RTE's Prime Time - Shooting/licensing to be featured Tuesday night...

Our man in Havana

RTÉ would say that now wouldn't they. They say that 5 complaints are impedeing their reporting? Come on now. Well I guess we will leave it upto the BCC to make a decision.

Our man in Havana

May I suggest we discuss any response via PM as we don't want any RTÉ lurkers seeing what response we will send the BCC.

rrpc

Grizzly, although I agree that five complaints wasn't very many you have to accept that many firearms owners do not wish their names to be published (which is the case with these complaints).

This is a personal decision for people to make on the grounds of their own personal security and it's not necessarily indicative of a widespread malaise.

In fact if you look back to the fees issue, many more people exercised their voices in that debate and presumably this was because they wouldn't be readily identifiable to the wider public.

Some of your links didn't work, so I couldn't read the entire reply. One issue I didn't see raised was the juxtaposition of images of a crime scene with a discussion on licensed firearms.

btw, I would be one of those people not wishing to be identified in public, but I am involved in another approach to this issue.

Sparks

Heck with that Bond. RTE says we're a lobby group organising to oppose even-handed reporting - our best defence is to post here because that allows the Commission to see precisely what was going on.

I've been on to the BCC and a simple one-line email to info@bcc.ie is sufficient to let them know you don't feel happy with the RTE response. You can add more detail if you wish to tell they why in detail and they'll pass that on to the commission during deliberations, so that's what I'm going to do. I'll post here in a bit when I have it done; but a single response from me only gets my complaint taken further, so if others aren't happy with the RTE response, they have to reply themselves.

Grizzly 45

Ok folks,have smudged the names on the letter Sparks pointed out.Apologies to any offended.
RRPC
Yeah,thats fine if you dont want to be Id,BUT are we really all that cowed?how many responses to anti letters do you see from gunowners in our papers?Again I only saw Sparks's replies to this programme.We can turn this anyway we want but we DO have a problem with getting things done here.After this I would really now question how many people actually DID put all their proclaimed efforts into the grassroots campain last year.Or was it the few carrying the many in this field of Human endevour.To misquote Churchill.
Which link doesnt work?Proably no 19 as I was editing it?

Sparks

Where's scan number 16 there Grizzly?

Grizzly 45

Back with the rest of them now. Was being edited. So solly Cholly.:D

V Bull

Sparks / Grizzly / Bond,

Just in for lunch and checked my mail. I have received my responce from the BCC to my complaint (Ref No. by PM if required). I am proud to say that I am one of the five.

I too was bitterly disapointed by the very poor responce by the so called concerned firearms holders and shooters of Ireland. Earlier posts on this thread suggested that there was going to be a flood of complaints pouring into the BCC.

I do understand rrpc's point of view about "firearms owners do not wish their names to be published", but come on, just 5 out of how many enraged shooters that watched that programme.

Just a lot of hot air from a lot of big mouthed wanna-bees I guess.

Keep me informed about the reply, guys.........

Vegeta

was the show aired on the 20th of May. Well I thought we had 30 days to complain them no?

I'll admit I haven't sent in a complaint yet as I didn't fill the complaints form fully but I thought we still had time.

Grizzly 45

Welcome to the Famous ...Five :eek::eek::eek::D.

Response has been emailed to BCC.Kept it pretty simple.

What qualifications has Clonan got on being a firearms expert.Please provide proof.Military/civillian or otherwise.Written articles on specific firearms etc.

Why wasnt it mentioned about the FCP or elaborated on by the report that Messers Crofton & Melia were members,or what workthe FCPwas doing in conjunction with gunowners/DOJ Gardai?
Why wasnt the dOJ or Gardai interviewed about general aspects of the firearms laws ,withoun needing to refer to 40 pending High court cases?

The group defamation of Irish shooters from Clonan as to a tragedy waiting to happen..Why was this not edited as it seemed to be designed to instill fear of ligit gunownership.Example Irish Muslim pilots are another 911 waiting to happen?

Why no explanation of sensationalist footage of gangland slayings and man targets?

Use of the term Gun lobby,and why it is incorrect here not to mind deogatory.
Should do for a starter.

Get your skates on then Veg,the sooner things like this are aired and promptly replied to the better.That goes for the rest of yiz as well.Come on FIVE people have tested the water for you all,so it is safe enough.

Vegeta

Grizzly 45 wrote: »

Get your skates on then Veg,the sooner things like this are aired and promptly replied to the better.That goes for the rest of yiz as well.Come on FIVE people have tested the water for you all,so it is safe enough.

Spit polishing as we type

sent

kowloon

I shall add to the complaints.
I don't want it to descend into a rant, just cover what pi55ed me off.

The imagery, the man target etc.

Tommy boys expertise.
- .308 too big
- 9mm scare mongering
- Iraq, Dunblane parallels

Disparity in the representation of both sides.

Anything else I should really include?

Gunter Mauser

Contact your club secretarys requesting members to sign up for a joint submission is one way to make any complaints to this program taken more seriously. I think some clarification is needed as it has not up to this point looked like its been about numbers complaining but more the fact that some posters here actually made complaints and this act was actually all that was required to set things in motion? One joint complaint well written from each club with a list of names? (without addresses if possible) seems democratic as the individual member may not necessarily want to be seen as a club wanna-bee's going it alone without taking any advice from senior committee members.

Sparks

Sent to the BCC by email just now:

On Thu, Jun 5, 2008 at 12:49 PM, BCC contact name snipped wrote:
> Dear Mr. Dennehy,
> An email is sufficient to let us know you are not satisfied with RTÉ's response and wish the complaint to be considered by the Board.
> If you wish to respond more comprehensively to RTÉ's letter you may also do so via email and we will forward this to RTÉ when we are requesting the relevant broadcast footage for the next Board meeting.
> I will keep you informed of the status of your complaint but if you have any further questions please do not hesitate to contact me.
> Best wishes,

Dear ...,
Thank you for the reply. For the record, I am indeed dissatisfied with the RTE response, and I would indeed like to submit a counter-response for consideration by the commission.




Firstly, I would like the commission to understand that the seemingly low number of complaints is not a result of a lack of dissatisfaction with the Prime Time segment. As all BCC reports are publicly reported along with the names of the complainants, many target shooters opted not to complain on the grounds that doing so might lead to compromised personal security. This was not as large a concern for myself because owing to my duties with various rifle clubs and the national governing body over the years, I have already been quite thoroughly "outed", so to speak. For the purposes of disclosure, I note that I have served as Chief Range Officer, Secretary, Vice-Chair and PRO for the Dublin University Rifle Club (DURC), the Wilkinstown Target Shooting Club (WTSC) and the National Target Shooting Association (NTSA); and that currently I remain the Secretary of the WTSC and act as a Range Officer for the DURC. I am no longer on the committee of the NTSA. Also, I'm not a supporter or member of a "gun club", I'm an Olympic Target Shooter who is a member of two Target Shooting clubs. There's a difference, both in tone and technically (gun clubs in Ireland are for hunters and come under the auspices of the NARGC, target shooting clubs are for target shooters and come under the auspices of other NGBs, depending on the disciplines being shot therein).

That addressed, I wish to look at the response from RTE. It begins by stating that "Many senior Gardai believe the ruling leaves them powerless to refuse licences on the grounds of public safety, in the future". I cannot speak as to the beliefs of these unnamed senior gardai, but I can speak as to the veracity of those beliefs - they are utterly wrong. O'Leary v Maher was a High Court judicial review. It cannot overrule Dunne v Donohue, the Supreme Court case taken by the NARGC in 2003 which ruled that the Superintendent was the persona designata. Nor can it overrule the Firearms Act, which clearly states in Section 4(2)(b):

(2) The conditions subject to which a firearm certificate may be granted are that, in the opinion of the issuing person, the applicant—
...
(b) can be permitted to possess, use and carry the firearm and ammunition without danger to the public safety or security or the peace,

The Superintendent is not powerless to refuse to grant a certificate on the grounds of public safety: in fact he or she is legally bound to refuse to grant the certificate if they believe that the applicant could not hold a firearm without threatening public safety. This is not a small difference of interpretation, nor is it arcane knowledge - a very quick reading of the firearms act by any RTE researcher would have turned this up. I submit the recent (May 25) Dail question (which was answered within 24 hours) on this matter as proof that this answer was readily available, even if it would have required a single phone call to the Department of Justice:

146. Deputy Tom Hayes asked the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform his views on whether it is satisfactory that Garda superintendents can not refuse firearm licenses on grounds of risks to public safety; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [21129/08]

Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform (Deputy Dermot Ahern): I can inform the House that Section 4, Firearms Act 1925 addresses conditions of grant of a firearm certificate and specifies that the Superintendent shall, before granting a firearm certificate, be satisfied that the applicant:
(a) has a good reason for requiring the certificate,
(b) can be permitted to have in his possession, use, and carry a firearm or ammunition without danger to the public safety or to the peace, and
(c) is not a person declared by this Act to be disentitled to hold a firearms certificate.

It is, therefore, clear that a Superintendent must always consider public safety when determining the granting of any firearm certificate.

What the O'Leary case did was to clarify that the Superintendent cannot issue a blanket precondition which would state, in effect, that a person could safely use one firearm but not another based purely on the kind of firearm without regard for the application beyond that point - that the law says the applicant must be considered, not the firearm alone. (Obviously, if the applicant is a member of a club whose range is not authorised for a .308 rifle, for example, the application would be denied as the applicant has no suitable place to use the firearm).

Why would anyone wish to dispute the opinion of the Gardai in this matter? It must be kept in mind that Superintendents receive no specific training on the legitimate use of firearms by civilians, and many receive none on firearms in general; and because of this they have very limited technical knowledge of firearms. That impacts on their decision-making. For example, we have seen certificates for 9mm pistols refused, but certificates for .40 caliber pistols granted to the same applicant, even through the .40 calibre is a larger and more powerful round than the 9mm. This happened because the Superintendent in these cases had seen "9mm guns" depicted by Hollywood action films but had never seen a .40 calibre. It is not unknown for Hollywood to influence things in this way - the 1964 Firearms Act saw debate in the Seanad (now in the public domain on the oireachtas.ie website) on whether or not the fictional mercury-tipped ammunition depicted in Frederick Forsyth's The Day of the Jackal would be permitted to be licenced in Ireland under the '64 Act. It should be noted that this film, as well as pretty much all other Hollywood film depictions of firearms, have as close a relationship to reality as Frankenstein had to organ transplant surgery.

Moving on, RTE assert that the report was impartial and objective and fair, on the grounds that they included interviews with Tom Clonan, an ex-Army officer who now works as a Media Studies lecturer in DIT and who writes as a security consultant for the Irish Times. I wish at this point to stress that target shooters such as myself are not within his realm of expertise. In point of fact, none of the firearms being reported upon are military. Mr. Clonan may be an expert in 7.62mm NATO machine guns or 5.56mm NATO assault rifles, but he is not an expert in civilian firearms such as the .308 Winchester rifle in the O'Leary case. (As a point of information, if you put a 7.62mm NATO round in a .308 Winchester rifle, the differences in the tolerances and chamber shape mean that there's an unpleasantly high probability that pulling the trigger will cause the rifle to explode a few inches away from your nose. This is a widely-known fact amongst civilian target shooters for obvious safety reasons). Further, it should have been obvious to RTE that they were dealing with civilian firearms - in fact, they use exactly that term several times both in the report and in their response to the complaint. Tom Clonan was simply not an expert in this field and should never have been approached in the first place.

On the matter of Mr.Clonan's statement in the segment that "inevitably we'll have a situation where a weapon will be taken and used inappropriately, for example in a school", I see nothing in the RTE response which defends this statement or the choice of the editors to include it. It does not matter that Des Crofton made an unrelated statement on a separate topic, filmed at a separate time and with no prior knowledge of Mr.Clonan's statement; the fact remains that Mr.Clonan made a statement which was chosen by the Prime Team editors to be broadcast, which stated outright that it is only a matter of time before a licenced firearms owner walks into a school and starts to shoot people. This is utterly reprehensible. Had *any* mention been made of this comment, there would have been far more direct rebuttals of this comment at a minimum. How RTE can choose to broadcast this and simultaneously claim that they have impugned no-one is beyond me.

Further, RTE go on to state that because no RTE presenter actually stated verbally that legally held firearms were being used by their legitimate owners for criminal purposes, that they didn't imply it - despite footage showing criminals using firearms in crimes and an overall sensationalist tone to the final edited footage beginning with human-shaped targets and similar visual and audio cues. I would submit that this is a defence routed by the simple act of referencing the definition of the word "imply".

I specifically complained that Noel Clarke of the Gardai was not interviewed; RTE responds that they could not secure an interview because of ongoing cases in the courts. This is understandable (though mentioning it in the segment would have been desirable), however I must take issue with the way the RTE response states that the upcoming cases are challenging "decisions by Garda Superintendents to refuse gun licences on the grounds of public safety", which is patently untrue and which legally would be without merit given the above noted Section 4(2)(b) in the Firearms Act.

On the same note, I asked why Garreth Byrne, the chairman of the Firearms Consultation Panel and the head of the Department of Justice's Firearms Section was not interviewed. The response was that Des Crofton was sufficient as he was a shooter and a representative on the Panel. This is patently unreasonable and evasive. Des Crofton was not interviewed in his capacity as an FCP representative (and would not have been the appropriate choice in any case). Des was instead interviewed in his capacity as the Director of the NARGC. At no point was he put forward as representing the Firearms Consultation Panel, indeed the Panel was never mentioned in the show. Further, Garreth Byrne is not involved in any upcoming cases and is not under the same considerations as Noel Clarke would have been in this regard. There were, in other words, no valid reasons not to interview him, and by not doing so, RTE omitted completely any coverage of the work of the FCP in moving forward with firearms legislation in a safe and efficient manner. This is the single most important development in firearms legislation in recent years; omitting it renders any report inaccurate and incomplete. They also completely failed to present the viewpoint of the Department of Justice in this matter, which would have been contrary to the tone of the segment, as the very existence of the Firearms Consultation Panel demonstrates.

RTE states they believe that it is correct to say that "the more guns there are in society, the more likely that there will be an accident or that a gun will be used inappropriately". Even if we omit for a moment the obvious preexisting bias this statement reflects, it needs to be pointed out that the earliest record of target shooting in Ireland dates from a record in the National Botanic Garden's library written in 1841. Since that point, target shooting has not seen the "accident or inappropriate use" RTE refers to. Not once in 167 years. That's a flawless safety record that is longer than the history of the state.

I do not assert by this that target shooters are infallible, in fact our procedures are based on the opposite assumption; however I think it very difficult for RTE to justify such a negative attitude in the face of such a safety record. Moreover, I would point out that the assertion that an increase in firearm numbers leads inevitably to an increase in accidents or crimes is an assertion that has seen much scholarly study over the past few decades which has culminated in the recent judgement by the National Academy of Sciences in the US that to date no proof of or against this assertion has met sufficiently rigorous standards for any judgement to be made. RTE may have a belief in this regard; but by the highest standards of science today, there is no proof of their belief.

Further, even were they proven to be correct, I would point out that we have seen an increase of 1,787 pistols out of 231,000 firearms over a period of four years. This equates to an increase of about 0.2% per annum. That is not a vast increase, and has happened in a period of time where the population has risen by 8.6% according to the CSO; proportionately then, there are fewer firearms in society today than there was before the policy against licencing pistols was lifted.

It should also be noted that those 1,787 pistols are not all the high-calibre pistols portrayed in the report. Many, if not most, are air pistols and smallbore (.22 calibre) pistols. It was not even mentioned in the report that the policy against licencing pistols meant we could not train or compete for a full third of the Olympic shooting events and that now we can and have seen fantastic progress from those shooters now training to compete internationally.

In short, the assertion given by the segment, that there were huge numbers of fullbore pistols around, that the numbers were exploding and that there would soon be even more, is utterly false and unsupported by the publicly available statistics.

As a small aside, RTE asserts that the fullbore pistols in the report are "some distance away from the farmer's shotgun". The pistols in the report were all 9mm pistols; a 12-gauge farmer's shotgun has a calibre of nearly 13mm. So RTE are correct, if by "some distance" you mean 4 millimetres.

RTE assets that there is a "gun lobby" in Ireland, that the organisations that organise and promote the use of firearms are part of this "gun lobby". This is false. There is no single body which all the relevant organisations belong to. Even moving beyond this technical point, an analogy that explains the problem would be that RTE are saying that the GAA, IRFU and FAI form a "ball sports lobby". However, the term "ball sports lobby" does not regularly get said to a backdrop image of Charlton Heston holding a rifle in the air. There is an undeniable negative tone associated with the term, and it is neither fair nor objective to use it when no such lobbying body exists. There are a collection of national governing bodies of sport and there is the NARGC; all are independent bodies who have had no history of cooperation, and their function is not lobbying.

As to RTE's specific responses to myself, they provide no defence to the original complaints. It would be humorous if it were not so personal to see RTE defend themselves on the characterisation of the report as depicting target shooters (the term gun enthusiasts is both inaccurate and negative in tone) as "criminals in training" by merely saying that it didn't happen; and in the very next sentence go on to defend the technical accuracy of their report by putting forward Mr.Clonan - whose statements were the ones which compared us to insurgents in Iraq and asserted that we would inevitably walk into a school and start shooting.

As to the claim that by pointing out that the 1972 Temporary Custody Order ended in 1972 instead of in 2004, I am merely "hair-splitting", I would submit that it's merely the truth. If RTE believe that the difference between correct and incorrect is just hair-splitting, they should not be reporting on anything.

Also I do not accept that it is any defence for such a reprehensible report being broadcast to state that it doesn't matter because everyone else was off watching Dustin.

Finally, I wish to address the allegation by RTE's public affairs department that RTE is the subject of some vast internet conspiracy to "impede the media in its present and future coverage of the gun community in Ireland". Firstly, the BCC received five complaints. If five complaints are sufficient to impede the media in anything, the media have more serious problems to contend with than this complaint. Secondly, every target shooter who watched the segment was offended, and target shooters, like all other Irish people, talk. If you wish to read the discussion, it is in the public domain here, which is something RTE certainly cannot claim:

http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?threadid=2055296470

As you can see, we watched the show, were offended by its tone and inaccuracies, we talked about it, we wondered what we could do about it, we found out and a few of us followed through on it and complained. The fact that we discussed the show amongst ourselves is not wrong. The fact that we did so in public belies the accusation that this is some scheme to subvert the media.

Finally, I wish to return to the subject of preexisting bias. Since the Prime Time segment aired, I have had the opportunity to talk to those shooters who were filmed in the Midlands shooting centre for the segment. During filming on the range, RTE's cameraman was constantly urging shooters to be more aggressive in their actions, to behave in a "Hollywood" fashion, to slam magazines into firearms (despite the damage this would do to the firearms), to shoot faster and faster, and so on. I believe from this, and from the comments on RTE's beliefs about firearms that I discussed above, that the Prime Time editorial team entered into the making of this segment with preexisting biases against target shooting, that they failed to do adaquate basic research as a result, and that they edited the footage collected and chose who they would and would not interview, all with the aim - be it subconcious or not - to put forward the most negative image of target shooting that they could. They completely failed to reflect the current state of firearms legislation in this country, a state which has the drawback of being far less sexy and far less contentious and thus far less able to sell advertising time - but which does have the redeeming merit of being far safer than the image they put forward.

Thank you for your time.

Yours in Sport,

Sparks

I think perhaps I was more annoyed than I originally thought, but RTE's response was so utterly devious that I'm quite miffed at it.

It wasn't me!

Hell of a response Sparks. Will be interesting to see how it goes now.

Sparks

Straight off the bulk email spam filter the first few times IWM
Touchtyping and being annoyed about something - not a good mix

It wasn't me!

Ha! Oh dear. You know you've peeved them if they've diverted your e-mail address to their spam filter.

bencherman

Ill look forward too this show.....im a firearms holder myself and i have one opinion on this matter........CRIMINALS DO NOT ASK FOR A FIREARMS LICENCE........only the law abiding citizen will go through the proper procedures for the licence...Therefore yes supers do waste the taxpayers time and money on this matter...

Grizzly 45

Sparks wrote: »

Straight off the bulk email spam filter the first few times IWM
Touchtyping and being annoyed about something - not a good mix

Nope..But in your case on Hell of a potent one.
If this is you Teed off with somthing Sparks,what are you like REALLY Teed off??:D:D:D:D

Bring on the noise BCC and PT!!

Gunter Mauser

Very good response sparks. The very fact that members of the shooting community quiet openly talk and discuss matters on this forum highlights the honest intentions of people with nothing to hide.The deer stalker with the 308 bazooka was also made feel out of place having firepower beyond his needs but the same 308 is seen as something appropriately correct for stalking / target shooting all over the world.

G17

Only five complaints? Sigh.

Grizzly 45

Thats a fact G17.:(.At this point of time folks.Methinks we have discussed this,analysed it,chopped it up into its component bits and whatnot.WHAT would really helpful now is,is posts from folks saying that they genuinely have downloaded the BCC forms and mailed in a complaint,and showing some evidence that they have.
Talking is one thing.DOING is another.
If you are worried about your prsonal security on this.Iwill set up a street mailing address in a city of Ireland and you can use this free of charge,buckshee gratis,for nowt to register your complaint from there.Simply state you are doing this for your own security POV,Re firearms security[brownie point there somwhere] and will supply the BCC with your genuine address if it can be kept confidential and it is for a genuine reason. No reason why that would not be acceptable.Iwill remail your letters to your revelant addresses,and close the box when this is over.Simple,and safe. There is no excuse not to write in to the BCC on this.

V Bull

Just in from work and have faxed off my response, not as detailed as Sparks but I think just as good.............

Thanks Sparks & Grizzly..

G17

I've emailed the BCC to further my complaint.

I love shooting targets, my wife does, my best friends do, I spend every Saturday I can, drinking coffee and laughing and shooting paper targets in a big sandy hole in the middle of nowhere.

I do everything on line I possibly can, I work in I.T., so it makes sense that I chat with, question, berate and shout at my mates in the shooting forum about our common sport.

Just because I think an RTE show is unfair and I give out stink here doesn't mean I want to impede the media. I just want the media to be fair to my sport as I'm terrified that by reporting an inaccurate Hollywood style image of sporting shooting, our policy makers will try to fix a problem that simply doesn't exist.

I know how T.V. shows are made, first hand, and I know that you need drama, it takes 20 minutes in the morning to brush your teeth and to have your breakfast but it doesn’t make for a good soap opera. But by airing this inaccurate report with a negative, ‘imminent danger’ tone towards sporting shooting, RTE are unfairly putting our sport in jeopardy, hence my complaint.

kerryman12

I have received my response to-day also, Info by PM if required.

Sparks that is some response lad - good job.

I will leave it to the more experienced to point out any deficiencies in the technicalities of the report. Putting that to one side I believe there is still a question to be answered as per my original post see below:

kerryman12 wrote: »

But to be honest the piece that annoyed me most of all was the way it was edited. Tom's comment about it only being a matter of time before we have a public incident - hinting @ columbine etc, being used as the last comment on the piece, left hanging to the viewer was not very balance IMO:mad:

For the normal member of the public it is references such as this that will stick in the mind. This report I believe was edited to have just this effect. That was and still is my principle issue with this piece. It appears to me that RTE have admitted a bias in the response; “ RTE does not disagree with this, the more guns there are in society the more likely that there will be an accident or a gun will be used inappropriately. RTE believes this is factually the case”

As I understand the law (feel free to correct me) it is legal to hold a firearm up to and including .308. The court case in question was only looking for what is allowed for in the law. Allowing a individual to hold a firearm should be determined based on the points with in the law and not based on a individual superintendent not want such a weapon in his area.

Finally and perhaps most importantly the way RTE are trying to discredit our complaints is quite reprehensible. The fact that our concerns on this piece have been discussed in a open and transparent manner on a public forum surely indicates no hidden agenda. We are only using the mechanism provide by the state.

Grizzly 45

A letter today in De Examiner from Paul Maguire titled PT report was fair and balanced.
Basically spouting the same BS line RE Crofton ,Melia and the non interviewing of the FCC or Gardai that PT has spouted in their reply to the BCC.
Worth a look and reply??

Vegeta

Grizzly 45 wrote: »

A letter today in De Examiner from Paul Maguire titled PT report was fair and balanced.
Basically spouting the same BS line RE Crofton ,Melia and the non interviewing of the FCC or Gardai that PT has spouted in their reply to the BCC.
Worth a look and reply??

Good catch. Just because you give equal air time to both sides of an arguement does not make it a fair and balanced representation.

Tom Clonan was able to say what he liked without any chance of a rebuttle from the shooting community. Again its hard to say if Tom Clonan was edited or it was his own opinion.

Anyone remember the simpsons where Homer was interviewed about his alleged sexual assault.

Our man in Havana

Grizzly 45 wrote: »

A letter today in De Examiner from Paul Maguire titled PT report was fair and balanced.
Basically spouting the same BS line RE Crofton ,Melia and the non interviewing of the FCC or Gardai that PT has spouted in their reply to the BCC.
Worth a look and reply??

Is it online at all?

Sparks

Yup, on the Examiner website:

Firearms report was fair and balanced

AS the reporter who compiled RTÉ's Prime Time report on May 20 on a recent High Court case concerning the firearms legislation in Ireland, I would like to respond to Mark Dennehy’s letter (June 2), which criticised it.


The report examined the recent High Court judgment of Ms Justice Maureen Harding Clarke, which found a garda superintendent had erred when he refused an experienced hunter a licence for a .308 calibre rifle, on the grounds of public safety.

The judge said the superintendent had focused on the size and type of firearm instead of the character of the applicant.




The report looked at the implications of that judgment both for the gun fraternity and for garda superintendents, who are the licensing authorities.

It also examined the growth in licensed firearms in Ireland and the increasing sophistication and power of the guns being used by hunters and marksmen.

In his letter, Mr Dennehy asked where was the interview with the gardaí, the shooting community and the Firearms Consultative Panel.

At present, 40 cases are still before the courts.

The cases were taken by the gun lobby to challenge decisions by garda superintendents to refuse gun licences on the grounds of public safety.

The gardaí declined our invitation to be interviewed because the cases are ongoing.

In relation to the shooting community and the Firearms Consultative Panel, Mr Dennehy may not be aware that Des Crofton, the director of the National Association of Regional Game Councils, sat on the consultative panel and is also an active member of the shooting community, as is Joe Melia, who also represented Ireland in international competitions. Both of these prominent members of the shooting community featured in the report.

Paul Maguire
Reporter
Prime Time
RTÉ Television
Donnybrook
Dublin 4