TV3 @ 20.30 Irelands Gun Crime Crisis

Sparks

What should have been put across was something like this:

• How you get a firearm:
  • Step one is deciding what you want to do - what sport you want to take part in or what game you want to eat or what agricultural problem you have, etc. - not "what do you want to shoot" because that's how you do what you want to do;
  • Step two is coming to places like your local club, your local dealer, here, your NGBs, whatever, for advice, and what we usually tell people (eg. Go watch a sport in your local club, go talk to hunters in your local gun club, etc). Emphasis should be put on how there's a training and support structure pushed at the newbies.
  • Step three is the point where you decide what kind of firearm you wish to get, and then you show how the applicant fills out the FCA1. You stress what controls there are - the character references, the club requirements for target shooters, the medical records access, all of it -- and you stress how much control the Gardai have over the process, and how none of the court cases have lessened that control.
  • Then you go over things like secure storage, random inspections, and so on.
  • And then, if you want, you can show the paperwork the gun traders use. But I wouldn't myself, because as a system, it doesn't really work so well, to track any firearm through it would be a strictly after-the-fact forensic exercise as it's all paper records.
• At no point should we have been even in the same room as a mass shooting discussion, not unless it's forced on us, and then we don't speculate - we point out that we are the general public, we support sensible controls, we know that these events are tragic and if the system is properly enforced, they can usually be avoided (Hungerford, Dunblane and other such events were all preventable if people had simply enforced the laws on the books on the day they happened - the perpetrators would have been arrested months in advance). We should be strongly stressing that the real problem is criminals with guns, but far better would to never be mentioned in the same breath as these events.
• We should never, ever, ever get personal. We shouldn't get shouty, we shouldn't try blaming all the woes of the system on the AGS or DoJ or Minister - it doesn't matter that we know the problems have largely come from specific AGS personnel, because only we know that. Joe Public hasn't been in our sport, hasn't seen the problems build up over years, hasn't seen the evidence against specific people and doesn't know us enough to trust our word over the AGS. So you keep it professional. You keep it even-tempered. You acknowledge problems, but stress that you want solutions, not retribution. If our argument and evidence is strong enough (and it is, by a country mile), then others will draw our conclusions themselves, they won't need our patronising to do so - but if we try to shove a conclusion down their throats, they won't accept it.
• We show our sports and activities as Safe&Harmless. And I mean show. You show large organised competitions, well-run facilities, dedicated sportspeople, trained hunters and conservationists - and you show their work conserving species, you show DSPCA people who use firearms to put down animals they can't reach, you show farmers protecting crops, you show all the positive images - and I mean show, you don't tell, you present images.

That's been the basic game plan for over a decade now. It's how many of the target shooting NGBs have operated in all that time (and you'll notice that the ones who do are the ones who have fewer hassles with the Powers That Be and get more positive media coverage). And I didn't see any of that last night at all

Cass

As this is directed towards me allow me to respond.

Vizzy wrote: »

This is great lads
We( and I mean all legal gun licence holders) are getting agitated because we might be seen in a bad light by the general public on some show that made no allegations towards us.

We (and i mean all of us too) must take every opportunity to portray ourselves in the best light possible whenever the opportunity is there (as outlined by Sparks). In this instance we could have gotten our views across and shown solidarity with the topic of the show by saying how legitimate gun owners are as ardently opposed to such gun crime, and sympathise with the families of gun crime instead of using such programmes to try and bring an issue that relates to ourselves solely into the public forum.

IOW the public don't care if we meet with the DoJ/Gardai or how often, and the majority of the public either have no opinion or dislike firearms simply because they are firearms. So the point is lost on them.

Yet,we are arguing amongst ourselves as to who we represent.

Again no. I was personally questioned as to whom i was refering to when i used the word we. I explained my position, and the matter was settled.

As I have been reminded by a Mod on here not so long ago,Boards is widely read by everyone from the DoJ to the Anti's.

That again was directed at me, and without breaking the confidence of the PM system the matter was in no way related to what is being discussed here. If you'd like to discuss the matter again then by all means contact me via PM, and we can continue the conversation from where we left off those months ago.

What impression does "disquiet in the ranks" portray ?

This has been an ongoing saga for decades, and if you look back through Boards alone this thread would be one of hundreds of a similar theme. So in the "grand scheme of things" this thread would not rank highly on anyone's radar. Not to mention all the "in fighting", and disagreements between the organisations that is out in the public domain already.

Issues like this programme should generate discussion, and there will never be unified agreement otherwise we would not need multiple organisations merely one. IOW a fantasy.

Two people spoke last night, and they are to be commended for their attempt. I, however, need not agree with what they said nor how they said it.