Criminal Justice (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2009

It wasn't me!

The minister has said he will revisit the situation if a problem demands it. There's been an enormous amount of misinterpretation and misquotation of what he's said. Yes, it's ****, but the harbingers of the apocalypse here are completely useless when they're not working to better the situation either. And to the snide remarks about "national organisations", bollocks.

Half-cocked

Rosahane wrote: »

I suppose that the only benefit of this is that all the national organisations that lickar$ed the minister and the DOJ to further their own agenda at the expense of others will probably wither also:P

Please expand on the above statement. Which national organisations do you mean and how exactly did they 'lickar$ed' the Minister to further their own agenda? I don't think its fair to sling muck like that unless you can back it up with facts.

rowa

Half-cocked wrote: »

Please expand on the above statement. Which national organisations do you mean and how exactly did they 'lickar$ed' the Minister to further their own agenda? I don't think its fair to sling muck like that unless you can back it up with facts.

des crofton's rant against practical pistol in the irish shooters digest .

rrpc

rowa wrote: »

des crofton's rant against practical pistol in the irish shooters digest .

What agenda of Des Crofton's or the NARGC's did that exactly advance?

This is the bit that always gets me. You get people making sweeping statements that somebody's agenda is being served by them 'doing' somebody else when there's not the slightest chance of anyone at that level being in a position to influence anything one way or another.

It's like the so-called 'sellout' argument. People seem to forget that you have to own something before you can sell it.

It really comes down to people not having the balls to admit that they screwed things up and find it far easier to blame somebody else for their own cock-ups.

G17

FO's are attending meetings over the next few days around the country to hear how the passed Bill will affect firearm holders. Just got a message from mine saying his mini conference is tomorrow so he should know more then.

Spare a thought for all the FO's around the country, imagine all the questions they will be fielding in the coming weeks and months, we can do our bit by passing this information on to our respective club members in an accurate way. By accurate I mean only print out official guidelines/forms, no guessing or supposing. Maybe appoint one or two information officers in your club so they can become au fait with the new legislation, they'll generally be much more accessible than many FO's and perhaps less intimidating to deal with for new shooters.

Despite losing an awful lot, I'm personally now looking forward to having much clearer guidelines in place so I can stop worrying about what I'll lose and get on with whipping your respective asses in competition, whatever that competition format may now be...........

Bring it awn, gurlfren

daveob007

I assume that the bill has been signed and now law,is that right?????

If so lets just get on with what we have and enjoy it,,no point blaming anyone now,

rowa

rrpc wrote: »

What agenda of Des Crofton's or the NARGC's did that exactly advance?

This is the bit that always gets me. You get people making sweeping statements that somebody's agenda is being served by them 'doing' somebody else when there's not the slightest chance of anyone at that level being in a position to influence anything one way or another.

It's like the so-called 'sellout' argument. People seem to forget that you have to own something before you can sell it.

It really comes down to people not having the balls to admit that they screwed things up and find it far easier to blame somebody else for their own cock-ups.

what cock up ? practicing a sport thats done in nearly every free country in the world ? does des crofton seem like the type of person who suddenly writes an article slating one of our own sports and goes to the trouble to get it printed in our national shooting magazine for no reason ? maybe he was bored sitting in his office one day and decided "i know ,i'll slag off practical pistol for something to do, yeah "
most of the rest of the shooting bodies simply sat on there hands and stared at the carpet it seems , but he actively assisted ahern with that article and ahern did use it to add credence to his seeking a ban .
i have no interest in practical pistol shooting , never attended a shoot or joined the association ,and have no problem with the nargc or des crofton apart from this incident .

daveob007

Correct me if i'm wrong here.
Was it not des and the nargc who funded the high court challenge in 2004 which led us to getting our pistols back????
Anyway this bill was in the pipeline well before that article because when i applied for my pistol back in july last year i was told by the seargent that new laws were coming in soon banning pistols.
Others were also told this.
Why would anyone go to the trouble of gambling their money on a court case only to contribute to a ban later.

rowa

daveob007 wrote: »

Correct me if i'm wrong here.
Was it not des and the nargc who funded the high court challenge in 2004 which led us to getting our pistols back????
Anyway this bill was in the pipeline well before that article because when i applied for my pistol back in july last year i was told by the seargent that new laws were coming in soon banning pistols.
Others were also told this.
Why would anyone go to the trouble of gambling their money on a court case only to contribute to a ban later.

i was told 3 years ago that they were going to be banned too and .223's and .308's etc , the desk sergeants normally try to discourage applications for anything out of the ordinary and are a bit misleading sometimes.

Bananaman

It really comes down to people not having the balls to admit that they screwed things up and find it far easier to blame somebody else for their own cock-ups

You get people making sweeping statements that somebody's agenda is being served by them 'doing' somebody else

Which national organisations do you mean and how exactly did they 'lickar$ed' the Minister to further their own agenda

I hate to bring the tone down now that the love-in is all set to kick off - but lets face it - the current state of affairs was not helped by those who helped the Minister formulate the bill.

This iincluded NARGC, as outlined by the Minister in the Dail and Seanad - as represented by Mr. Crofton - who obviously has a set against IPSC - to publicly state that it was anathema to the Irish Sporting Culture and that it contained the wrong element - while being incorrect it was also unnecessry unless it was part of a greater agenda - otherwise why did he do it - I have never seen Mr. Crofton at an IPSC shoot so assume he has no knowledge of what he was talking about but basing his opinions on the evidence of others who I have no doubt also never attended a match either.

It included the NTSA - otherwise why would the Olympic disciplines be singled out for excemption when IPSC was singled out for prohibition - they are similar sports of equal standing and the Minister didn't pull that out of his hat. NTSA have stated publicly that they cannot be in the same postcode as IPSC because they are an ISSF affiliate. Considering in countries such as France the ISSF affilaite is also the IPSC affiliate that sounds like a load of horlicks to me.
Any pistol used in Olympic dsciplines is as deadly, in the wrong hands, as any other pistol so his 'advisors' and 'analysts; would never have come to the conclusion that ISSF was any more a sport or safer than IPSC. They were lobbied inot believing so - by who?
Oh yeah and he stated it in the Dail and the Seanad.

It included the NASRPC - the Minister stated as much in both the Dail and the Seanad - I don't believe for one moment that the NASRPCs members were party to this support - I am a member of an NASRPC club and we were never asked about this. I know members of many other NASRPC clubs and they were never asked either.
I have my suspicions who has access to the letterheaded paper though.

It included the SSAI - the Minister stated as much in the Dail and the Seanad. This one was a real surprise to me - I still do not understand it.

It supposedly included all the members of the FCP. Nuf Said. Pass the Hobnobs wha?

The 'testimony' and 'support' of these groups and individuals was the basis of the Ministers argument against the amendments put forward by the opposition politicians which called for exemptions to the prohibitions in the case of internationally recognised sports.

Someone here called on those groups to publicly state that the Minister did not have their support in prohibiting IPSC before the Bill was passed and not one of them did so.

I shoot IPSC and have done so internationally - I am now a resident of the only country in Europe - yes the ONLY country in Europe - in which IPSC is not only not recognised as a sport but may be prohibited under law. People in other countries will ask me how this came about and I will have to tell them that the other shooting bodies let it happen. They could have prevented it but instead they hastened it in the false hope they would be spared.

That outcome is by no fault of my own - it is no fault of the sport - it is the fault of those that lobbied the Minister to make it so.

I'll continue to shoot every discipline that I qualify for but at EVERY opportunity I will make it clear who I believe was to blame for leading the Minister to what he enacted. Long may they hold his pocket.

B'Man

rrpc

Bananaman wrote: »

I hate to bring the tone down now that the love-in is all set to kick off - but lets face it - the current state of affairs was not helped by those who helped the Minister formulate the bill.

The Minsiter formulates his own legislation without help from anyone else and if you check back you'll find that the IPSA were asked to close up shop back in September or October last year, long before any of the stuff you are quoting happened.

It included the NTSA - otherwise why would the Olympic disciplines be singled out for excemption when IPSC was singled out for prohibition - they are similar sports of equal standing and the Minister didn't pull that out of his hat.

Presumably because the Minister might have found it an uphill struggle to ban an Olympic Sport, but he never confided his reasons to me, so I'm only guessing, the same as you are. However your guesses are treading on libellous grounds.

NTSA have stated publicly that they cannot be in the same postcode as IPSC because they are an ISSF affiliate. Considering in countries such as France the ISSF affilaite is also the IPSC affiliate that sounds like a load of horlicks to me.

And yet, the proof of that is available on the internet for anyone who wants to read it. The ISSF ruling on this came out in 2000 The French setup was already in place befiore that ruling. The Greeks also. It's interesting to note that even though the Greeks built a huge and very expensive range for the Athens Olympics, not one ISSF World Cup has been held in it since and it has now closed and is being turned over to the Greek Police for training.

That outcome is by no fault of my own - it is no fault of the sport - it is the fault of those that lobbied the Minister to make it so.

And I'll ask you to explain why anyone would lobby the Minister to do something that negatively affected every pistol shooting body in this country including the NTSA and the NASRPC

I'll continue to shoot every discipline that I qualify for but at EVERY opportunity I will make it clear who I believe was to blame for leading the Minister to what he enacted. Long may they hold his pocket.

And you'll be dead wrong and you'll have jumped to conclusions out of pure bad mindedness based on innuendo and smear. :mad:

kowloon

Am I correct in the assertion that this bill has essentially killed antique firearms collecting through the criminalisation of display? It's been thrown about a few times but I'd like to hear it from someone who knows their stuff.

rrpc

Just to put this "The ISSF get on with the IPSC" bullcrap to bed once and for all, I'm going to post a couple of links which explain the (lack of) relationship very well.

This page although ostensibly an anti gun site is very well researched and quotes extensively from the ISSF news magazine, the GAISF assembly and most interestingly from the IPSC Global Village forum.

This page is the one that describes the ISSF involvement:
http://www.vpc.org/studies/goldfive.htm

And this is the start of the article: http://www.vpc.org/studies/goldone.htm

Anybody naive enough to believe that the Gardai or the Department of Justice or the Minister has not seen this stuff, needs to wake up and smell the coffee. Some others have posted here about the Gardai's attitude to practical shooting being evident as far back as June 2008. My knowledge of this goes back even further; to February 2008 and I remember posting warnings here that practical shooting needed to sort things out and concentrate on their perceived safety as a matter of urgency.

I was roundly pooh poohed and dismissed as being alarmist and knowing nothing about the sport and it's safety record. Some time later a letter appeared in the ISD which again referred to safety aspects of practical shooting.

And here's a direct quote from the General Secretary of the ISSF

"in the General Assembly 2000 in Sydney, AUS a decision was agreed that all ISSF Member Federations have to be instructed not to cooperate with the IPSC. ISSF has gained the opinion that the activities of practical shooting can be considered as good tests of practical firearms and training for security personnel but that they cannot be considered as sporting events, especially not as sports activities within the Olympic Movement."

The NTSA has consistently stated this as their position and never varied from it, even to the extent of losing Sports Council funding in August of last year rather than come in conflict with the ISSF over their SSAI membership.

rrpc

kowloon wrote: »

Am I correct in the assertion that this bill has essentially killed antique firearms collecting through the criminalisation of display? It's been thrown about a few times but I'd like to hear it from someone who knows their stuff.

I think the display thing refers to prohibited firearms only.

(c) puts on display, or lends or gives to any other person, or
(d) imports in to the State, a prohibited firearm or prohibited ammunition shall be guilty of an offence.

Bananaman

rrpc wrote: »

Just to put this "The ISSF get on with the IPSC" bullcrap to bed once and for all, I'm going to post a couple of links which explain the (lack of) relationship very well.

Your history of publishing links which do the shooting sports in general no good is well known.

Thanks for another one.

Trying to divert the blame for the demise of IPSC in Ireland onto the sport itself is also a well worn path - that is why it is banned in every other European Country - oh hold on - it's not - it is recognised by the governments and sports authorities of ALL other European countries - therefore it must have a bad safety record - oh no - hold on - it has a perfect safety record. Then why would it be banned in Ireland and ISSF given a specific exemption? Because ISSF is an Olympic sport? Horlicks!

The IPSA was an organisation - not a sport - they were told by Des Crofton to disband or the Minister would ban all handguns. They did and he banned all handguns anyway. ergo it was a smokescreen - there was never a problem with them at all - it was a slight of hand.
Oh hold on - he banned all handguns anyway - except the ISSF ones - MMmmmm

I am sure that the Minister and his 'advisors' spent many late nights findng the likes of this article - or maybe they slept soundly and woke up in the morning to find the tooth fairy had left it on their pillow - which is more likely?

The lack of willingness to allow IPSC into the olympics was due to the percieved threat to the exclusive Olympic status of ISSF - nothing else - there is no safety issue with IPSC - It has a perfect safety record - they were out lobbied.
I heard yesterday that there have been motions made to make pole dancing an Olympic sport so spare me the 'Sports Culture', 'Long arsed history', 'right sort of people' and 'correct tie' speech.

There have been numerous shooting of late in Dublin with AirGuns.
'The Pearse Street Sniper', the Finglas Postmen, etc.
Do we see a call for the banning of ISSF as these 'weapons' are falling into the wrong hands and 'airguns' are attracting the wrong element?

No chance - Why? - because it IS a sport and the Minister likes the taste of it?

Unlikely.

B'Man

rrpc

I'm not posting here to persaude you of the error of your ways mate. Believe what you want.

I'm just countering the lies and slanders you're posting here.

You've obviously got your own problems. Deal with them whatever way you like.

packas

IPSC pistol is the fastest growing shooting sport in the world (outside of Ireland at the moment that is!). Also remember it caters for rifle, shotgun & pistol. When IPSA was up & running there were 50-60 people attending pistol matches. That’s fantastic. It does give the other disciplines a good run for their money & I believe it’s popularity may have been its downfall in this small minded country.

Comments from the IPSC secretary extracted from IPSC Global Village (August 2008):-

The subject heading is how we've been portrayed to the IOC, in particular to the GAISF, by other people and organisations. Having spent the last week or so watching bits 'n' pieces of the 2008 Beijing Games, my questions are:

1. How can they allow JUDO, which is described on the IOC website as "... the hand-to-hand combat technique of ancient samurai warriors, and everything is relative. While throwing opponents to the floor wins most matches, it is the only Olympic sport where submission holds allow choking an opponent or breaking an arm". And they also have TAEKWONDO and KARATE!

2. How can they allow BOXING, where two people are trying to beat the crap out of each other, and where each and every bout, without exception, causes injuries to one or both parties? And let's not forget about WRESTLING.

3. How can they allow FENCING, where the object of the exercise is to stab or slice your opponent with an enormous fondue spear? Cheese is optional.

4. How can they allow HANDBALL, where the physical contact and injuries are second only to Rugby?

5. How can they allow (ISSF style) SHOOTING, which originally included firing at live pigeons, not to mention the duels, which glorify one person taking another person's life, presumably to defend the dubious honour of The Countess of Bratwurstlavia. En garde. Prêt? Allez! Merde ....

Yep, those nasty IPSC guys who shamelessly slaughter helpless paper targets don't belong in such elegant and distinguished company.

The attached two documents speak for themselves clearly showing ISSF’s position & IPSC’s position. ISSF are the truly defensive organisation

Also worth noting on the ISSF document is the target that they show. That's not an IPSC target. Talk about spreading lies & fear.

It should be noted however that in the following countries ISSF & IPSC are affiliated to the same shooting bodies. (Not in good old Ireland though)

Netherlands
Finland
France
Belgium
Poland

Hezz700

I've heard on the radio that this bill has been signed by the president. so what happens now??

daveob007

Hezz700 wrote: »

I've heard on the radio that this bill has been signed by the president. so what happens now??

If this is true then things start to kick in straight away.
It might take a few weeks for the whole thing to to be done but now all aspects of the bill are now law.

daveob007

Just checked the rte website.
it's the other criminal justice amendment bill that was signed into law.
No mention of our bill.
If anyone has more info please share it.

rowa

daveob007 wrote: »

Just checked the rte website.
it's the other criminal justice amendment bill that was signed into law.
No mention of our bill.
If anyone has more info please share it.

that bill was the controversal one dave , not suprisingly ours will probabily be signed without any media coverage because its not news to most of the population ,just the shooting community .

daveob007

rowa wrote: »

that bill was the controversal one dave , not suprisingly ours will probabily be signed without any media coverage because its not news to most of the population ,just the shooting community .

Maybe it's been signed already.
The gardai FOs are having meetings this week to bring them up to speed with the new licencing regime.
Surely they would'nt do that unless the new laws were in place.??

Our man in Havana

daveob007 wrote: »

Just checked the rte website.
it's the other criminal justice amendment bill that was signed into law.
No mention of our bill.
If anyone has more info please share it.

There was no mention of it in Tuesdays Iris Offigiuil. From what I can see it has not been signed yet.

Sikamick

rowa wrote: »

what cock up ? practicing a sport thats done in nearly every free country in the world ? does des crofton seem like the type of person who suddenly writes an article slating one of our own sports and goes to the trouble to get it printed in our national shooting magazine for no reason ? maybe he was bored sitting in his office one day and decided "i know ,i'll slag off practical pistol for something to do, yeah "
most of the rest of the shooting bodies simply sat on there hands and stared at the carpet it seems , but he actively assisted ahern with that article and ahern did use it to add credence to his seeking a ban .
i have no interest in practical pistol shooting , never attended a shoot or joined the association ,and have no problem with the nargc or des crofton apart from this incident .

_________________________________________________________________

As to what Des Croften does in his office I would not know, but I do Know that his input on behalf of shooting sports and Country pursuits in Ireland is on questionable.

Des Croften and Frank Brophy, Lest we forget get, were the people who got the first pistol back.

Also please stop pointing the finger of blame at the wrong people re Practical
Pistol Ban and I lay no blame with the official IPSC people but at a small few greedy people that have more interest in the Euro than the sport.

We all know who they are and where they carried out practices that were way beyond what the IPSC people would have agreed with.

My point of view only.

Sikamick

Sparks

Okay, first off what the hell? The ISSF/IPSC stuff again? Did something new happen that we've not done to death in the last few years?

Bananaman wrote: »

Your history of publishing links which do the shooting sports in general no good is well known.
Thanks for another one.

(a) Don't shoot the messenger,
(b) You just said Google is anti-firearms ownership. And youtube. And TheHighRoad and GlockTalk and I don't know how many other boards.

Trying to divert the blame for the demise of IPSC in Ireland onto the sport itself is

...not what he did. Reread his post if you don't believe me.

why would it be banned in Ireland and ISSF given a specific exemption? Because ISSF is an Olympic sport? Horlicks!

Correct answer, as posted here before, is PR. Olympic sports had it, practical didn't. That's not a condemnation, it's not saying one's better than the other, it's not saying that what happened was just or fair or right; Irish government doesn't seem to care for concepts like that and if you want to blame someone, go talk to a voter who votes the way they always have "because me da was a <FF/FG/Labour/SF/whatever> man too, 'an his da before him".

The IPSA was an organisation - not a sport - they were told by Des Crofton to disband or the Minister would ban all handguns. They did and he banned all handguns anyway.

(a) He didn't, and
(b) That's not the reason cited as to why the IPSA AGM voted to disband the IPSA according to those who were there that I've spoken to.

I am sure that the Minister and his 'advisors' spent many late nights findng the likes of this article - or maybe they slept soundly and woke up in the morning to find the tooth fairy had left it on their pillow - which is more likely?

Ever hear of Google?

The lack of willingness to allow IPSC into the olympics was due to the percieved threat to the exclusive Olympic status of ISSF - nothing else - there is no safety issue with IPSC - It has a perfect safety record - they were out lobbied.

Don't know. Don't care. Doesn't affect shooters (there were shooters who were in the NTSA and IPSA). Only affected things like umbrella groups like the SSAI (and the NTSA left that and the IPSA got a seat there less than a week later).

There have been numerous shooting of late in Dublin with AirGuns.
'The Pearse Street Sniper', the Finglas Postmen, etc.
Do we see a call for the banning of ISSF as these 'weapons' are falling into the wrong hands and 'airguns' are attracting the wrong element?

Not yet.
Mind you, I doubt the scum doing those things are using Feinwerkbau P700s.

Sparks

BTW, can we keep the fact checker on, even if we're mad please?

packas wrote: »

IPSC pistol is the fastest growing shooting sport in the world

CAS would disagree, but in either case it seems to slip the mind of the person speaking that in the land of it's birth, NRA Bullseye (shot with .22lr, .45ACP, and a centrefire pistol between .22 and .45) is fourteen times larger than IPSC shooting (and larger still than CAS and IDPA). And there are a lot of bullseye shooters here as well.

1. How can they allow JUDO, which is described on the IOC website as "... the hand-to-hand combat technique of ancient samurai warriors

That's stretching things quite a bit. The founder of Judo, Jigaro Kano, tried to learn jujitsu, which arguably was known by some samurai in the 18th and earlier centuries. However:
(1) Jigaro tried at the end of the 19th century by which time the samurai class were long gone;
(2) Judo was designed from the ground up as a non-lethal sport for physical fitness, even a ten second read of the most basic history of the sport will tell you this, it's the main defining feature of Judo. It even invented the "sports uniform" now used by most modern martial arts practitioners in one form or another, the judogi.
(3) Despite this, it took from 1882 to 1968 for Judo to get on the Olympic program.

And they also have TAEKWONDO and KARATE!

Not in their original forms they don't, and it's been hundreds of years between their use in martial contexts to their inclusion as a sport in the Games.

3. How can they allow FENCING, where the object of the exercise is to stab or slice your opponent with an enormous fondue spear? Cheese is optional.

Stabbing and slicing your opponent is not the object of fencing, touching them is. Also, none of the three fencing swords have a sharp point or edge, touches are detected electronically, the fencers wear more kevlar than soldiers in Iraq, and the matches have more rules and formality than anyone seems to remember. There's a right of way rule in those matches for crying out loud. Olympic fencing is as far from real 17th century court fencing (when it was last a lethal practice) as javelin throwing is from combat with spears.

5. How can they allow (ISSF style) SHOOTING, which originally included firing at live pigeons, not to mention the duels, which glorify one person taking another person's life, presumably to defend the dubious honour of The Countess of Bratwurstlavia. En garde. Prêt? Allez! Merde ....

/facepalm
Seriously?
Lads, that's a public statement from the head office of the international governing body? It's not exactly by the PR rulebook, you know?

milkerman

Reality Check!
Lads, can we stop bytch-slapping each other around the place over who did this, that or the other. It gets us nowhere. Fact is this law is in place. It is also a fact that OUR interpretation of the new legislation is unimportant - the interpretation by the GARDAI is what is important. So for instance all our theories on what type (if any) of .22 pistol will be permissable are just theories.
So where do we go from here? Well its clear that this government will not be re-elected and may not even survive it's full term. So why dont we petition the Opposition parties NOW to put forward their drafts for a new Firearms Act to put us on a par with the rest of the EU and which doesnt treat shooters as criminals or display contempt for our sports.
I got tea & sympathy from opposition TD's after this Bill was published - So I am going to pin these guys and try getting a firm written statement outlining their proposals for when they get into power - I suggest you do the same.

guns4fun

Hi lads.
New to this forum but as a keen shooter have been following this thread from the start.
Just a few thing that strike me.
A lot of backstabbing going on and peoples name mentioned rightly or wrongly.
Some of ye seem to have lost the plot altogether and should be concentrating on the new laws instead of trying to point the finger at certain people.
This new law is a complete shame and the attitude of Dermot Ahern worries and disgusts me.
We need to stick together through thick and thin in order to protect whats left, who knows what the minister will try next.
I am not a pistol owner and looks like I wont be now but still interested in all aspects of hunting and sport.
Lets just get our act together and support each other no matter what because divided we fall.

packas

Sparks wrote: »

BTW, can we keep the fact checker on, even if we're mad please? CAS would disagree, but in either case it seems to slip the mind of the person speaking that in the land of it's birth, NRA Bullseye (shot with .22lr, .45ACP, and a centrefire pistol between .22 and .45) is fourteen times larger than IPSC shooting (and larger still than CAS and IDPA). And there are a lot of bullseye shooters here as well.

That's stretching things quite a bit. The founder of Judo, Jigaro Kano, tried to learn jujitsu, which arguably was known by some samurai in the 18th and earlier centuries. However:
(1) Jigaro tried at the end of the 19th century by which time the samurai class were long gone;
(2) Judo was designed from the ground up as a non-lethal sport for physical fitness, even a ten second read of the most basic history of the sport will tell you this, it's the main defining feature of Judo. It even invented the "sports uniform" now used by most modern martial arts practitioners in one form or another, the judogi.
(3) Despite this, it took from 1882 to 1968 for Judo to get on the Olympic program.

Not in their original forms they don't, and it's been hundreds of years between their use in martial contexts to their inclusion as a sport in the Games.

Stabbing and slicing your opponent is not the object of fencing, touching them is. Also, none of the three fencing swords have a sharp point or edge, touches are detected electronically, the fencers wear more kevlar than soldiers in Iraq, and the matches have more rules and formality than anyone seems to remember. There's a right of way rule in those matches for crying out loud. Olympic fencing is as far from real 17th century court fencing (when it was last a lethal practice) as javelin throwing is from combat with spears./facepalm
Seriously?
Lads, that's a public statement from the head office of the international governing body? It's not exactly by the PR rulebook, you know?

By the way I didn't bring all this up again.
Sparks that quote from the IPSC Global Village was the IPSC Sectretary taking the piss. That's all. I thought it was an amusing observation:P You see how dangerous it can be when people don't get their facts straight?

However the pdf's I attached highlight the serious issues of the attitudes of the shooting bodies. IPSC want all shooting sports to work together whereas ISSF don't. Imagine a sporting body telling it's members not to shoot another sport. Very sporting indeed !!!

Pity we can't all get on for the good of target shooting (espeically on this small Island). Afterall it's been done in other Countries. I suppose we've a bit of growing up to do still!!


I agree with you.. fencing in the olympics is far from it's martial origins. IPSC in it's current format is also far from it's martial origins. We could argue forever on this but the decission made by ISSF to put the boot into IPSC was made at the top levels of ISSF. The funny thing is is that IPSC doesn't want olympic recognition. It just wants to get on with the game of target shooting without constantly being put down as not being a sport. The figures speak for themselves in Ireland. Each match had 50-60 shooters attending. A certain amount of blame for its demise in Ireland lies at the door of ISSF. Ok, that's it from me. No point going on and on about it. The pdf's I posted say it all.

Sparks

packas wrote: »

Sparks that quote from the IPSC Global Village was the IPSC Sectretary taking the piss. That's all.

Okay, my bad, missed that.

However the pdf's I attached highlight the serious issues of the attitudes of the shooting bodies. IPSC want all shooting sports to work together whereas ISSF don't. Imagine a sporting body telling it's members not to shoot another sport. Very sporting indeed !!!

That's not what the instruction was. NTSA shooters can and did shoot in other sports, including IPSA - the instruction meant that the NTSA and IPSA couldn't be in the SSAI together. That's it. Administrative bodies, not shooters. That's all. As to ISSF and IPSC, they're way above our pay grade, so to speak.

That being said, I personally think IPSC were wrong about the way they went about seeking a place in the Olympic programme. Of course the ISSF committees resisted - the raison d'etre of ISSF is to look after Olympic shooting. IPSC looking for a place in the Games not only meant that ISSF would have some of that raison d'etre taken away, but it also meant that ISSF would have to act against the disciplines it looks after because there's a set number of beds in the Olympic Village. If a new sport wants in, an existing sport has to be dropped. If ISSF had said "hey, lets drop 50m pistol for IPSC", every member federation in ISSF and every shooter in ISSF would have screamed blue murder over it and rightly so - the same way every IPSC shooter around would have screamed blue murder if the IPSC committee had decided to ban .40 calibre or done something else against a subset of the sport.

IPSC in it's current format is also far from it's martial origins.

Indeed. I think it's still got a ways to go, but if it survives another twenty years or so (and it looks like it will, healthily), I'll bet you there won't be too much fundamental difference between IPSC and ISSF shooting.

Right now though, there are still some of those fundamental differences (and frankly, those same differences say that sports like boxing shouldn't be in the Games either).

For example, the inability to rank shooters objectively unless they all compete in the same match because of the way the stages change between matches. I know, I know, there are specific stages that are used alongside the main match, but (to my mind at least), it's vital to be able to look at the score of the winner and be able to make judgements about the match. For example, if I see someone winning a 10m air rifle match on 592, I can tell you that that's a low-scoring match and by checking that shooters score record I can further tell you if it was just an uncompetitive match or if something went sideways for everyone. Can't do that if the number of shots and targets and so forth varies from match to match. Without that, no-one can ever really measure their progress. That's one of the fundamental requirements of a sport - an objective metric for performance (and frankly, a lot of the contact sports don't have it and aren't really olympic sports to my mind - beach volleyball ffs? That's a TV-driven choice right there. Hopefully one of the few good side effects of the economy collapsing is that the money going into the Games from TV will fall off and they can clean house and get back to sport again).

We could argue forever on this but the decission made by ISSF to put the boot into IPSC was made at the top levels of ISSF. The funny thing is is that IPSC doesn't want olympic recognition.

Hold on, at the time those things were written, that's precisely what IPSC was looking for. And it's not putting the boot in if someone else is already trying to steal your lunch in front of you!