[Nov 7] SSAI meeting on licencing

Cass

I asked for topics not details.

Sparks

Mr Mole wrote: »

I dont believe that this is a place to discuss what occurred.

You might believe that; I've personally believed the exact opposite for over a decade now. And no offence, but the last decade have pretty much proven me right and you wrong on this specific point.

The disciplines who pushed PR and who pushed for openness and pushing information out there are currently not seen as being an unknown quantity or a possible threat and are having far fewer problems with the Powers That Be as a result. (Just in case someone misreads that, I'm not saying that those disciplines are unknown quantities or threats, I'm saying the PTB perceive them as such to one degree or another). And pushing information out there doesn't mean writing for the Digest, it means posting results to national newspapers, with names. It means building up "sporting heroes" because that's what those media outlets work with. It means photos of happy people in clean, brightly lit ranges, looking all neat and presentable like the ambassadors of their sport that they are. We did that. Others felt (for various reasons, some good, some bad) that it wasn't worth doing or shouldn't be done. The results speak for themselves (or at least they do when people look at them).

I wouldn't make the point so bluntly, but frankly, this whole thing is a replay of ten years ago, and it'd be nice if we learnt from the past instead of proving Santayana right again.

And on top of all that Mr.Mole, you're right on the line of back-seat modding there, and we'd like to see everyone stepping back a pace or three from that line.

(Besides, you do know the conference was organised by an ex-Mod of the shooting forum, right?)

rrpc

I definitely would like to hear something about this as most of our club couldn't go due to a clashing engagement.

I've heard briefly that it was very good, that jaycee ran it very well, that there was a big attendance and quite a bit of input from the floor including from Des Crofton.

But like ezridax, not looking for the meat, the bones will do

Mr Mole

Sparks, forgive me if it appeared that I was back seat modding, as that was never my intention.

I believe the topics and content of the meeting are for the shooting community alone, and not for those who will use all information available to block every strategy that the Associations come up with.

I also wholeheartedly agree with promoting all shooting sports in the media and wherever possible.

I dont agree that "the disciplines who pushed PR and who pushed for openness and pushing information out there are currently not seen as being an unknown quantity or a possible threat and are having far fewer problems with the Powers That Be as a result" I personally know one example of a discipline who did this and we all seen what happened them. It may have worked for some, but it wont work for all.

To coin a phrase, "Unus pro omnibus, omnes pro uno", or we are a lost cause.

I do of course know who Chaired and organised the meeting, and he has my greatest respect for the initiative. I dont see him posting information here on the content of the meeting though?

chem

No offence Mr Mole. But it was an open meet. No ID or search at the door. Ahern himself would of been able to walk in and take a seat!

So if the DOJ wanted to, they could of been there taking notes:eek:

Cass

Mr Mole wrote: »

To coin a phrase, "Unus pro omnibus, omnes pro uno", or we are a lost cause.

Go muskateers.:D

I'm not trying to start a row here. I can't see a problem with telling me if the meeting covered pistols, rifles, shotguns or all the above. If the PTB wanted to know what was being discussed do you honestly believe they wouldn't have someone there listening and reporting back.

I just haven't gotten a chance to speak to anyone that attended yet.

Bananaman

I went to the meeting.

I told my club I would minute the meeting - for them - and I did, verbatim, gestures and all - in case any of them could not make it.

We met earlier in the week prior to the meeting and made sure that we were clear on what we wanted to hear, what we wanted done and what we wanted to say.

I counted at least a good 20 or so from my club at the meeting - I was up the front so there may have been more that I could not see.

We were concerned about what was going on - we made sure we had our voices heard and concerns raised.

That is the bones of the meeting.

I find it hard to believe that an entire club could not make it - not one concern to be raised, not one piece of information sought, not one person willing to report back to the club.
An entire club happy with the current state of affairs.
A Rare thing in these dark days.

Those that are seeking information on the meeting here should seek it from their club - then it is un-biased and relevant information and not un-solicited commentary.

Posting details on here only opens that detail to ridicule and worse by those that have little else to do but ridicule and undermine.

For these reasons I will not post anything here on the meeting.

SSAI Sponsored the meeting.if they wish to have the contents of that meeting published here they can do so.

As to another posters point that it was an open meeting and Gardai and DOJ could have attended - of course they could - and may well have - I did not recognise all of the > 220 people that were there. They don;t have to - there are plenty among the shooting community who are more than happy to keep the DOJ fully abreast of any developments.

B'Man

rrpc

Well, the whole club wasn't absent, just the bulk of them that were tied up elsewhere. I had asked if anyone could go and got no replies, so assumed that no-one went until I got a couple of emails in the meantime. We also had reps at the NASRPC meeting on Thursday night you know.

So no, it's not a case of being happy, people are only available if they're available, it's not some sort of compulsory system you know. It's almost a two hour trip to Abbeyleix from Wicklow as I well know having done it many times when I was on the SSAI committee.

And three days notice when there's already two matches scheduled and calendared in the club for that weekend makes it that much tougher when the club has maybe thirty members who are spread all over the country from Waterford to Skerries.

And thanks for the (lack of) information, but I've since been filled in by friends and members who were there.

Bananaman

A quote from the meeting - never let it be said I gave ye nothing

Which we should all take to heart ......

"if you put an Irishman on a spit, he will turn it himself"

B'Man

rrpc

Bananaman wrote: »

A quote from the meeting - never let it be said I gave ye nothing

Which we should all take to heart ......

"if you put an Irishman on a spit, he will turn it himself"

B'Man

The main outcome of the meeting for those who weren't there is that the SSAI have donated the contents of the FLAG fund to the NASRPC legal fund and have advised that they are the most appropriate body to deal with the issues from now on.

And that's no big secret, so why the nudge, nudge, wink, wink stuff?

Cass

I got the minutes in an e-mail. Now up to speed. Wasn't that much easier than giving a long drawn out lecture on the pros and cons. Just e-mail or PM the details.

Bananaman

The main outcome of the meeting for those who weren't there is that the SSAI have donated the contents of the FLAG fund to the NASRPC legal fund and have advised that they are the most appropriate body to deal with the issues from now on.

Neither of those points was discussed at the meeting.

B'Man

Sparks

Bananaman wrote: »

Those that are seeking information on the meeting here should seek it from their club - then it is un-biased and relevant information and not un-solicited commentary
Posting details on here only opens that detail to ridicule and worse by those that have little else to do but ridicule and undermine.
For these reasons I will not post anything here on the meeting.

1. If you think a club is free from all bias, you're deluded. Here isn't either, but at least we're up front about it.
2. If you don't wish to post anything, that's your choice and we respect that even if we disagree with it.
3. Don't go telling others what to do with regard to the forum. That's the second time inside 24 hours from the warning about back-seat modding that someone has walked right up to the line and it's not appreciated.

there are plenty among the shooting community who are more than happy to keep the DOJ fully abreast of any developments.

This again?

Grizzly 45

Boards.ie was also brought up...
As being Quote"one of our major problems ."[unknown from the floor]
Also Quote"Too much pertinent information is going to the Gardai/DoJ from discussions on Boards."[unknown]
Quote" Not the place to be discussing tactics or matters pertaining to defence cases or the legal issues of the day."[unknown]

Might be the reason people are reluctant to talk more about this here?

Bananaman

Don't go telling others what to do with regard to the forum

I didn't - I suggested that people who are seeking information on this forum, where it is not available, should seek it from their club, where it is more likely to be available.

That is advice, offering people your opinion - not modding, which is enforcing the rules.

B'Man

rrpc

Bananaman wrote: »

Neither of those points was discussed at the meeting.

B'Man

The word 'outcome' might have given you a hint

Sparks

Grizzly 45 wrote: »

Boards.ie was also brought up...

Not the first time, won't be the last time, and hasn't been done yet in a manner that wasn't disingenuous. Simply put, some folks in the admin structures dislike open discussion on any topic, but the last twenty years show they're wrong and we're right, at least on the fundamental points (fine details are always up for debate - there are things we don't advise folks to post on here, for example).

Thing is, most of those saying "say nothing lads" followed it up with "we'll be grand, <wink, wink>" and I think most of the CF pistol folks here have fairly specific thoughts on the merits of that approach that would be more or less the same as our thoughts on the matter. (To wit, "cop the heck on, we did it your way and it didn't work").

Greenacre

Sparks wrote: »

The disciplines who pushed PR and who pushed for openness and pushing information out there are currently not seen as being an unknown quantity or a possible threat and are having far fewer problems with the Powers That Be as a result.

I agree with your basic point, positive PR, openness and inclusivity are the basic building blocks when it comes to garnering public support. Our sport (fullbore target shooting) never became part of public conciousness simply because we hid it away, some people thought that it was better not to draw attention to ourselves, when all along we should have been inviting press to competitions, publishing results & recognising accomplishments at national and international level.

However, to say that you can apply the same logic to the information that may form part of a legal case of such obvious importance is nonsensical.

I believe we have a very strong argument to make but to publish it here before all the i's are dotted and the t's crossed will only serve to weaken our case and the cases of those who are already in the process of lodging their appeals with the District Court.

One last thing, at such a pivitol moment for shooting sports, why all the nit picking and arguing? Surley now is the time to get behind the initative from the SSAI and NASRPC? To emphasise what we have in common, a love of shooting sports and our desire to see it continue.

Sparks

Greenacre wrote: »

However, to say that you can apply the same logic to the information that may form part of a legal case of such obvious importance is nonsensical.

And that's why we've advised people by PM to not post the fine detail of their legal cases' strategies on boards until the cases are resolved. But that's not what the meeting was about, and frankly if anyone there was discussing their legal cases' strategy in an open and public meeting, they were being somewhat foolish.

Further, that's to do with an actual and specific legal case which is sub judice, not general discussion of possible approaches that we're talking about here. General discussion here is to be encouraged - because frankly, it's the only way any NGB member will know what the heck is going on. And if you're about to suggest that the NGB will keep its membership informed, I'm going to have to suggest that you've not really evaluated the strengths of our NGBs correctly - dispersing information is not amongst the strengths of most of them.

I believe we have a very strong argument to make but to publish it here before all the i's are dotted and the t's crossed will only serve to weaken our case and the cases of those who are already in the process of lodging their appeals with the District Court.

If you're talking about an actual case, I can concur - if you're talking in general hand-waving terms, I can't, because you're in effect saying we shouldn't be talking nonsense in public lest we be thwarted in our efforts.
(a) You're talking about nonexistant plans to begin with;

(b) If you think you can use the judiciary as a stick to beat the DoJ with, you've ignored the past ten years and are about to do something stupid that will penalise everyone else;

and (c) who the heck do you think is paying for all this, when all you have is a tenth of the money you'll need to do a single test case all the way to the High Court? You'll need to fundraise - and if you're going to do that, here (as in boards.ie) is a tool, not a threat. But there's a price for this tool to be used, namely, you can't demand monies without providing information on how they'll be used. Otherwise, we'd be right back to 2001, when the eight thousand now forming the core of your fund was first handed over. Would you ask us to hand over yet more money when the first lot wasn't used and we were denied information on what was happening to it?

One last thing, at such a pivitol moment for shooting sports, why all the nit picking and arguing? Surley now is the time to get behind the initative from the SSAI and NASRPC? To emphasise what we have in common, a love of shooting sports and our desire to see it continue.

Sure. If I know what's being done with my money, I'd have little problem throwing money into it. But like I've said here before:

Sparks wrote:

4gun wrote:

I'm pretty sure that there can be found some persons from the shooting fraternity who would have the intregrity to manage the funds appropriately

Are you joking or just not paying attention for the last twenty years?

Look, anyone who had the integrity you're talking about would never accept the responsibility you're also talking about. And we have a long history of little hitlers stepping forward (hell, charging forward and butting heads) for such roles as this.

It is not a trivial problem.
It is not an unsolvable one either, but I for one would not give a single cent until I saw specific goals listed, specific methods detailed, and a decent communications strategy in place and a set of criteria for what cases would be funded. Don't forget, taking a poorly-chosen case to court is what gave the Commissioner the ammunition for half the crap in the guidelines via the Charleton judgement.

And also don't forget that such funds have been set up in the past and then the people controlling them shut down communications, refuse to take advice or direction from those they supposedly answer to, take on exceptionally financially risky courses of action, usually fail to accomplish anything, and what happens to the money when the group is shut down is often left undefined - we've seen orders for the money to go to other groups, orders for the money to go to charity and so forth, and the point that the original donors could sue for their unused monies back never crosses anyone's mind, nor does the thought of tracking who gave what.

hk

Am I missing something with a test case in the high court?

How has this arisen at this stage. Surely the current course of action would be to appeal the Chief Supers decision at District Court level and see what happens. If you have given good reason and the Chief turns down your application on the grounds of not having good reason, a district court judge should be able to solve that problem.

Surely a test case to the high court would involve a flaw in the actual leglislation.

rrpc

hk wrote: »

Am I missing something with a test case in the high court?

How has this arisen at this stage. Surely the current course of action would be to appeal the Chief Supers decision at District Court level and see what happens. If you have given good reason and the Chief turns down your application on the grounds of not having good reason, a district court judge should be able to solve that problem.

Surely a test case to the high court would involve a flaw in the actual leglislation.

You are absolutely correct, except that we have new legislation that has never been tested in court. As the District Court is not a court of record, in some cases it may ask for direction from a higher court.

Having said that, 'Good reason' has been in the act for a very long time and has already been tested many times.

So for most people it should start and stop at the District Court.

bunny shooter

Sparks wrote: »

........If I know what's being done with my money, I'd have little problem throwing money into it........

+ 1

rrpc

Greenacre wrote: »

However, to say that you can apply the same logic to the information that may form part of a legal case of such obvious importance is nonsensical.

Which might be true if the bulk of the information at the meeting was to do with legal challenges and strategies, which clearly (from other threads) it was not.

What's wrong with publishing the results of the poll? or the information Des Crofton gave on the Supreme Court case?

Who's going to nit-pick or ridicule this information?

It's more than a bit ironic that those who've been to the forefront of claims that information (from whatever source has been held back) should be the first to do so when the opportunity presents itself to them. It seems it's only a conspiracy when they don't have it :rolleyes:

Bananaman

The results of the straw poll are of questionable use.

It was not clear, to me at least, whether or not people had personally been refused or licensed or whatever.

If not then two or three people could have been reporting the same license or refusal. Much the same as on here - because you cannot be specific on the details of the license in question - and you can't - that means that multiple people will report its existence.

Plenty of people there do not and did not have pistol licenses, were game, clay or rifle shooters and were simply there seeking information and as many of them said, to support the pistol shooters because when their turn comes at the yoke they will need our support.

B'Man

rrpc

Fair enough B'man, but as a straw poll, it answered many of the questions brought up here by people desperate for information. And before you say they should have gone to the meeting, from what I heard, there wasn't room and the short notice made it very difficult.

Even if there was double counting, you'd have to accept that that would affect all figures and not just one, so the proportion of grants to refusals would be roughly similar.

And there's nothing wrong with issuing a 'health warning' with the figures.

Bananaman

Well - I did my own straw poll last night - of ~40 Centrefire Pistol Shooters - who I would shoot with at both the club and in competition.

For the sake of clarity these people would be the in the top end when it comes to range attendance and competition participation

All would have been in club, inter-club, national and international competition, with the firearm that they have sought to re-license. Not a requirement but just a 'health warning' as you so eloquently put it.

They are across a number of clubs, a number of Chief Superintendents, a number of makes, models, actions and calibres.

Licenses = 0
Refused = 12 (Going up)
Unknown = 28 (Going down)

B'Man

rrpc

Thanks for that B'man. I'd do the same for my club, except because we're only authorised for up to .22, we don't have that many C/F owners and they would also have memberships of C/F clubs which would cause double counting.

But it would be helpful for clubs to post this kind of information. It would probably be more accurate than the straw poll on Saturday and give a clearer picture.

New thread perhaps?

Greenacre

Sorry if i am going off on a tangent but:

I have lurked around here for quite some time now and was always reluctant to post anything because in my opinion there are a couple of individuals guaranteed to disagree or generally point out that you are wrong and they are right no matter what one may post.

All i am interested in is presenting a unified front for the sport of target shooting (unattainable maybe) but as long as we are bickering, blaming, accusing volunteers of being disingenuous, shooting down ideas because they didnt work ten years ago or whenever and generally undermining our own position, our reasoned arguments will (as in the past) fall on deaf ears.

Before anybody hits the reply button to tell me where i'm wrong, ask yourself will your reply serve to strenghten our cause as sports people or reinforce the divides?

Can you offer anything positive?

And that concludes my rant for today!

rrpc

Greenacre wrote: »

Sorry if i am going off on a tangent but:

I have lurked around here for quite some time now and was always reluctant to post anything because in my opinion there are a couple of individuals guaranteed to disagree or generally point out that you are wrong and they are right no matter what one may post.

All i am interested in is presenting a unified front for the sport of target shooting (unatainable maybe) but as long as we are bickering, blaming, accusing volunteers of being disingenuous, shooting down ideas because they didnt work ten years ago or whenever and generally undermining our own position, our reasoned arguments will (as in the past) fall on deaf ears.

Before anybody hits the reply button to tell me where i'm wrong, ask yourself will your reply serve to strenghten our cause as sports people or reinforce the divides?

Can you offer anything positive?

And that concludes my rant for today!

I don't agree

Greenacre

rrpc wrote: »

I don't agree

LOL