Statement from NASRPC

Cass

Tackleberry. wrote: »

Hi Cass, how's the knees?

Still fecked lad. Thanks for asking.

Well what I was actually told was that .243 is what there new limit would be and that all above would be restricted.

I wouldn't pay much attention to all the rumors. I know it's easy said, but i'm as affected by any changes, like the ones you said, as you or anyone else.

However i was told years ago that i'd never get my TRG re-licensed as they were being classed as military rifles. Needless to say i did not rush out and sell it, and funnily enough i got the license renewal without a bother. (Then i sold it )

I've heard the same rumors about 243 going to be the minimum for deer, Swifts being illegal for deer, semi auto rifles being banned, .223s being banned (again as military calibers :rolleyes: ), and .308s being restricted. None of it ever came to pass. Not that it cannot, but some rumors are pure speculation and fantasy. Others might have a basis in fact but are blown out of proportion.

rowa

yubabill1 wrote: »

is that AGS are saying legally-held firearms could be stolen and fall into criminal hands:
.

Using that flawed logic, all cars over 1.2L and motorcycles over 250cc should also be banned as they could be used in getaways. Total rubbish.

Dian Cecht

rowa wrote: »

Total rubbish.

Only to us. To the great unwashed who don't shoot it makes perfect sense though.

syklops

I'd love to know how many crimes were committed last year with licensed hand guns.

Seems to me, its easier to get a Glock 17 through unlawful methods than a registered .22 pistol.

cookimonster

Tackleberry,

We must be on the same rumor vine, that's more or less what I heard from a gun dealer last week, potential effect on all semi autos, rifle and shotgun, no more hand guns and maximum rifle calibre of .243.

The anti gun lobby is global at the moment, even the NRA are being kept on thier toes by home grown opposition and they and the gun industry are watching carefully the sabre rattling from both the EU and the UN.

Cass

cookimonster wrote: »

We must be on the same rumor vine, that's more or less what I heard from a gun dealer last week,

Gun dealers talk to each other, members of a range talk to each other, members of an association or organisation talk to each. My point being if you talk to any person(s) from the same social group chances are their stories will be the same to identical. From filling in gaps in what they were told, to repeating incorrect information rumors become fact, and it spreads.

As i said above if the organisations that will be directly effected don't know what is coming, the Gardaí involved in dealing with firearms don't know (at least the specifics) then no one else will. The DoJ is not in the business of giving heads ups on probable or possible legislation.

yubabill1

cookimonster wrote: »

Tackleberry,




The anti gun lobby is global at the moment, even the NRA are being kept on thier toes by home grown opposition and they and the gun industry are watching carefully the sabre rattling from both the EU and the UN.

brings to mind the recent EU consultation thread here a while ago and the metrosexual interpretation of the outcome.

At least shooters got together EU-wide on that one.

We have more political clout than you might think.

Drexl Spivey

I shouldn't have purchased a .22 (I have yet to receive the approval from Garda)

It seems an inevitability, one day, sooner or later, they will ban firearms.

I don't understand what would result out of this in their view, for example would it lower rate of any sort of crimes...

Very frustrating indeed.

bravestar

yubabill1 wrote: »

AGS are charged with maintaining law and order. From what I read in the papers, drug abuse is associated with crimes other than abusing illegal drugs.
As long as demand for illegal drugs stays at present levels, AGS will struggle without significant extra resources and will pass the heat on to people like us.
AGS also seem to have a big input into firearms legislation, from what I can see.

Dian Cecht wrote: »

Pity some of them don't know it wouldn't be any need for a lot of shooters having to go to Court

yubabill1 wrote: »

The way I see it, one of the more coherent arguments - from a pool of highly spurious ones - is that AGS are saying legally-held firearms could be stolen and fall into criminal hands:

We all know how weak an argument that is and that the undercurrent is AGS/DoJ need a cheap and convenient grandstand to show they are tough on gun crime, by tightening firearms legislation.
Joe Public doesn't care enough to discriminate between illegal and legal firearms, so the cheap shot gives AGS/DoJ payback every time.

Needless to say, I'm pretty pi**ed.

Dian Cecht wrote: »

Only to us. To the great unwashed who don't shoot it makes perfect sense though.

Extremism, regardless of which side it falls on, is never a good thing and undermines the cause which it purports. Some people would do well to remember that.

BillyBoy13

Drexl Spivey wrote: »

I shouldn't have purchased a .22 (I have yet to receive the approval from Garda)

It seems an inevitability, one day, sooner or later, they will ban firearms.

I don't understand what would result out of this in their view, for example would it lower rate of any sort of crimes...

Very frustrating indeed.

Im not going to get into whether or not the AGS/DOJ will ever get a complete firearm ban in the future.

But for you, if you are regretting your purchase you have a few options.

The most obvious is to call AGS and cancel your application. Dont worry if they tell you its in post- you wont be licenced until you pay the 80euros. But just to save them going to the bother of processing it, Id call and cancel it.

Next step is contact your dealer. Some dealers will give you your deposit back, others wont. You can either cut your loses and let him keep the deposit or you can pay him the rest of the money for the rifle and now you officially own it (you just cant possess it).

You have a few options from here- sell it back to him (or any dealer for that matter), or sell it yourself. Put some adds up here on boards or go round a few clubs. You should be able to recoup all and any money you spent.

Goodluck with it whether you keep or sell

Tackleberry.

From my cold dead hands the yanks say, they'll not take our guns...I taught they where all mad in the head with this stance once a time but I get there logic more now than ever before, even if they own some crazy sh*te over there, we here are as gun owners under attack from our own state,even when we have proved that we are safe and careful users of the firearms that we own they still look to amend our laws outta fear...

BattleCorp

Tackleberry. wrote: »

From what I have heard on these rumours is that its really the .22 pistol mag capacity issue that is the biggy then semi auto shotguns are included in the capacity issue and that .308 rifles may become restricted...

To be honest, the public safety arguement that will probably be put forward is bullsh1t. I wouldn't mind if licenced pistol holders were going around committing crimes but this isn't the case.

If changing the magazine to a larger capacity magazine is considered very dangerous and thus must be banned for pistols, what's to stop them doing the same with every CZ or Ruger semi auto rifle. Can't the magazine be changed on them?

If a ban on .22 pistols is indeed forced upon us, it will serve absolutely no purpose and achieve nothing except p1ss off the likes of me, a law abiding citizen who will no longer be able to take part in their chosen sport.

yubabill1

BattleCorp wrote: »

If a ban on .22 pistols is indeed forced upon us, it will serve absolutely no purpose and achieve nothing except p1ss off the likes of me, a law abiding citizen who will no longer be able to take part in their chosen sport.

shatter thinks there might be votes in it - but Joe Public could care less about law-abiding, mentally stable, vetted and profiled citizens owning handguns.

SmartpPeople would say "Weren't handguns already banned? .22 handgun, surely that's what Olympians use, so they must be safe?

There are NO votes in this, Minister.

Witcher

yubabill1 wrote: »

shatter thinks there might be votes in it - but Joe Public could care less about law-abiding, mentally stable, vetted and profiled citizens owning handguns.

SmartpPeople would say "Weren't handguns already banned? .22 handgun, surely that's what Olympians use, so they must be safe?

There are NO votes in this, Minister.

Read a firearms thread over on After Hours or an article about them on TheJournal, a lot of people in Ireland are against firearms. They don't care what sort of vetting is done. The public aren't our friends. Look at the objections made on radio to the new full bore range down the country, some people openly admitted that they didn't know the ins and outs of it would be objecting anyway. My own club had the same problem, people here just don't like firearms simple as that.

Sparks

Tackleberry. wrote: »

From my cold dead hands the yanks say

Actually, the majority of the yanks are for reasonable gun control according to damn near every survey. Even the NRA was calling for it not too long ago (yes, there are disagreements over what "reasonable" means, but honestly there wasn't much difference in most of the opinions out there).

And the "cold dead hands" thing is kindof like the "molon labe" thing - it's funny, but it doesn't bear up to thirty seconds thought (seriously, if more people knew what actually happened at thermopylae and who was fighting there and what they were really like, not one person in the world would try to associate themselves with them - the spartans made the nazis look like nice reasonable people).

And that's before you even get to the not-so-minor point that they can say that becuase their constitution grants them a legal right to own firearms; ours does not, our culture isn't pro-private-firearms-ownership, our national psyche is totally different, our culture and case law and pretty much everything else is wildly different from the US, and really, comparing here and there is like comparing chalk and the 1957 Bolivian world cup soccer team.

Sparks

yubabill1 wrote: »

shatter thinks there might be votes in it - but Joe Public could care less about law-abiding, mentally stable, vetted and profiled citizens owning handguns.

As I've tried explaining a few times, Joe Public doesn't know that law-abiding, mentally stable, vetted and profiled citizens own handguns.

Seriously. How many times have we heard, a decade after their return, that someone was shocked that we were allowed own them and that surely there was something wrong with that? And they're usually surprised that they're in the Olympics as well, for that matter -- though, for all the olympic-bashing the shouty people love to engage in, that particular argument is one of the very few we've found that give people pause for thought - we can bitch all we want about it, but people really do give the Olympics a lot of status in their own minds and that has worked to our benefit a lot in the past.

rowa

Sparks wrote: »

Actually, the majority of the yanks are for reasonable gun control according to damn near every survey. Even the NRA was calling for it not too long ago (yes, there are disagreements over what "reasonable" means, but honestly there wasn't much difference in most of the opinions out there).

But the majority of american shooters are also afraid that if they give an inch in reasonable gun control, the ban everything brigade will take a mile. When you look at what happened in the uk and whats happening here, eg. The law abiding safe shooter paying for the sins of gangland criminals, you can't blame them. They don't want death by a thousand little cuts.

Sparks

rowa wrote: »

But the majority of american shooters are also afraid that if they give an inch in reasonable gun control, the ban everything brigade will take a mile.

Yes, but (a) I was talking about the majority of americans not just american shooters (though it seems that the majority of american shooters are also fine with reasonable gun control); and (b) the ban everything brigade are seriously restricted by law as to what they can't do - just look at the recent ruling against the chicago ban where it was struck down (but also note that they didn't ban licencing - they struck down a ban on licenced firearms ownership in the city limits. These cases are rarely simple soundbites...).

When you look at what happened in the uk and whats happening here, eg. The law abiding safe shooter paying for the sins of gangland criminals, you can't blame them. They don't want death by a thousand little cuts.

They also don't (or at least, the majority in the surveys don't) mind having gun controls either. Ted Nugent aside, I don't think you'll find too many americans who think that felons or the insane (as in, medically diagnosed, not "gosh, you're just nuts you are") should have a right to own a firearm. The debate is, and always has been, about where the line is drawn, and that's a very different thing from having a debate about whether or not there should be a line at all.

And again, this has as much to do with us as that 1957 Bolivian world cup soccer team...

Cass

BattleCorp wrote: »

If changing the magazine to a larger capacity magazine is considered very dangerous and thus must be banned for pistols, what's to stop them doing the same with every CZ or Ruger semi auto rifle. Can't the magazine be changed on them?.

Yup. As said in post 3 or 4:

Cass wrote: »

There are a lot of changes floating around about changes to the current legislation including .22lr pistols being further restricted, and even more rumors about them being done away with. Same with semi auto rimfires. One of the key rumors i've heard is they are afraid that an unrestricted pistol can be made restricted by simply putting in a larger capacity mag.

Sparks

Or, more generally, what's to stop anyone with any firearm at all from taking a hacksaw to the barrel and cutting it down to less than the legal limits of 63/50cm? What's to stop anyone from buying more ammunition than they have a licence to hold at any one time? What's to stop someone from pointing their gun at another human being?

The answer's the same in all these cases - namely that it's against the law and we obey the law.

Kindof like the way a Garda's not legally allowed to take his baton and beat the everloving snot out of a random passerby on the street, and Gardai obey the law so they don't do that and that's considered sufficient control and so we don't think twice about giving them batons and regularly debate publicly if they shouldn't be given more.

Seems to me, what's sauce for the goose should be sauce for the gander, but hey, I'm an eternal optimist as anyone will tell you...

BillyBoy13

Sparks wrote: »

As I've tried explaining a few times, Joe Public doesn't know that law-abiding, mentally stable, vetted and profiled citizens own handguns.

Im not singling you out when I say this, its something thats bothered me for a while. (You just happened to be the person that brought it up :P )

But I can think of quite a few instances where people with legally held firearms broke the law doing something that.... emmm, I hate to say it like this, but doing stuff a "normal" person wouldnt do.

I know its a slippery slope to go down, but I have seen a few people with firearms over the years that I have wondered about- obviously the super was privey to the medical files and Im not. So he probably knows something I dont.

But I personally would fully support stricter background checks- though given the AGS is stretched thin as it is Im not sure if we will ever see such a thing

Witcher

There's not really much more background detail the Gardai can ask for.

Background checks are of limited use anyway, they only tell the Gardai what you've done in the past not what you will do in the future. You can't predict somebody snapping down the line.

Sparks

Blay wrote: »

There's not really much more background detail the Gardai can ask for.

Not only that, there's not much more authority we could actually give the Super beyond what he has now - which is pretty much the legal authority to do anything he feels is necessary without actually rewriting the law itself.
He doesn't think someone should have a firearm - they don't get one, that's pretty much the current situation.

BillyBoy13

Blay wrote: »

There's not really much more background detail the Gardai can ask for.

Background checks are of limited use anyway, they only tell the Gardai what you've done in the past not what you will do in the future. You can't predict somebody snapping down the line.

I see what you are saying, I can understand if a lads wife leaves him and she takes the kids... then he gets depressed. Then he loses his job and then before you know it he goes and does something stupid. That's unpredictable.

Im talking about people, this is such a slippery slope and I really dont want to get into this as Im no way qualified to say whos "normal" and whos not. But I have met a few people over the years who just wouldnt be the full shillin and they were licence holders.

Because this person died a few years back I dont mind saying it, but there was an eccentric landowner who lived on his own, and he was known for walking around his fields at night with no clothes on. And he had an old rusty single barrel in the house. Obviously he had the gun for years and he never did anyone any harm... but I still wondered about it sometimes.

Sparks

BillyBoy13 wrote: »

I see what you are saying, I can understand if a lads wife leaves him and she takes the kids... then he gets depressed. Then he loses his job and then before you know it he goes and does something stupid. That's unpredictable.

And the Super has the authority under section 5(1)(b) to revoke the licence and take back the firearm before that something stupid happens. Shy of requiring you to be under constant medical supervision (don't laugh, it was suggested), there's not much more you can do about that other than giving the gardai the power to do something about it and hope that it gets noticed in time.
(Besides, you can be stupid with a lot more than just a firearm, so you wouldn't be fixing the real problem anyway).

Because this person died a few years back I dont mind saying it, but there was a landowner who was known for walking around his fields at night with no clothes on.

Yeah, but nudism is not actually mental instablity, you realise. It's not the usual thing in Ireland, but then, much of what's "usual" in Ireland is seen in most of the rest of the world as deeply wrong and crazy, and some ould fella being a nudist at night on his own property bothers me a damn sight less than things like Anglo, Irish Water, the religious orders, and a dozen and one other things that we all could list off in a dozen seconds if we thought about it.

Now, he goes down to the shops while nude and not realising he'd left the pants back at the house, that would be grounds to pull his licence.

BillyBoy13

Sparks wrote: »

Yeah, but nudism is not actually mental instablity, you realise.

Yes. I know what you are saying. And like I said he was a harmless enough chap, but he just wouldn't have being the full shillin. He had rats in the house, didn't clean himself, didn't shave, he wouldn't talk to anyone, walked about the fields in the nude. Like I said, obviously the super had access to medical files that I havent seen, and obviously Im not qualified in mental health to really say anything of value.

But if I was a super I would have had a hard time granting him the licence. I suppose in the end he did have it for all those years and there was never an issue.... but emm.... actually... I think I'll leave it there- I dont want to open a can of worms about what makes a person "normal".

Sparks

BillyBoy13 wrote: »

Yes. I know what you are saying. And like I said he was a harmless enough chap, but he just wouldn't have being the full shillin. He had rats in the house, didn't clean himself, didn't shave, he wouldn't talk to anyone, walked about the fields in the nude.

Ah, now, that's a bit more than you first said
But it does underscore the point - we don't always know all the facts involved and sometimes those facts are kindof central.

On the other hand, sometimes the reasons given for refusals are just plain wrong, and in those cases either the decision was wrong or the refusal wasn't done properly, and neither of those is a good thing (there's a pretty strong argument that the latter was a contributing factor to Abbylara, for example).

BattleCorp

Cass wrote: »

Yup. As said in post 3 or 4:

Originally Posted by Cass
There are a lot of changes floating around about changes to the current legislation including .22lr pistols being further restricted, and even more rumors about them being done away with. Same with semi auto rimfires. One of the key rumors i've heard is they are afraid that an unrestricted pistol can be made restricted by simply putting in a larger capacity mag.

I know it has been said already but I think it's worth mentioning again because some shooters don't give a sh1te about a few lads with pistols if it doesn't affect them but from what I'm hearing, it mightn't stop at pistols, and that's something that should concern all shooters on here.

chem

Folks lets look at the bigger picture here! If any or all of the romours are right the following questions would come into play.

Will the DOJ balk at paying compensation for confiscating private property?

Do they have the stomach for hundreds of high court cases?

Will thousands of letters get the government & opposition mobilised?

What about Public opinion and wasting taxpayer's money?

How much unity is there among shooters and their organisations?

How much money will they commit to a legal and public relations campaign?

Are the guards bluffing and what is the minimum they would settle for?

Now, as to the second question, are the Garda payed overtime/millage etc to attend high court cases? I wonder!

Sparks

chem wrote: »

Folks lets look at the bigger picture here! If any or all of the romours are right the following questions would come into play.

Based on the last thirty years:

No, Yes, No, Public opinion isn't on our side, Does the FCP's demise not answer that, None, Why would they bluff or settle, and, they're paid to be there but I don't think it's overtime.