Where do you do your gun training?

kowloon

Wouldn't like to be hit on the head by a shotgun slug falling back to earth, it has a bit of mass to its advantage.
A fair few people have been killed by AAA fire being enslaved by the laws of physics and falling back to earth.

Lesson: It's not a good idea to shoot into the air.

Anyway, back on topic: Everyone knows that real terrorists train through airsoft and paintball :rolleyes:

Them with their laser scopes and sawn off ak16 assault machinegun blasters.

Wertz

While I worry about gun crime as much as the next citizen, the fact is guns are here already and have been here for a long time...whether the f*cks who use them with criminal intent can pick off a headshot or not doesn't really matter; any idiot can pull a trigger, and if they think they're inept enough to miss they'll just close range to be more sure.
Training in automatic weapons isn't nearly as worrying as the fact that criminals can get their paws on them almost as readily as our forces of law and order.
We can't be insular as part of the EU, we (well most of us, and the government) are quite happy to take the good aspects of expansion into EE, like low cost labour, new markets, property investment and cheap holidays, but want to close out all the bad stuff...and as I mentioned above, there are plenty of young men arriving in this country who've been well trained in the use of weapons, who may well have a criminal record that we have no way of knowing about.
It's like trying to stop a guy from heading off to holland for a weekend of hookers and weed, just because we have legislation against such things here...okay not the same safety concerns, but the same principle.
I can see the point about at least monitoring the movement of people with serious criminal records to country's with laxer gun controls, maybe some sort of endorsement on their passport, that could flag them at POE...I'd certainly like to see that for people coming to our country, but pre-empting people's intentions of what they'll do upon their visiting those countries by prohibiting them visiting it entirely, is unfair and unworkable.
The fact that the EU doesn't already have such a system for overseeing the movement of felons across borders (that I'm aware of) is rather shortsighted. We also have little in the way of real police force integration, past major international crime.
I don't particularly want a federal type system for the EU, but that's the way most of the EU governments want to go...measures like I've mentioned would need to be a cornerstone of any such system, not an afterthought...

Steyr

testicle wrote: »

My testicle it is.

I can see you've learned absolutely nothing about weapons safety in the FCA.

Have you ammunition at home? Those photographs are from your personal photobucket.

Look who crawled out of the woodwork, since when did you see live ammo being issued with blank ammo? Il tell you when, never.

Seeing as your not internet savvy about uploading pictures you will note that Photobucket is used to upload pictures so i used "photobucket" to upload pictures from the Internet to Boards, easy peasy. And no i do not have ammunition at home son. The reason for posting those pictures is clear enough but you obviously didnt cop on as to the reason, so here you go....look at the heads on the Bullets. Enough said.


Not although Blank ammo is dangerous it has to be said that the blank cartridge has no projectile. The case mouth is closed with a seven-petal rosette crimp.

astraboy

If people want to go to another country and enjoy target shooting, so what. I have done it many times myself in the U.S, even bought my friends for a day out to the range when they visited last summer. Everyone enjoyed it. I hate the way anything to do with firearms is painted as obscure and evil and only enjoyed by people without normal social skills. Yes firearms are dangerous in the wrong hands, so is a golf club.

Our overly restricted licensing system makes it near impossible to go and do a days handgun shooting in Ireland. If people travel to Poland or wherever for a weekend and decide to do it, thats their business. If they only want to go shooting because they have seen too many movies, that also is no worry once they are shown basic safety and follow the procedures of the range. Again, this is an example of the majority being punished for the sins of the few. A day at the range is a fun thing to do and everyone of sound mind that wishes to enjoy it should be allowed do so.

civdef

Look who crawled out of the woodwork, since when did you see live ammo being issued with blank ammo? Il tell you when, never.

Every single time blank is used, there's ball knocking about too, think about it. (HINT:the colour white).

It has been mixed up on occasion, sometimes with tragic results.

Dyr

gay mitchell was once described as "appearing to become aroused at the sight of microphone". he's legendary for spouting wont-somebody-think-of the-children nonsense like this, i dont think anyone pays attention to him anymore.

testicle

Steyr wrote: »

Look who crawled out of the woodwork, since when did you see live ammo being issued with blank ammo? Il tell you when, never.

Who does security?
Can you see the tip of the round in the dark?

Mixing of live and blank can and does happen with tragic consequences, and you are very very naive if you think it doesn't.

As for photographs, I just link to the original photo from whatever website i get it from. Just like this one.

Neamhshuntasach

In the jungles of southeast Colombia

Donny5

testicle wrote: »

Mixing of live and blank can and does happen with tragic consequences, and you are very very naive if you think it doesn't.

It really does happen, no matter what anyone else says. Testicle is bang on the money.

The Al Lad

there's a great place in tallaght to do gun training, its called Jobstown

Witcher

Fad wrote: »

i shot a M16 in 'nam (i really did i was in vietnam last febuary and a the cu chi tunnels visitors site you have a choice between a big aray of gun)

you dont shoot guns you shoot targets



:cool::cool::cool:

Steyr

The Al Lad wrote: »

there's a great place in tallaght to do gun training, its called Jobstown

guinnessdrinker

Unfotunatly live and blank ammo do get mixed up and this has happened in the past. Have a look at this Dail question from 2001.

http://historical-debates.oireachtas.ie/D/0545/D.0545.200112040007.html

Kernel

Sparks wrote: »

No, it isn't.

Good counter argument there. Case closed eh?

Sparks wrote: »

Leaving aside the somewhat humourous take that maybe if they could shoot straight you wouldn't see too many innocent bystanders shot,

That's a preposterous argument.

Sparks wrote: »

there's the minor point that the eejit is suggesting that we restrict travel of our citizens to a foreign country within the EU on the grounds that they might engage in something perfectly legal there.

Eh... nowhere did Mitchell suggest any restriction on freedom of movement....... Which is a constitutional right in Ireland.

Sparks wrote: »

Care to suggest how you could legislate to stop that? Or are we going to invade the Czech Republic and change their legislation to make it illegal to have firing ranges there to allow tourists to shoot?

Here's a good start:

Mr Mitchell has asked the Council to amend the directive to include an obligation on the part of firing range owners to keep a register of customers that would be available to police on demand.

Of course, to take it a step further; a common European legislation in regard to firing ranges, prohibiting such training.

FunkZ

Slingshots are actually the way forward peeps.

Raphael

guinnessdrinker wrote: »

Unfotunatly live and blank ammo do get mixed up and this has happened in the past. Have a look at this Dail question from 2001.

http://historical-debates.oireachtas.ie/D/0545/D.0545.200112040007.html

Or Brandon Lee's death for that matter.

Manic Moran

That's a preposterous argument.

Install sense of humour module. However, it actually does make sense and has been commented on by US law enforcement in the past: If gangbangers are going to be intent on shooting each othe anyway, if they would be good enough to confine their fire to only the intended target, third-party casualties which are not that uncommon would be greatly reduced.

Kernel wrote: »

Eh... nowhere did Mitchell suggest any restriction on freedom of movement....... Which is a constitutional right in Ireland.

It's a restriction on the freedom of movement of goods and services in that it adds extra conditions.

Of course, to take it a step further; a common European legislation in regard to firing ranges, prohibiting such training.

Why? People might want such training. And in some Eastern European countries, particularly those with militia-style militaries, they might actually need it.

The US experience, where such courses are easily available, indicates that criminals tend not to bother themselves attending anyway. Very rarely have I ever seen footage of a criminal using an approved draw technique, stance, or tactical movement. (Actually, I can't think of any offhand that I've even heard of, with exception of one bloke about six months ago, who was taught by the Army, not a private course)

NTM

baztard

The Al Lad wrote: »

there's a great place in tallaght to do gun training, its called Jobstown

I thought it was called NoJobstown?

Sparks

Kernel wrote: »

Good counter argument there. Case closed eh?

Yes, several years ago when the supreme court ruled that it was not constitutional to prevent women travelling abroad on the basis that they might get an abortion in the UK. Different application, same principle - you cannot restrict the travel rights of a citizen on the grounds that they might engage in activities outside of this jurisdiction which would be illegal here but legal there.

That's a preposterous argument.

It's not an argument at all, it's humour. Hence the reason for saying it was humour. Just in case someone might think I was being serious. Sadly, I forgot to put that bit in red bold blinking 40-point type. My mistake, obviously.

Eh... nowhere did Mitchell suggest any restriction on freedom of movement.

Indeed. All he did was say people were going from here to there to engage in firearms training for the purpose of abusing illegally held firearms here in criminal activities, and that that had to be stopped. Which obviously means we're going to invade the Czech Republic to put a stop to it :rolleyes:

Here's a good start

It's not a good start. It's not even a start. It's the law in most EU states, and it does feck all good, because it means the information is in some book, somewhere in the EU, in some language - which means it is of almost zero use to any police officer anywhere in the EU, both before and after a crime involving the criminal abuse of firearms. If it's before, then the information is not only practically impossible to find, it requires the police to actively seek it out. Any system requiring the range to seek the police would be unworkable because of the infrastructure you'd have to put in place. If it's after the crime, guess what? Someone committed an act of armed robbery or assault or murder, and you don't need to be messing about proving they trained first, you need to be arresting them for armed robbery or assault or murder.
It's the same as all Gay Mitchell ideas - it's plain daft and doesn't stand up to a minute's logical thought.

Of course, to take it a step further; a common European legislation in regard to firing ranges, prohibiting such training.

Yeah, there's an idea - let's ban the training in firearms use. Who cares if firearms have to be used on a daily basis by farmers, hunters, target shooters and others, and the sort of people who you're trying to stop will simply walk out into a field in the middle of the bog somewhere and shoot at tin cans on their own?
:rolleyes:

Seriously, do you not think if writing in a book somewhere would stop armed crime, that we wouldn't be buying better pens instead of MP7 sub-machine pistols with armour piercing bullets for the ERU or ten thousand SiG-Sauer 9mm pistols for the rest of the Gardai?

Look, you want to stop armed crime, fund and train the Gardai to enforce existing laws. Until you do that, you're just faffing about.

Kernel

Manic Moran wrote: »

Install sense of humour module. However, it actually does make sense and has been commented on by US law enforcement in the past: If gangbangers are going to be intent on shooting each othe anyway, if they would be good enough to confine their fire to only the intended target, third-party casualties which are not that uncommon would be greatly reduced.

That's a preposterous argument.

Manic Moran wrote: »

It's a restriction on the freedom of movement of goods and services in that it adds extra conditions.

It's not a restriction on travel, as was Sparks' point. In terms of being a restriction on goods and services, you could apply your logic to the restriction on Ireland importing cannabis and all other kinds of drugs into Ireland from Amsterdam. My point here is that restrictions are necessary in society. Law = restrictions.

Manic Moran wrote: »

Why? People might want such training. And in some Eastern European countries, particularly those with militia-style militaries, they might actually need it.

They may want it, but that doesn't mean it serves the public interest for them to receive it.

Manic Moran wrote: »

The US experience, where such courses are easily available, indicates that criminals tend not to bother themselves attending anyway. Very rarely have I ever seen footage of a criminal using an approved draw technique, stance, or tactical movement.

Yes, but in Ireland, known criminal gangs are heading over to make them more lethal, and to learn tactics employed by agencies such as the ERU. Indeed, there was a report in the paper today on this very thing.

sparks wrote:

Yes, several years ago when the supreme court ruled that it was not constitutional to prevent women travelling abroad on the basis that they might get an abortion in the UK. Different application, same principle - you cannot restrict the travel rights of a citizen on the grounds that they might engage in activities outside of this jurisdiction which would be illegal here but legal there.

Again, nobody is even hinting at restricting anyones right to travel from Ireland.

sparks wrote:

It's not an argument at all, it's humour. Hence the reason for saying it was humour. Just in case someone might think I was being serious. Sadly, I forgot to put that bit in red bold blinking 40-point type. My mistake, obviously.

That was humour? Ah ok, I didn't recognise it as such.

sparks wrote:

It's the law in most EU states, and it does feck all good, because it means the information is in some book, somewhere in the EU, in some language - which means it is of almost zero use to any police officer anywhere in the EU, both before and after a crime involving the criminal abuse of firearms. If it's before, then the information is not only practically impossible to find, it requires the police to actively seek it out. Any system requiring the range to seek the police would be unworkable because of the infrastructure you'd have to put in place. If it's after the crime, guess what? Someone committed an act of armed robbery or assault or murder, and you don't need to be messing about proving they trained first, you need to be arresting them for armed robbery or assault or murder.

The system would not be unworkable, since it would logically consist of a central database, with a small liason office in each country which could process requests from the register. Even if the system was not proactive, then it would not be useless since the information could still be of benefit to the prosecution in a criminal trial.

sparks wrote:

Yeah, there's an idea - let's ban the training in firearms use. Who cares if firearms have to be used on a daily basis by farmers, hunters, target shooters and others, and the sort of people who you're trying to stop will simply walk out into a field in the middle of the bog somewhere and shoot at tin cans on their own?

Farmers and hunters don't need tactical training on use of automatic weapons. This does not threaten the traditional shooting range by any means. It's a sensible restriction which should be brought into place - indeed, Czech Republic should ban such things altogether.

sparks wrote:

Look, you want to stop armed crime, fund and train the Gardai to enforce existing laws. Until you do that, you're just faffing about.

That's a very simplistic view on armed crime you have there. What about our customs problems allowing vast amounts of drugs to enter Ireland? Public demand for cocaine? The myriad of other social problems which lead to gun crime? Prison resources/policies? Judiciary? Legislation? Political will?

Guards have one of the longest (the longest?) training times in the world - you support more training to enforce existing legislation? You need to look more deeply into the root causes of such crime, existing laws can only do so much - although I do believe there should be more Gardaí.

Manic Moran

Kernel wrote: »

That's a preposterous argument.

More cynical, than preposterous. Obviously nobody's suggesting that we should take gangsters out and teach them the finer points of marksmanship to aid them in the carrying out of murder, though sometimes you are drawn to wondering how many third-parties wouldn't have been hit had the shooter the vaguest idea of the principles involved in hitting a target. It's called black humour.

you could apply your logic to the restriction on Ireland importing cannabis and all other kinds of drugs into Ireland from Amsterdam. My point here is that restrictions are necessary in society. Law = restrictions.

And there are those who would argue that the drug restriction is equally pointless. However, the use of drugs seems to have a far greater negative effect on society as a direct result of their use: Whether I go shooting has absolutely no knock-on effect on anything other than on the industries involved in making targets and ammunition.

They may want it, but that doesn't mean it serves the public interest for them to receive it.

Doesn't mean it doesn't, either. Where's the public interest in doing high-speed driver's training courses down at Mondello Park? All the better to teach getaway drivers on how to avoid the Gardai, no? Heaven forbid it should actually teach car control to citizens. One must also note that the Czechs probably have criminals of their own (who in all likelihood are better armed anyway), and the Czech authorities don't seem to have a problem with these ranges.

Yes, but in Ireland, known criminal gangs are heading over to make them more lethal, and to learn tactics employed by agencies such as the ERU. Indeed, there was a report in the paper today on this very thing.

If people going on courses in the Czech Republic on their own time gets them to such a standard that the ERU cannot deal with them, I would have serious questions as to the standard of training the ERU conducts.

The system would not be unworkable, since it would logically consist of a central database, with a small liason office in each country which could process requests from the register. Even if the system was not proactive, then it would not be useless since the information could still be of benefit to the prosecution in a criminal trial.

"We have evidence that the Accused did, with malice aforethought, attend a perfectly legal course in practical marksmanship!" I can see that being useful.

These registries have a very nasty tendancy of being a lot of money for very little use. The Canadian Firearms Registry comes to mind.

Farmers and hunters don't need tactical training on use of automatic weapons. This does not threaten the traditional shooting range by any means. It's a sensible restriction which should be brought into place - indeed, Czech Republic should ban such things altogether.

The Czech Republic, as with most countries in Europe, has a tradition of all citizens being capable of acting in their common defense by having some idea of how to use military grade firearms. You as an Irishman may feel that on your isolated island nation there is little need for such, but who are you to tell other countries with long histories of combat occurring on their soil that their concepts are wrong? They might be just as right to say that Irish people are fools for having such a defenseless population.

NTM

Sparks

Kernel wrote: »

They may want it, but that doesn't mean it serves the public interest for them to receive it.

That's not how Irish law works. We prohibit things shown to be harmful; everything not mentioned is fair game. Which means you have a duty to prove something's harmful before banning it. No-one has done that in this case.

Yes, but in Ireland, known criminal gangs are heading over to make them more lethal, and to learn tactics employed by agencies such as the ERU. Indeed, there was a report in the paper today on this very thing.

Was there? Grand so, arrest them. What, the paper gave no names or proof? Well, don't be silly, you obviously need no checks and balances on your exercise of legislative power, arrest them anyway! To heck with those who say that paper never refused ink and that if it bleeds it leads!

Again, nobody is even hinting at restricting anyones right to travel from Ireland.

Except Gay Mitchell, whose statements can only logically mean one of two things - imposing laws on the Czech Republic or imposing laws on Ireland.

That was humour? Ah ok, I didn't recognise it as such.

That's okay, everyone else did.

The system would not be unworkable, since it would logically consist of a central database, with a small liason office in each country which could process requests from the register.

Oh, is that all it would consist of? Because you just described Pulse. And e-voting. And every other large, failed international IT system ever attempted. And did you consider things like the right to privacy and data protection and that sort of thing? You're demanding an EU-wide, secure, networked database with access from every police station in the EU (by the way, no Garda station currently has internet access...), which integrates with the computer systems of every police force in the EU (including the ones without computers), and caters for users in a dozen different languages. Speaking as a computer engineer for a moment, allow me to reassure you that that is not only a nontrivial task, it's one that we have never successfully managed to do, ever.

Even if the system was not proactive, then it would not be useless since the information could still be of benefit to the prosecution in a criminal trial.

How, exactly? Is learning to shoot more of a crime than actually shooting someone? "Yes, your honour, we know the defendant actually shot the victim twice in the stomach in broad daylight in front of the victim's family as they walked past the pearse street garda station talking to the commissioner; but we're charging him with having gone to the Czech Republic and spending a whole 3 hours on a firing range there learning to become a deadly marksman"

Farmers and hunters don't need tactical training on use of automatic weapons.

No, they don't - but they do need to train to use firearms safely. How do you plan to regulate for this? Or are you saying that it's another small, simple task like your EU-wide police database?

This does not threaten the traditional shooting range by any means.

You do realise a "traditional shooting range" is a field with a hill at one end and that it doesn't know the difference between a black powder musket, an MP5 and a hole in the ground, right?

It's a sensible restriction which should be brought into place - indeed, Czech Republic should ban such things altogether.

It's not sensible, it's not workable, it's not informed or thought through, and cynically, why the hell should the Czechs ban something that doesn't harm them but instead earns them money?

That's a very simplistic view on armed crime you have there.

Forgive my mirth, but that was rather a case of having your table manners criticised by Idie Amin...

The myriad of other social problems which lead to gun crime?

If it's just social problems that lead to gun crime, why do you think the simplistic measure of banning firing ranges in the Czech Republic will fix the gun crime problem in Dublin?

Guards have one of the longest (the longest?) training times in the world - you support more training to enforce existing legislation?

Given that right now Gardai get little to no training in firearms legislation, and are facing a hundred or so cases in the High Court for breaking the Firearms Acts themselves (and have faced hundreds more in the past, all of which they lost in court or capitulated to on the steps), yes, I would. I would demand it as a necessity.

Manic Moran

but that was rather a case of having your table manners criticised by Idie Amin...

Hang on.. Just because he was a ruthless dictator does not mean that he didn't know which fork to use for the fish.

NTM