale of the gun to it's new owner. Private seller or dealer fills in the details,you take that within 5days to your Garda station,they note details of the transfer on the PULSE,and stamp the transaction with the Garda station stamp.Sale compleated.
Ammo ,each gun comes with a de riguer 500 rounds,you want more apply with good reason to FAO.It's approved/rejected.Approved,it is noted to what calibre and gun on the liscense. Amount of ammo sold is dealer logged in the old log book.Worked for generations,no point in changing that part.

Sparks

mcguiver wrote:

It's 2007, no need for paper!
Credit card type licence, chipped or magnetic strip. Swiped when buying ammo.
De-cativated if licence isn't renewed, Re-activated when it is.

Works really well - if the state can set up the system (*thinks about eVoting and PULSE for a moment*).

If however, you go abroad - well, what are the odds that the french or german or swiss or outer mongolian governments could read that chip or stripe? Or have access to the Irish database?

Nope, can't see that working. Speaking as a computer engineer; stick to paper.

astraboy

rrpc wrote:

Astraboy

That system is not workable. If you don't carry a list of firearms on your licence, then noone can ascertain as to whether firearms you are carrying are licenced or not. This would be especially true if you are travelling out of the country or even outside your area.

The europass is the form we should be following in this. Has photo ID, list of firearms and quantity of ammo beside each one.

I'm not familar with the euro pass, but I suppose a system where your license and list of firearms registered to you are on the same document. I was just thinking about the difficulties of modifying the license each time you changed firearms or got a new one, but people seem to have addressed this. A passport style document with your name, address and picture on one page and a page for each subsequent firearm(+ details, calibre, ammo limit, serial no. etc) you own would be great. Then like getting a stamp/visa in your passport, a new firearms details could be added on another page when needed.

Having the whole system electronicly would be great but it would require each gun dealer to have a compatiable system as well as the police, costing probably millions to administer, back up and maintain. Maybe a few years down the road yes, but I'm sure most people would perfer to have a proper document to prove they are licensed.

kowloon

The Government would overcomplicate and **** up any electronic system, and whoever got paid to set it up would shaft them on the cost.
Which would then be used as a justification for increasing the license fee.
If it finally got up and running there would be massive flaws, and because it was so difficult and expensive to set up it would be left broken.

The gardai and the firearms dealers would have to be trained to use a computerised system, more money....

Why not a passport sized book with plenty of space for whatever might be needed, club membership etc.
If you get rid of a gun they cross it out or tear out the section, easy to use, run out of pages, get a new book. Simple.

.243

the computers didnt deter the people up in the park,because as of a cpl of mths ago,all importation of firearms through irish dealers from outside the state have to be done on line now,they are phaseing out the application by post,apply online,recieve importation cert in post or a refusal letter