Pistol Licensing Questions

TMC121

The owner of the Olympic pistol was on to me yesterday. He was wondering what he should do with his fully compliant 5 shot, Olympic standard, .22 caliber Benelli MP95 target pistol that is listed as acceptable in the Garda Commissioners guidelines. Sorry about pointing all that out.

He has not received a receipt for the paperwork he submitted even though he did see the receipt that is normally posted out. It was attached to the application paperwork which is in the district office. He seen this when he was called into see the superintendent.

So, no instructions, no receipt, verbally told not a hope and no idea what he should do with his pistol. License expires at midnight tonight.

He is now wondering if he is going to get a visit tomorrow requesting the item to be handed over.

There must be hundreds if not thousands of shooters in the same situation.
What a great system they've developed.

What a way to treat law abiding citizens of the Irish State.

rrpc

TMC121 wrote: »

The owner of the Olympic pistol was on to me yesterday. He was wondering what he should do with his fully compliant 5 shot, Olympic standard, .22 caliber Benelli MP95 target pistol that is listed as acceptable in the Garda Commissioners guidelines. Sorry about pointing all that out.

Acceptable is not the word I'd use and being on the list is not a de facto right to a licence for it. There's more to the firearms acts than a list in an annex to the Commissioner's Guidelines (which are just guidelines and not law).

The list is a sample of what is considered to be a non-restricted pistol according to the firearms acts; as the list itself says, it's not exhaustive and is a guideline.

You still have to fulfill all the other obligations and criteria to have a firearm licensed.

As of now, your friend (unless it's happened in the meantime) has not been refused a licence for his Benelli. Many more of us are in the same position and have neither a licence nor a refusal.

For the moment, my advice is to use common sense and keep the firearm locked up until either a licence or a refusal issues.

TMC121

He has handed his pistol into a dealer.
rrpc you make a valid point, all I can say is the qualifying criteria he put forward for the ownership of his other firearms where accepted by the same superintendent (he was told this directly by the superintendent) but the issue is the ownership on the .22lr Olympic pistol

He has his stalking rifle and shotgun licenses back both unrestricted items and his reasons for licensing the pistol have not changed but if the criteria from the superintendent who previously licensed the firearm have changed then that is different.

This guy is just a law abiding citizens who doesn't wish to rock the boat at all.
He enjoys the target shooting sports.

Will pass on the words of wisdom

Bananaman

PLEASE - stop specifying where your firearms are.

Sparks

Bananaman wrote: »

PLEASE - stop specifying where your firearms are.

Did I miss a post with addresses in it?

TMC121

B'man
Unless you know where in the country the chap with the problem is there are no posts with his address on it as Sparks has pointed out. I thank you for your security concerns.

There are intelligent people using this forum to high light the current licensing issues faced by law abiding citizen and the way in which they are being treated. .

rrpc

I think Bananaman's point is that a certain body of people are carrying a few more bits and pieces than they normally would.

Dvs

By George I think he's got it !

Dvs.

Bananaman

Light dawns on yonder hill

Sparks

rrpc wrote: »

I think Bananaman's point is that a certain body of people are carrying a few more bits and pieces than they normally would.

So he's telling people here to shut up on the basis that that "certain body of people" may be carrying things they're licenced to carry and that their stock levels might be up by 2 or 3 percent? That's an unsupportable pile of hooey of a position really.

B'man, leave the back seat modding to the people being infracted and banned for it, would you please?

rrpc

Bananaman wrote: »

Light dawns on yonder hill

The light had dawned on this hill from the first. The point was to shine a light for others to see by

Sparks

Shine lights on hills all you want lads, but remember the only section 42's to tell other posters what not to post are with the mods.

LB6

lol more snippage due - so who had an answer to the OP's question - back there on page one?

rrpc

LB6 wrote: »

lol more snippage due - so who had an answer to the OP's question - back there on page one?

The short answer is: The question was ambiguous. It was asked about the grandfather rule (Section 3D(c)) in reference to a non-restricted pistol (section 3D(b)) and then referred to inequality in two different cases for which no details were given.

It then turned out that there was no refusal.

Impossible to answer. And I'm not reccommending that full details be given here, but that the situation be deaalt with by the relevant NGB to whom the details can be given in confidence. Which was the advice given.

It's a bad idea to be trying to advise people on specific firearms certifcate application stuff here, general advice is fine, but specific cases need to be dealt with properly.

Sparks

rrpc wrote: »

It's a bad idea to be trying to advise people on specific stuff here.

Depends on the specific stuff really.
I'm not going to delete the specific details of this weekend's shoot in RRPC, for example

rrpc

Sparks wrote: »

Depends on the specific stuff really.
I'm not going to delete the specific details of this weekend's shoot in RRPC, for example

Did I have to say 'firearms application related'? :P

Well I have now, so even the pedants will be happy

Sparks

Well, it's not even that clear-cut rrpc.
Look, if someone comes on here and asks what specifically to do in a court case, that's one side of the "are you kidding" line. It's legal advice, which introduces various legal liabilities for boards.ie if the responses aren't perfectly correct (and of course, even a solicitor or barrister can't give perfectly correct answers as you might still lose the case and sue for poor advice, even if counsel did nothing incompetent).

And those liabilities, by the way, apply equally to NGBs who give advice, and who may be less well-able to cope with the subsequent lawsuit than boards.ie ltd. would be, ironically enough.

But if someone asks "is this firearm restricted?" or "what's the procedure if I'm refused a licence?" or "what security do I need for one restricted firearm?" or any one of a large number of other questions, then we can give specific answers because things like that are spelt out in the legislation in black and white.

There's a gray area in between the two, and a line in there somewhere, but that's what judgement's for.

But "don't use boards.ie, you can't get good advice there"? No, I don't think that's accurate. (I also think far more people in NGBs are reading it than you think are, but I think many of them are lying about whether or not they lurk here )

rrpc

Sparks wrote: »

But "don't use boards.ie, you can't get good advice there"? No, I don't think that's accurate. (I also think far more people in NGBs are reading it than you think are, but I think many of them are lying about whether or not they lurk here )

That's not what I said Sparks and not what I meant either. The context of the post should have demonstrated the latter and the actual words I used defined the former

You actually referred to the kind of advice I meant in your opening paragraph which although not legal advice, is effectively what's being sought when people bring up: "I've been refused because the Super doesn't like me" type requests for advice.

Invariably the request is phrased in such a way as to immediately elicit the sympathy of the reader and ire against the system before 10 pages later we find that the applicant marched in "demanding a 9mm pistol because his friends had them" :rolleyes:

It's best that these are handled elsewhere as we are generally not best placed to analyse the situation nor is our opinion worth anything more than the virtual paper it's written on.

So the answer should always be: take it to your NGB and ask their advice.

The general stuff you spoke about is obviously not of the same nature.

Sparks

rrpc wrote: »

So the answer should always be: take it to your NGB and ask their advice.

I think we're arguing over how well we agree with the other points, but on this one I do wonder -- what saves the NGB's from being sued for giving poor advice (under the whole Negligent Misstatement area of tort law)? Certainly they have no more protection or privilege than boards.ie ltd, if anything they're more exposed. Advice here comes from anonymous posters and boards.ie ltd if pressed can argue that they didn't give the advice, Joe Bloggs did. But if (say) the NTSA gives someone advice on keeping their .32 licence (or whatever, insert appropriate example here) and their application fails and that advised person sues the NTSA, the NTSA can't exactly say "hey, it wasn't us!". And every other NGB is in the same boat.

I've been advising people here to talk to their NGB not because the NGB can give better advice (because frankly, most of them cannot as they have no more legal expertise than we do here); but because as an NGB, they can make a phone call to the FPU and try to sort it all out quietly before someone starts looking for solicitors. (For those wondering, yes, any individual could call the FPU, it's just the FPU want it to go through the NGBs to try to keep the workload managable). In fact a few times I've just said to talk to their FCP body because that seems more appropriate (someone in the NASRPC for example, would probably get results faster by talking to the SSAI directly).

rrpc

There are three reasons that I give this advice:

1. The full details can be given to the NGB where they can't here.
2. As you say, the NGB is the proper point of contact with the various organs of state.
3. They can advise you to seek further advice such as from a solicitor etc.

At no point did I actually state that the NGB should give legal advice, I didn't even specify what advice the NGB would give. I just said that for individual cases, that's the first step.

Which it is.

Sparks

Well,
1) The full details can be given here, we just don't think that's a great idea as it comprimises your anonymity. But that anonymity was put there in the first place to protect shooters from dodgy NGBs (back when that was a real worry) more than anything else. I've been "out" on here for years and it's not been a problem.

2) I wouldn't have said "proper" point of contact, but "preferred" point of contact. I don't mind there being such a thing, it's only efficient and natural; it's just that "proper" in my mind really means "officially sanctioned as the correct avenue and everything else is frowned upon", if you know what I mean. And that's not what the NGBs are. At least not yet, anyway.

3) That's pretty much what you'd be told here as well. There's not really anything that the NGBs would say there that we wouldn't say here.

Basicly, the reason to go to the NGBs boils down to "they know the lads in the FPU personally which helps things along". There is nothing wrong with that, it's a good thing. But the FCP's been crucified by people forgetting what the 'C' stands for and thinking the FCP ran everything - it'd be nice to not witness that happening to the NGBs!

Bananaman

Sparks wrote: »

Well,
I've been "out" on here for years and it's not been a problem.

You go girlfriend.

L'il Miss Sparkles rides again

Sparks

Arf!

Bananaman

Sparks,

This discussion is turning into a real handbag number.

Simple facts.

Boards does not give Advice - it can't.

There are no experts on here - who can take advice from an anonymous avatar - could be anyone - could be talking through their arse - just imagine "Sorry Guard, a Guy called HorseBallsLicker on boards told me it was ok coz his cousin did it."

There are too many **** stirrers on here - you could ask a simple question and have it turn into a witchhunt about something completely different.

The Correct Advice from anyone on boards in relation to licensing problems and queries is - talk to your NGB.

The Correct Advice from anyone on boards in relation to wanting to spend time in a fantasy land and get your blood boiling by taking firearms advice from a 12 year old child is - post it on boards.

At the very least it means they can correlate all the information and seek
advice. Boards cannot.

End of Message.

B'Man

Bananaman

Spotted this in the paper this morning - prophetic?

The Fall of bananaman

Sparks

Bananaman wrote: »

Simple facts.
Boards does not give Advice - it can't.

That's like saying fish are not permitted to ride bicycles.
Boards.ie doesn't give advice? No, but its posters give lots of advice, all the time, and have for years, and most of it is pretty darn good. It just doesn't have any official or legal status, it's the same as getting advice from anyone else.

But the NGBs are in precisely the same position.

Don't get me wrong - NGBs are very useful because of personal relationships with the relevant authorities (and because the individuals in the NGBs usually know which way is up, but the same is true of individuals here, hell half the time they're the same people).

I'm not saying don't talk to the NGB, hell I've been consistently saying to talk to them if you go read what I've posted - I'm just saying that the reason why you talk to them isn't what you're saying it is.

There are no experts on here

In the context you're talking in, there are no experts in any of the NGBs either (bar the NARGC and ICPSA who have legal teams retained - and unless you're talking to the barrister or solicitor in those cases or being given a statement from them by someone, you're still not getting expert advice).

Mind you, there are precious few legal professionals out there who could claim to be an expert based on their knowledge of the firearms legislation (as opposed to simply being a qualified barrister or solicitor). Our legislation is a very specialised area, the law is generally written very badly, there are dozens of primary and secondary and EU statutes to roll together to get an answer to even the simplest of questions, and there's not a lot of money in the field to motivate professionals to train up in this area. So in the context that makes the most sense, you're going to find a real "expert" only with great difficulty. I can't think of more than a handful of people who'd qualify. And half of them (at least) are posters here.

There are too many **** stirrers on here - you could ask a simple question and have it turn into a witchhunt about something completely different.

True, but I've seen that happen in the past with NGBs as well.

As to the boards.ie bashing, *phbtttttt!*

Sandy22

TMC121 wrote: »

with his fully compliant 5 shot, Olympic standard, .22 caliber Benelli MP95 target pistol

Do you mind if I ask exactly how he restricted the magazines, and whether he had any functioning problems thereafter?

TMC121

The Benelli MP95E only holds 5 rounds anyway

Sparks

It comes with 6 round magazines in Norway at least.

4gun

Sparks, just curious on the advise issue, can some one really be sued for giving another advise? If go to a stock broker and he advises me to invest in shares of such n' such plc next day stock market crashes and I loose all my money, I cant sue the broker in the end the decision to take the advise was mine ( this is a hypotetical situation no real money was used in this senario)
were the financial services liable for advising people to use anbacher accounts?
i would have thought that if some one comes here looking for a solution to a problem, boards.ie ltd is not promoting its self as a adviser in any shape or form,
people give their opionion based on their own experience nothing more, if someone takes opionion as legal writ and acts on it nobody but them selves can be held accountable

This is my opionion and not to be taken as legal advice:D