Gun laws and individual freedom in Ireland

Dankoozy

after seeing how tedious the process of renewing a gun license is over here since the new regulations were brought in it got me thinking. are we near the end of privately held firearms in ireland?

80e for a 3 year license now, it used to be 6 per year. the whole process is much more strict bureaucratic than before. what is the motivation behind this? an impending collapse of society or power grab for a supposedly utopian future where people are not 'allowed' to do very much at all or is there a legitimate attempt here to reduce gun crime which is actually extremely rare outside Limerick and now Dublin.

I can just imagine some bureaucrat envisioning some future where we are all transported in driverless pods on an autonomous network, copious amounts of 'media' streamed to our phones and a pipeline postal system so we need never leave our high-rise apartments if we don't want to. of course in such a society old ideals such as a country home and owning a gun would be considered backwards and barbaric.

there seems to be a growing school of thought that mere humans should not be allowed to drive around in "one tonne pieces of metal", wire/plumb their own house, repair their own equipment, shoot a gun, or basically do anything they have not had extensive training for. even some people now consider people living alone in large houses to be a problem and propose a 1-2% of value annual property tax. I don't know what the motivation behind this is, perhaps they are 'green' extremists or just hate individual freedom.

the only thing i can come up with is that it it's a result of increasing population - less people means more individual freedom in a lot of ways but in a few years the population is expected to decrease, will this lead to a relaxing of laws and the government in general becoming less pervasive?

diverdriver

The immediate motivation or excuse for toughening up gun laws was the high gun crime rate here. Of course none of this was anything to do with legal gun owners but the Minister stated he wanted to prevent a 'growing gun culture'. Which exists only in his fevered imagination conjured up by all the US gun massacres none of which are remotely relevant to the Irish situation. Also I do believe that no small part was played by the Garda Commissioner who seemed to mount a personal campaign against gun ownership aided by hysterical media reports. The RTE crime correspondant is a classic for uninformed comment and editorialising stories. This I believe is in no small part due to the fact that the Gardai are unarmed and unfamiliar with those scary firesticks. The irony of it is this, tightening gun laws makes no difference to gun crime because of course criminals don't bother buying legal guns. As a Tallaghy head, said to me recently. 'Guns have never been easier to get'

Of course most people weren't bothered by the new restrictions. They'll pop up here and wonder why anyone would want to own a gun and probably imagine the drug dealers get their guns by stealing them off ordinary citizens.

I do think that it is part of a gradual erosion of the freedoms we took for granted. Most of it's nearly invisible. Little things here and there or something like the gun issue which only affects a certain minority. Except that one day you will be the minority affected. Green taxes are one example. They are essentially an attempt to restrict your use of cars or whatever by making it expensive for you. There is a green agenda and it doesn't involve leaving things as they are.

I wouldn't call it a grand conspiracy because it isn't. It's just an unwitting slide into less freedom and more restriction in our lives. The Americans are very aware of that kind of thing but we Irish are not.

Years ago, my Father told me sternly when I asserted I had the 'right' to do something that: 'The only rights you have are those that other people allow you to have'. It's very true and often we don't see it that way. Losing a bit of freedom is easy, getting it back is very hard.

Victor

Dankoozy wrote: »

after seeing how tedious the process of renewing a gun license is over here since the new regulations were brought in it got me thinking. are we near the end of privately held firearms in ireland?

I doubt it, AFAIK gun ownership is increaseing slightly.

80e for a 3 year license now, it used to be 6 per year.

I imagine the €6 didn't cover the administration costs involved.

the whole process is much more strict bureaucratic than before.

There is a actually a decent regime put in place, as opposed to the whims and prejudices that went before.

what is the motivation behind this?

Putting in place a proper regulatory regime.

an impending collapse of society or power grab for a supposedly utopian future where people are not 'allowed' to do very much at all or is there a legitimate attempt here to reduce gun crime which is actually extremely rare outside Limerick and now Dublin.

Hyperbole much?

I can just imagine some bureaucrat envisioning some future where we are all transported in driverless pods on an autonomous network, copious amounts of 'media' streamed to our phones and a pipeline postal system so we need never leave our high-rise apartments if we don't want to. of course in such a society old ideals such as a country home and owning a gun would be considered backwards and barbaric.

Wahooo! I thnk you've just gone off your own topic.

there seems to be a growing school of thought that mere humans should not be allowed to drive around in "one tonne pieces of metal", wire/plumb their own house, repair their own equipment, shoot a gun, or basically do anything they have not had extensive training for.

I don't think thats unreasonable, in particular as things things can impact on others. Most people killed on the roads are no drivers. More than have-a-go handymen have their house burn down. There is many a yahoo who doesn't know how to use a gun properly (but on balance, I suspect I'd trust more gun club members with their equipment than car club members).

even some people now consider people living alone in large houses to be a problem and propose a 1-2% of value annual property tax. I don't know what the motivation behind this is, perhaps they are 'green' extremists or just hate individual freedom.

With freedom comes responsibilities. If you want to live down a boreen, why should my taxes and charges pay for your postal / telephone services, school bus, road repairs, etc.

the only thing i can come up with is that it it's a result of increasing population - less people means more individual freedom in a lot of ways but in a few years the population is expected to decrease, will this lead to a relaxing of laws and the government in general becoming less pervasive?

Based on this last paragraph, I'm not sure if you understand how life, communities and government work. Sure, if you are the only one living on an island, you can play your music as loud as you like, but don't expect to do the same in a populated area and not have complaints.

Sparks

Dankoozy wrote: »

are we near the end of privately held firearms in ireland?

Fast answer, no. They're too necessary for some applications like farming and hunting and target shooting.

80e for a 3 year license now, it used to be 6 per year.

No, it was 6 euro per year for your second and subsequent shotguns. The first shotgun cost (I think) 24 euro and every other firearm was 39 euro, so the 80 euro per three years is a cost reduction for most kinds of firearms.

what is the motivation behind this?

Dermot Ahern's political career. And Michael McDowell's political career before that.
That's basicly all, there's never been any threat to the state or the public from licenced firearms.
As to the notion that all this reduces gun crime... well, when was the last time you heard of a drug pusher looking for a licence for a gun in order to shoot his "business rivals"?

...or basically do anything they have not had extensive training for.

I don't know about 'extensive' training, but I know of nobody who'd think that letting someone with no training go off on their own and learn to shoot the hard way would be a good idea. We've been training folks to shoot since the founding of the state, you don't just hand them a rifle and say "off you go now".
(Not if you've got your head on straight anyway).


Look, whatever about property tax, the gun legislation stuff isn't anything to do with any high principles of political theory. It's down to the individual political careers of two consecutive Ministers for Justice who wanted to be seen to be doing something about gun crime. The fact that licenced firearms have absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with gun crime never made the papers because listening to muppets like Olivia Mitchell and John Deasy prattle on about how we have to ban all guns makes for a more tabloid newspaper story. And the fact that gun crime is unaffected completely by the new legislation won't make the papers because the Minister's PR department will be too busy pointing out how much safer we are now that all the law-abiding shooters are filling out 7 pages of a form per firearm rather than one or two pages.

Dannyboy83

Some members of society are guilty until proven innocent:
Gun owners, smokers, steroid users, bouncers, martial artists etc.
All easy targets.

I notice an increasing trend that Fat people are now included in the above category. One of these days, meat eaters & car drivers will be in there too.

You can say or do what you like to them, and its easily justifiable and guaranteed to score points.

Ironically, that perception isn't shared about alcohol and public drunkenness on this island.:rolleyes:

gizmo555

Dannyboy83 wrote: »

Some members of society are guilty until proven innocent:
Gun owners, smokers, steroid users, bouncers, martial artists etc.
All easy targets.

I notice an increasing trend that Fat people are now included in the above category. One of these days, meat eaters & car drivers will be in there too.

A modest proposal. Let the meat eating gun owners shoot and eat the fat people. Two carbon footprints reduced for the price of one!

MysticalRain

I think the solution here is that gun owners will have to get organized and form their own lobby group, like the NRA in America (seriously). Have you thought about contacting your local TD and raising the issue with him/her?

Dankoozy

MysticalRain wrote: »

I think the solution here is that gun owners will have to get organized and form their own lobby group, like the NRA in America (seriously). Have you thought about contacting your local TD and raising the issue with him/her?

yeah.. i disagree with the concept of lobby groups but they seem to be a necessary evil with this political structure. the only way to stand up for yourself really, before all legally owned guns are repossessed and publicly destroyed with an angle grinder in the hope of getting a few votes from the "think of the children" crowd

Sparks

MysticalRain wrote: »

I think the solution here is that gun owners will have to get organized and form their own lobby group, like the NRA in America (seriously).

That topic (let's have one united group!) has popped up every three weeks over the last five years since the shooting forum started.
For a variety of reasons, some good, some personal, some out-and-out daft, it wouldn't ever work. At least not in Ireland.

Not to mention, Irish politics doesn't work like that. It's tit-for-brown-envelope, basicly. Lobbying, except where it's defined to mean "handing over a stuffed brown envelope containing either money or incriminating photographs or documents", doesn't really work so well over here...

starbelgrade

Driverless pods on an autonomous network, 'media' streamed to our phones, a pipeline postal system and 'green' extremists that hate individual freedom.

What the f*ck?!?! I don't understand the gun ownership thing & without throwing in the conspiracy theory / Big Brother stuff can I ask why you would want to own a gun in the first place?

Overheal

starbelgrade wrote: »

can I ask why you would want to own a gun in the first place?

I can think of 170 million apparently,

Civilians killed by governments in the 20th century, excluding war.
Soviet Union 62million 1917-1991
China (Communist) 35million 1949-Present
Germany 21million 1933-45
China (Kuomintang) 10million 1928-49
Japan 6million 1936-45


Total deaths directly caused by governments Excluding War 170million

Deaths in War Millions International deaths 30million Civil War deaths 7million

Total deaths in War 37million[/table]

http://home.pacbell.net/rsdotson/gov/govdeaths.htm

That figure is from 1999 of course. 21st century figures are still being counted!

You can always google your question to discover other reasons. My favorites, personally, being self defense and defense from the State.

starbelgrade

Overheal wrote: »

I can think of 170 million apparently,

Civilians killed by governments in the 20th century, excluding war.
Soviet Union 62million 1917-1991
China (Communist) 35million 1949-Present
Germany 21million 1933-45
China (Kuomintang) 10million 1928-49
Japan 6million 1936-45


Total deaths directly caused by governments Excluding War 170million

Deaths in War Millions International deaths 30million Civil War deaths 7million

Total deaths in War 37million[/table]

http://home.pacbell.net/rsdotson/gov/govdeaths.htm

That figure is from 1999 of course. 21st century figures are still being counted!

You can always google your question to discover other reasons. My favorites, personally, being self defense and defense from the State.

I bet you'll be shot down for saying that.

Overheal

starbelgrade wrote: »

I bet you'll be shot down for saying that.

They can try: I shoot back.

meglome

Overheal wrote: »

I can think of 170 million apparently,

Civilians killed by governments in the 20th century, excluding war.
Soviet Union 62million 1917-1991
China (Communist) 35million 1949-Present
Germany 21million 1933-45
China (Kuomintang) 10million 1928-49
Japan 6million 1936-45


Total deaths directly caused by governments Excluding War 170million

Deaths in War Millions International deaths 30million Civil War deaths 7million

Total deaths in War 37million[/table]

http://home.pacbell.net/rsdotson/gov/govdeaths.htm

That figure is from 1999 of course. 21st century figures are still being counted!

You can always google your question to discover other reasons. My favorites, personally, being self defense and defense from the State.

Do you think if the state turns on you that having one gun or twenty is going to save you?

The US must be the safest country in the world.

starbelgrade

Overheal wrote: »

They can try: I shoot back.

Well, that's a loaded reply if ever I heard one. NB: Every argument henceforth shall be gunned down.

evercloserunion

It's late so forgive me for not being more articulate about this. But we live in a country full of scumbags and thugs, I would not trust the knackers roaming the streets of just about every town in Ireland with guns, would you?

nesf

Sparks wrote: »

Fast answer, no. They're too necessary for some applications like farming and hunting and target shooting.
No, it was 6 euro per year for your second and subsequent shotguns. The first shotgun cost (I think) 24 euro and every other firearm was 39 euro, so the 80 euro per three years is a cost reduction for most kinds of firearms.

Dermot Ahern's political career. And Michael McDowell's political career before that.
That's basicly all, there's never been any threat to the state or the public from licenced firearms.
As to the notion that all this reduces gun crime... well, when was the last time you heard of a drug pusher looking for a licence for a gun in order to shoot his "business rivals"?

I don't know about 'extensive' training, but I know of nobody who'd think that letting someone with no training go off on their own and learn to shoot the hard way would be a good idea. We've been training folks to shoot since the founding of the state, you don't just hand them a rifle and say "off you go now".
(Not if you've got your head on straight anyway).


Look, whatever about property tax, the gun legislation stuff isn't anything to do with any high principles of political theory. It's down to the individual political careers of two consecutive Ministers for Justice who wanted to be seen to be doing something about gun crime. The fact that licenced firearms have absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with gun crime never made the papers because listening to muppets like Olivia Mitchell and John Deasy prattle on about how we have to ban all guns makes for a more tabloid newspaper story. And the fact that gun crime is unaffected completely by the new legislation won't make the papers because the Minister's PR department will be too busy pointing out how much safer we are now that all the law-abiding shooters are filling out 7 pages of a form per firearm rather than one or two pages.

Um, how is a cost reduction for most firearms in licence fees a genuine attack on gun holders by politicians? I agree loads of political noise has been made needlessly about legally held firearms but relatively little beyond hot air has resulted considering the furore in the media etc.

nesf

Giving a private citizen a licence to possess a firearm should be a very solemn matter. Seriously, I can't think of any good reason to allow someone who doesn't have a clean criminal record and doesn't have proper secure place to store firearms anywhere near a licence (and that isn't an exhaustive list).

A strict regulatory system inevitably benefits genuine gun owners since it limits the amount of "legally held gun used to kill 4 teenagers" type crap from happening and thus less media crap and thus less political action against them.

Gangland weapon seizures have publicly been consisting to a large extent of weapons that are impossible to legally own here so I don't think anyone with any sense thinks there's a strong link between organised crime and genuine gun owners. Sure some weapons might be stolen rarely but it's generally simpler and cheaper to just smuggle in weapons from all appearances.


Legally held firearms inevitably end up in the news in unfortunate accident cases where a kid got near a loaded weapon or some loan nut does something who happens to have access to a gun (which seriously is a minority of the loan nuts out there thankfully). The former is why proper gun safes are as much for the sake of the people in the home rather than to prevent theft.

Sparks

starbelgrade wrote: »

why you would want to own a gun in the first place?

In my specific case, olympic target shooting. It's hard to do that without a firearm. And we happen to have a chest full of gold, silver and bronze team and individual medals in olympic shotgun from world cups and world championships over the last few years and several Irish shooters are in the top thirty shooters in the world. And that's true in other, nonolympic shooting disciplines as well (it's an Irish shooter who's ranked fourth in the world in PPC1500, a pistol shooting discipline, for example).

In other cases, hunting (for the pot), hunting (to control vermin numbers, which is so other food animals thrive so everyone else can eat), humane dispatch (this is usually vets), starting athletic races (blank firing pistols are still firearms under Irish law), and so forth.

It's got nothing to do with some daft notion of resisting an oppressive government (you tend to lose that kind of fight if you've got an air pistol and they've got an army with assault rifles, air cover and armour support).

Sparks

nesf wrote: »

Um, how is a cost reduction for most firearms in licence fees a genuine attack on gun holders by politicians? I agree loads of political noise has been made needlessly about legally held firearms but relatively little beyond hot air has resulted considering the furore in the media etc.

There are two broad categories for all the little attacks that came in with that cost reduction. Firstly, there's the changes that made it impossible to get a licence - you can no longer get a licence for fullbore pistols (thereby wiping out several sports including an old olympic one) unless you had your licence before Nov.18 last year; and there appears to have been a de facto blanket ban on those centerfire pistols brought in on the quiet, which is very naughty as the Supreme Court was very insistent in Dunne-v-Donohue that the Gardai and Minister had no right to impose a blanket ban as that was undermining the authority of the Dail (because a blanket ban is effectively an addition to the Firearms Act, which only the Dail should be doing).

The second broad category is the ways it's been made more difficult to licence firearms (in ways that make little sense to those of us who have held licences for years). We all had to give character refererences this year, for example, and were not allowed to cite the Garda Superintendents who have signed off on us as safe for the past decade or more. Which in some cases meant that people who're fairly concerned with personal security had to divulge their hobbies to people who didn't know. And we had to give up our medical confidentiality privilege - to get a licence you must now disclose your full medical history to the Gardai which you never had to before. Clubs and Ranges are now being authorised by a new Firearms Range Inspector, at a cost of a grand a go for the licence plus tens of thousands in construction costs to meet a fairly arbitary standard of construction (I mean, if there's a dangerous design, that's one thing, but we're talking here about ranges that have been active without incident for fifty years). There were other concerns; see the last six months of the shooting forum for full details!

And that's leaving aside all the things said about us in the media. When a TD or a government minister hides behind Dail privilege to say that all 200,000 licenced firearms owners are basicly looking for an opportunity to walk into a school and start shooting children, how is that anything but a cowardly attack on our good names?

nesf

Sparks wrote: »

And we had to give up our medical confidentiality privilege - to get a licence you must now disclose your full medical history to the Gardai which you never had to before.

Some of your list I can see the problem with but the above just seems like simple common sense to me. No one should be left near a gun licence if they've suffered from mental illness without a psychiatrist signing off on it that this person isn't a danger to themselves or others and doesn't have a history of such, speaking as someone with bipolar who would like to (but am not planning on) do target shooting.

Sparks

nesf wrote: »

Giving a private citizen a licence to possess a firearm should be a very solemn matter. Seriously, I can't think of any good reason to allow someone who doesn't have a clean criminal record and doesn't have proper secure place to store firearms anywhere near a licence (and that isn't an exhaustive list).

Nesf, it's been a far more demanding process than that since 1925. The recent changes in 2004 don't add anything and are there as cosmetic changes only.
Hell, it's not even physically possible to strictly adhere to our firearms acts because we've had so many of them, all amending each other, that I've not yet met a single person who can hold it all in their heads at once what the law actually is. Even the new forms are impossible in places - I couldn't give you the name of my GP, for example, because I don't have one. I've seen six in the last five years, never for more than one visit each. In the end I gave the most recent name, but technically, that's giving misleading information and I could be done for it. Not to mention that fundamentally, the intent of that part (to get a medical record) is thwarted by the lack of existance of such a record in the first place.

Noone is arguing there shouldn't be controls, nor that those controls shouldn't be strict - but sensible would be a good goal as well as far as we're concerned.

A strict regulatory system inevitably benefits genuine gun owners since it limits the amount of "legally held gun used to kill 4 teenagers" type crap from happening and thus less media crap and thus less political action against them.

It's a nice thought, but utterly wrong. We had TDs and Ministers chasing votes by stamping on us publicly in the last year or two. Simply put, we're a soft target. We can't fail to comply with the law, which means two things - (a) we're not a threat, and (b) it's easy to take stuff from us if you're the Minister. So if your options to tackle gun crime are to (a) spend lots of money on the Gardai so they can take on drug gangs successfully through things like Operation Anvil; or (b) demonise a bunch of people who can't defend themselves then confiscate their firearms and call it a victory via your PR department; well, three guesses which way the current Minister jumped?

Gangland weapon seizures have publicly been consisting to a large extent of weapons that are impossible to legally own here so I don't think anyone with any sense thinks there's a strong link between organised crime and genuine gun owners.

Didn't stop the accusations and the banning of centerfire pistols and the large demands then placed on people for beefing up ranges and everything else.

The former is why proper gun safes are as much for the sake of the people in the home rather than to prevent theft.

A shame the new laws say you don't need a gun safe if you only have a single shotgun, isn't it? I mean, what harm could you do with a 12-gauge loaded with buckshot, right?
Now an air pistol, that's dangerous, that you'd need to have a gunsafe for (and there was talk of requiring an alarm for the safe as well for a while there).
:rolleyes:

Look, I understand the thought nesf, but you're missing out on a technical point that most people don't get until they look at the law with a mind to how its implemented in reality, and that's this: the law doesn't make practical sense.

Example; a sound moderator (known far and wide as a silencer thanks to hollywood even though it doesn't actually silence anything) is classified as a firearm in and of itself. In Ireland, they're used by hunters to prevent hearing damage (shooting in the countryside with your ears covered by ear defenders isn't safe for anyone nearby because you can't hear them), to prevent spooking farm animals while controlling vermin, and by target shooters to be polite to the twenty other people on the range who don't want to lose their hearing when you shoot. But they're treated like they were made from uranium. It makes no practical sense at all, but it sounded good in the Dail, so we're stuck with it. And the Dail doesn't make sense most of the time - reading back over the debates on all the firearms acts, we see huge numbers of examples of people talking through their hat about the technicalities of firearms ownership in Ireland, and there's little to no fact checking going on. Hell, they nearly banned .22 rifles in the 1960s because a senator thought that The Day of the Jackal was a documentary. And while the Firearms Consultation Panel might have fixed this tendency, the current Minister made his proclamations on what the law was to be changed to before he ever met with the FCP.

Firearms legislation is technical stuff - it needs technical expertise to correctly draft sensible legislation. And we don't have that in the Dail, nor people willing to listen to experts and put their advice above political expediency. Until that changes, firearms law will never be about public safety and will always be about keeping a Ministerial backside on a Merc seat.

Sparks

nesf wrote: »

Some of your list I can see the problem with but the above just seems like simple common sense to me. No one should be left near a gun licence if they've suffered from mental illness without a psychiatrist signing off on it that this person isn't a danger to themselves or others and doesn't have a history of such, speaking as someone with bipolar who would like to (but am not planning on) do target shooting.

That's a great idea, but the mental health professionals disagree with you because:
(1) it takes months to sign off on someone as having a clean mental health bill, and that's months of supervised care;
(2) psychotic breaks cannot be predicted in advance.

I mean, look at Fort Hood. The shooter there was a psychiatrist himself for crying out loud.

On top of which, you've been barred from even applying for a licence and the gardai forbidden to give one to you if you're mentally unstable, since 1925 (technically for longer, but that was under British law). If that law didn't work (and some argue it didn't), then what makes you think this one will?

Especially when no GP in Ireland is qualified to testify to mental health, nor will any do so because of the liability issues?

Hell, even the form we sign to grant access to medical records won't be accepted by some GPs as sufficient to grant that access - so it's useless before you even get going!

Rovi

Sparks wrote: »

Hell, even the form we sign to grant access to medical records won't be accepted by some GPs as sufficient to grant that access - so it's useless before you even get going!

The shooting GPs (some them pistol shooters) that I've spoken to say that under no circumstances will they or any other medical practitioner they know of accept the clause on the application form as any sort of 'permission' to disclose medical information.

MikeC101

Sparks wrote: »

In other cases, hunting (for the pot), hunting (to control vermin numbers, which is so other food animals thrive so everyone else can eat), humane dispatch (this is usually vets), starting athletic races (blank firing pistols are still firearms under Irish law), and so forth.

It's got nothing to do with some daft notion of resisting an oppressive government (you tend to lose that kind of fight if you've got an air pistol and they've got an army with assault rifles, air cover and armour support).

This is pretty much my opinion on the matter. Nothing to do with the notion of resisting the state (which I don't think many gun owners in Ireland feel necessary, and emphasising this only makes us look like nutcases to most people), everything to do with the practicalities of living in the countryside.

nesf

Sparks wrote: »

That's a great idea, but the mental health professionals disagree with you because:
(1) it takes months to sign off on someone as having a clean mental health bill, and that's months of supervised care;
(2) psychotic breaks cannot be predicted in advance.

I mean, look at Fort Hood. The shooter there was a psychiatrist himself for crying out loud.

On top of which, you've been barred from even applying for a licence and the gardai forbidden to give one to you if you're mentally unstable, since 1925 (technically for longer, but that was under British law). If that law didn't work (and some argue it didn't), then what makes you think this one will?

Especially when no GP in Ireland is qualified to testify to mental health, nor will any do so because of the liability issues?

Hell, even the form we sign to grant access to medical records won't be accepted by some GPs as sufficient to grant that access - so it's useless before you even get going!

Which is why I chose my wording very very carefully. Currently or previously, not potentially.

Edit: It's not that it would work, or that it would stop all instances, approaching regulation in that manner is pointless, it's that it could prevent some people from getting firearms who might get them under a system where their health records weren't available.

nesf

Sparks wrote: »

Firearms legislation is technical stuff - it needs technical expertise to correctly draft sensible legislation. And we don't have that in the Dail, nor people willing to listen to experts and put their advice above political expediency. Until that changes, firearms law will never be about public safety and will always be about keeping a Ministerial backside on a Merc seat.

Indeed, such is the problem of representative Government I'm afraid.

donaghs

Unfortunately, I'm starting to think that private gun ownership is gradually becoming becoming thought of as a necessary evil in many peoples minds.

Guns are more widespread in crime, but almost never involving legally held guns. The best advice for dealing with dangerous criminals, even privately from Gardai, is to look the other way. If our justice system can secure a conviction, the sentences are risible, then undermined by early release, and the fact that criminals can continue running their affairs from inside a prison. Many people will take the lesson from the murder of Roy Collins that it is pointless trying to challenge criminals and the law cannot protect you, and if you do end up in a confrontation, you have to settle it permanently & privately so you don't spend your life looking over your shoulder.

Sparks

donaghs wrote: »

Guns are more widespread in crime, but almost never involving legally held guns.

Not almost. Never. We've repeatedly asked the Minister and the Commissioner in the Dail and in public meetings and always gotten the same answer - there is no recorded case of a stolen but originally legally owned firearm being used in a crime.
(We've then been told "well, we can't prove it but that doesn't mean it doesn't happen". Well, I can't prove there are no china teapots in orbit around pluto, but I can be reasonably sure the best option pending proof is to assume there aren't...)

Sparks

nesf wrote: »

Which is why I chose my wording very very carefully. Currently or previously, not potentially.

Indeed, but it's potentially that's of some use. Currently has been banned since the founding of the state, and Previously is irrelevant unless you believe in the notion that mental health, once damaged, can never be repaired (and all the mental health professionals I've ever spoken to or read on the subject are adamant that that's only the case where real physical damage has been done or where the psychological damage was right off the charts in the first place - in both cases, firearms ownership has been banned since '25).

it could prevent some people from getting firearms who might get them under a system where their health records weren't available.

Yeah, I've had firearms of my own since 2001 and used them since 1994, I've trained hundreds of people to use them, I'm certified as an ISSF judge and I've represented my club and country abroad in the sport, and I don't have any health records in the system to begin with, and even if I had no GP will release them, not on the strength of the form I've signed.

The system doesn't work, basicly, it just provides you with ways to inadvertently commit a crime (by making a mistake on your form or filling it out incorrectly, or not being able to give an answer that's 'true' from the point of view of the form).

nesf

Sparks wrote: »

and all the mental health professionals I've ever spoken to or read on the subject are adamant that that's only the case where real physical damage has been done or where the psychological damage was right off the charts in the first place

Honestly, no. For some people drugs and therapy don't fix everything and they will suffer lifelong problems. For most thankfully that's not the case due to modern medicine but for an unfortunate number it's still not a reality.

Were any of these people you talked to practicing psychiatrists out of interest?