trainer pistol and rifle

hermes2011

is it true that anyone can be a trainer in pistol or rifle target shooting that there is no standardized the same way a manufacturing company would need an ISO or Security certificate recognized. some people are charging lots for courses and you would think that the associations would form a standard just like the HCap.

Cass

Yup.

I've said for some time, and it's probably an unpopular opinion to some, that the competency courses are a joke.

I'm not saying the courses themselves, at least not all of them, just the lack of regulation. An Gardaí demand a certificate of competence when applying for a firearm. This is understandable and supported by the majority of shooters. You don't want anyone being able to get a gun and just start shooting. However a competence certificate has become the norm, whereas it's only one of a number of ways to prove competence.

Without getting into the various ways, the courses went from being ran by organisations with proven track records to being run by anyone that classed themselves as an expert. They range from €30 to €150 and last from 30 minutes to 2 days.Some appeal to shooters more than others for cost reson and time reasons. Again i'm not blaming the shooters as they simply believe these people are as qualified as the others. It would be like me running my own courses. I've been out with my Grandfather and Father since i was a kid, and have been shooting since i was 14. I've shoot most types of shooting, and owned dozens of firearms over the years. I've done safety courses, training courses, RO course and am currently enrolled in another course. I still would not class myself as being competent to sign off on others competence, nor would i like to take on that responsibility. People with less experience than me do, and this is where the problems arise.

An Gardaí and the DoJ do not demand any sort of regulation. They do not endorse or put their name to any course, even the ones from the larger ranges. Reasons for this are unknown. Of course if i had to guess there is the issue that if the DoJ/AGS were to put their name to any course they would most likely want to be in control of it. That means training AGS members to give the courses, or setting up "schools" where anyone wishing to run a course would have to graduate from before being allowed. Then you're into other areas such as fees, facilities, regular inspections, etc, etc.

There is a lot of bureaucracy involved in the administration side of shooting, too much at times. Some of it is unnecessary, most of it tedious and some of it outright useless which results in unnecessary delays and frustration on both sides (shooters and AGS). The problem with instituting such a regulated program is the extra delays it will cause, the lack of suitable personnel in AGS to perform such courses, and if tendered out to the shooting community the possibility for abuse of the courses in terms of prices, locations, groups, etc.

The one thing that cannot be allowed to happen is to confuse competence with proficiency. There is no legal requirement to be proficient with a firearm, just safe. If such courses turned into a proficiency training scheme, then into regular checks (like resitting a test every 3 years), this would be a disaster. It would only turn people off shooting, open the floodgates for people to hit the shooting community with yet more fees, cause some to give up shooting, and turn shooting sports into an elitist sport available only to the well off and those with crack shots.

Sparks

Correct, as mentioned earlier.

hermes2011

hcap you have to have to shoot on coilte land for deer so has to be recognize by colite .so you could print a cert for pistol rilfe at home and hand it in so the people who are running these courses and getting paid for them they are getting money for old rope because they are literally not worth the paper they are written on, I have a load of them as well

Sparks

It's slightly worse than that; it's not just a case of there being bad courses out there; it's that good ones aren't guaranteed to be recognised either. You can do a course from an international governing body like ISSF, but if your local Super says he won't accept it, you're stuffed.

hermes2011

might as well save the money and download some off the internet ha

Cass

hermes2011 wrote: »

hcap you have to have to shoot on coilte land for deer so has to be recognize by colite .

It is a Coilte course, administered by the Deer Alliance. They (Coilte) demand it be done so of course they are going to "recognise" it.

hermes2011

there should be one for rifle and pistol target shooting. any one can call themselves a trainer charge between 100 to 150 or more for a course and it aint worth the paper it wrote on. ya cant drive unless youhave a licence which you can only get by doing x number of hours supervised, ya cant go onto a building site without a safe pass but ya can own and a firearm without any competence cert. all the associations should have one recognized cert

Cass

hermes2011 wrote: »

there should be one for rifle and pistol target shooting.

Proficicency courses? Not a chance. Fro the reason above:

Cass wrote: »

The one thing that cannot be allowed to happen is to confuse competence with proficiency. There is no legal requirement to be proficient with a firearm, just safe. If such courses turned into a proficiency training scheme, then into regular checks (like resitting a test every 3 years), this would be a disaster. It would only turn people off shooting, open the floodgates for people to hit the shooting community with yet more fees, cause some to give up shooting, and turn shooting sports into an elitist sport available only to the well off and those with crack shots.

any one can call themselves a trainer charge between 100 to 150 or more for a course and it aint worth the paper it wrote on.

Only if the Super does not accept it, but if he does then it is worth the paper it's written on.

Competency courses are a necessary evil for those don't have the luxury of having someone to go out with or to get a training license with (other forms of competence).

........ but ya can own and a firearm without any competence cert.

No you cannot.

Its either:

• Competency cert
• Previous history
• Training license
• Letter of support from those you have gone out with before

You say you cannot get a driver's license without lessons, experience, etc.What you are also referring to is proficiency. A new driver is not experienced and must learn as they go. Same with a firearm owner. They get the license by showing competence and a host of other criteria, then they learn as they progress.

all the associations should have one recognized cert

Most do courses and all are "recognised", but not officially. IOW if i got a cert from the NRAI, MNSCI, NASRPC, NARGC, etc, etc. there is almost no chance it would not be accepted. However there is no official Garda stamp on their certs to say the Gardaí officially recognise the courses.

hermes2011

I am shooting a very long time now I have never needed any of them to get a licence. what I am saying is those making money out of shooters when the certs are not recognized and not worth the paper they are wrote on. If all shooting associations got together through the FCP we could have one cert like the Hcap and it would cut out all those making money for nothing.

Cass

hermes2011 wrote: »

I am shooting a very long time now I have never needed any of them to get a licence.

Nor have i, as it only came into effect since 2009 (IIRC).

Before that there wasn't even a competence cert requirement so do you think it's better or worse?

what I am saying is those making money out of shooters when the certs are not recognized and not worth the paper they are wrote on.

You keep saying they are not recognised, but be clear, they are by the Garda accepting them. They just don't have a Garda/DoJ seal on them.

If all shooting associations got together through the FCP we could have one cert like the Hcap and it would cut out all those making money for nothing.

No it wouldn't, it would make it worse.

The HCAP is a proficiency course, as well as a safety one. There is no legal requirement to be proficient to get a firearm, just competent. This proficiency nonsense is the same tripe the SC spouted. As soon as proficiency courses become the norm then you would see a rapid rise in unregulated "training facilities". Now that would leave all new shooters open to being absolutely soaked.

All the associations, NGBs, etc can get together all they like. Unless AGS sign off on it nothing will happen. Seeing as how they haven't done so thus far i doubt they would be inclined to so it now for the reasons i outlined above in my first post.

hermes2011

to be competent with something and safe you have to be proficient in the use of it. you are saying you need a competency cert when you all you have to do is join a club have paid membership and you can apply for whatever firearm you like. if the associations had recognized certification they could make a few quid out of it to put back into their sport. I am of instructor level with an association not recognized in this country any more and half a day with any firearm does not make you competent and safe.

Cass

To be competent you need to know the basic safety procedures for handling and using a firearm. To be proficient, to me, means to be skilled (to a given level) with a firearm.

The law, as it stands, says i need to be competent, not proficient.

I have already said i don't agree with the unregulated nature of the courses being run, but i'm adamantly opposed to replacing them/merging them with an ongoing training/proficiency course.

As for the length of time spent on a course. What do you propose? A week, A month, year, 5 years, never ending. These won't be run for free so you're saying to replace the money making racket with a bigger one?

hermes2011

no at least if you paid for a course the money would go back into your sport nt into someone pocket as for other point no regulation means no standards

Cass

You're missing the point.

You claim the the current competency courses are a license to print money and a waste of time because they are unregulated. If they were regulated the AGS/DoJ (hence Government) would become involved and then you would see fees that would make your eyes water. Also any monies raised would go into the exchequer, not the sport.



If the organisations were to run such courses, under regulation, they would have to pay a fee/license to the DoJ and again that cost would get passed down to the shooter and again no monies or very little going back to the sport.

Lastly, and i cannot stress this enough, any courses for proficiency should be opposed in the strongest possible way as (and history has shown this time and again) it is only an invitation for abuse and unlike competency courses where do the proficiency courses end. Who judges you to to be proficient? Who judges the trainers to be proficient? Considerng the amount of firearms, types, cailbers, etc a person may end up needing to be doing such a course indefinitely for each new firearm they get.

hermes2011

there are different brands of rifles but in theory there are only two for civilian use. bolt action and semi automatic. so an instructor would only have to be proficient in using what is legal in his or her country. There are only two type of shorts again revolver of semi automatic pistol. I re iterate the bit about the instructor.

I feel that if we had aregulated system that the DoJ and Gardaí could not keep on arguing about public safety and refuse firearm applications based on what the firearm looks like. It is a ludicrous that a .22 lr semi automatic rifle can be made a restricted firearm by the way it looks.

Sparks

hermes2011 wrote: »

there should be one for rifle and pistol target shooting.

You know those aren't one sport, right?
What would be safe for one kind of pistol shooting (and even necessary to take part in it) would be highly unsafe in other kinds of pistol shooting. And likewise for rifle and shotgun. That's why we never, in the approximately three hundred years we've had firearms in Ireland and the 161 years we know we've had target shooting here, we've never once had a one-size-fits-all safety course.
And there is no need to develop one either.
Seriously. The law as it was intended (which is not how it stands but let's leave that for the moment) could be readily fulfilled in a standardised manner that doesn't give anyone a licence to print money running courses, without trying to hammer a square peg through a round hole with the one-size-fits-all safety course.

ya cant drive unless youhave a licence which you can only get by doing x number of hours supervised

Just on that example, have you any idea how hard it was to change the driving licence system to bring that standard about? I do. It was literally years of effort and it didn't go in easy. You could bring about a similar system for shooting - just don't think it'd be a simple straightforward short task.

Sparks

hermes2011 wrote: »

there are different brands of rifles but in theory there are only two for civilian use. bolt action and semi automatic.

And lever action and falling block martini action, neither of which is terribly uncommon. And I'm glossing over the small point that there are a few different types of bolt action (for example, straight-pulls like the K31 and "normal" types like you find on an Anschutz - though there are at least four different Anschutz pattern bolts in use in this country...) and more than a few different types of semi automatic action (seriously, I'm not even going to list them, there are so many variations, many of which have quirks that are important to know about if you own one).

There are only two type of shorts again revolver of semi automatic pistol.

There are also single shot pistols, and then there's the air pistols, and then there's the different kinds of centerfires that are still licenced which any certification system really wouldn't have a strong case for ignoring (and if they were brought back, any system that couldn't cope with them would be useless).

Basically, yes, if you ignore enough details you'll get a simple picture, but the problem is that if you ignore enough details you'll also get something that's not fit for purpose.

I feel that if we had aregulated system that the DoJ and Gardaí could not keep on arguing about public safety and refuse firearm applications based on what the firearm looks like. It is a ludicrous that a .22 lr semi automatic rifle can be made a restricted firearm by the way it looks.

Actually, that's a totally different part of the law and altering firearms course regulation would have absolutely no impact on it at all.