safety courses for shooters on club ranges

hermes2011

due to the recent tragedy in Cork how does people feel or think about having safety courses run in clubs and associations involving shooters, all disciplines. I know we have a low incidence rate in Ireland but do ye feel that this would benefit as one tragedy is one too many?

Sparks

As tragic as that event was, it doesn't change the fact that what's safe for one sport isn't for another and the real overlap is so basic that no course should fail to cover it already. Merging existing courses into a one-size-fits-all "standard" course would be a mammoth undertaking to do right; and would probably just be done wrong, and done for profit by some arm-chancer somewhere, knowing how these things have a habit of going.

But honestly, I've never, ever, heard of a safety course that didn't start off by saying the equivalent of "all guns are always loaded" unless it was to prefix that with the equivalent of "never point a gun at anyone". And if I did, I'd advise everyone to steer well clear of it. And if there was a mechanism to report the person running it, I'd use it. And I'd expect the same is true of any other person in our sports.

hermes2011

I remember a little while ago I was trap shooting this fella just walked from bay to bay with his gun unbroken when i challenged him and told him that the gun had to broke when moving to next bay, he turned around and said this is the way he carries in the field, as far as he was concerned he was shooting for donkeys years and never had an accident. there was no talking to him. I think shooters like that, of whom all of us know one, would benefit from doing a safety course.

Sparks

If there was no talking to him, how would a course help? That's pretty much all a course is, is talking to someone.

German pointer

hermes2011 wrote:

I remember a little while ago I was trap shooting this fella just walked from bay to bay with his gun unbroken when i challenged him and told him that the gun had to broke when moving to next bay, he turned around and said this is the way he carries in the field, as far as he was concerned he was shooting for donkeys years and never had an accident. there was no talking to him. I think shooters like that, of whom all of us know one, would benefit from doing a safety course.

The range operator should have removed him from the line and the other shooters should have refused to shoot until the gun was broken or he was removed from the line

goz83

For the idiots and the wise guys, I think a safety course is a great idea....but then, don't we already have them? Either you learn from an experienced shooter, or you take a competency course at a range.....one way, or another, we are all given the basic "gun is always loaded until checked". "Never point a barrel at anyone, even if unloaded". I found the competency course at courtlough to be a great start for me, a person with practically no shooting experience. They covered safety and etiquette in quite a bit of detail, without being too rigid on the subject matter. This included potential barrel blockages and repeated safety checks every time the gun was laid down and picked back up.

My Brother in Law and my best friend will both be taking the course next week.

hermes2011

goz83 wrote: »

For the idiots and the wise guys, I think a safety course is a great idea....but then, don't we already have them? Either you learn from an experienced shooter, or you take a competency course at a range.....one way, or another, we are all given the basic "gun is always loaded until checked". "Never point a barrel at anyone, even if unloaded". I found the competency course at courtlough to be a great start for me, a person with practically no shooting experience. They covered safety and etiquette in quite a bit of detail, without being too rigid on the subject matter. This included potential barrel blockages and repeated safety checks every time the gun was laid down and picked back up.

My Brother in Law and my best friend will both be taking the course next week.

That's exactly what I would expect from a safety course too.

VBull

What annoys me is how some people who offer these courses claim to be Garda approved.

When in actual fact what they mean is that the super in their district accepts the course they run but the super in the neighboring district may refuse it as proof of proficiency.


I dont think a one size fits all course could be implemented but i also dont think it is needed Ireland has a great safety record and thankfully those with a "I know what im doing" attitude are few and far between.

Cass

VBull wrote: »

......... the neighboring district may refuse it as proof of proficiency.............

At the risk of being pedantic, competency. No such thing as proof of proficiency nor should there be.

VBull

No risk Cass you are correct, its the changing of words like that where if it was done in law would prohibit many people from every owning a firearm and i dont think any of us would want that.

I see some advertise as competency course and others as safety proficiency course so forgive me for using improper wording, i think some companies like to jazz up their wording to make it seem like a better course (may or may not be)

Cass

VBull wrote: »

No risk Cass you are correct, its the changing of words like that where if it was done in law would prohibit many people from every owning a firearm and i dont think any of us would want that.

Exactly.

I see some advertise as competency course and others as safety proficiency course so forgive me for using improper wording, i think some companies like to jazz up their wording to make it seem like a better course (may or may not be)

There is nothing to forgive.

This thread is among the third or fourth the OP has started that revolve around of involve competency and proficiency. I have tried my best to make the distinction between both and show that while a range/club can run proficiency courses they are not a legal requirement for a firearms license and under no circumstances should they be.

There is no harm and it may even be beneficial for ranges/clubs to have such courses for those that want them. The key point being those that want them. I was taught proficiency by fellow shooters and my own range for my chosen sports. I had to to become and stay competitive.

However, and i've said this on another of the OPs threads, if proficiency was made a legal requirement for obtaining a firearms license it would put an end to shooting sports as we know it discourage new shooters, discourage existing shooters and open it up to exploitation.

VBull

Thanks Cass and i agree with you 100%


Looking back at the original post

hermes2011 wrote: »

safety courses run in clubs and associations involving shooters, all disciplines.

As it is anyone applying for first time license has to have a safety course done unless applying for a training license.

What if someone is not in a club or association? Would they have to join for 3 years to get their first license?

If any club or association proposed a minimum standard of course i would instantly think monopoly but im a pessimist.

As for all disciplines why would someone have to do a course that involves say a pistol when applying for an air rifle for instance?

If i was handed a pistol and was unsure how to make it safe/ensure it was safe i would ask the person who handed it to me to show me how whilst it always pointed in a safe direction. Im sure most people who own a firearm would do the same, its basic firearm safety which we have all learned either from courses or experienced shooters.

Cass

VBull wrote: »

What if someone is not in a club or association? Would they have to join for 3 years to get their first license?

No, most ranges, clubs and groups running the competency courses have no membership rule. IOW you don't have to be a member to do the course.

If i was handed a pistol and was unsure how to make it safe/ensure it was safe i would ask the person who handed it to me to show me how whilst it always pointed in a safe direction. Im sure most people who own a firearm would do the same, its basic firearm safety which we have all learned either from courses or experienced shooters.

You shouldn't have been handed one (i know its hypothetical, but still).

The range SI (622/2011) states that a range officer must determine the competency of a person intending to use a firearm and if they deem that person unsuitable to use a given firearm safely they must remain under supervision for the duration of their time there. If deemed safe and competent they can be left to shoot without direct/personal supervision.

hermes2011

[/I]"However, and i've said this on another of the OPs threads, if proficiency was made a legal requirement for obtaining a firearms license it would put an end to shooting sports as we know it discourage new shooters, discourage existing shooters and open it up to exploitation. "

what I put up in the other thread was that all these people making money out of safety courses and none of them are worth the paper they are wrote on. The HCAP is a proficiency and safety course, at least the last time I did it it was and that has not deterred anyone from deer hunting. All the NRA courses in America are safety and proficiency courses. On a new firearm application there is a section requesting competency in use of said firearm, so how would you prove that? unless you did some type of induction in use of chosen discipline. No standard of certification leaves it well open to abuse. What I also said in previous threads was if the associations involved had the money they could invest in providing such courses to develop the sport. The standard of RO's is not great as they are not even certified.

Sparks

hermes, you are confusing the terms "proficiency" and "competence". In regular, in-the-pub language, they're often treated as being the same thing - but the law is not a pub. In law, they have very explicit, very defined meanings. We do not, we would never want, proficiency requirements in licencing. Even the PTB don't want that. Proficiency requires you to define a metric (how you measure proficiency, which for target shooting is often score in a match and which for hunting... I have no idea where you'd even start). It requires you to find a way to test a person against that metric and to define a threshold below which, you don't get a licence.

That's why we don't want it; the infrastructure and the testing would be horrific.

And besides which, none of that has any impact on safety whatsoever. Competency, which is a totally different thing, does. That's why the test is for competency, not proficiency.

Cass

hermes2011 wrote: »

what I put up in the other thread was that all these people making money out of safety courses and none of them are worth the paper they are wrote on.

They are worth the paper they are written on for the purpose they serve. IOW a competency cert while not officially recognised by An gardaí/DoJ is accepted as form of proving competence.

The HCAP is a proficiency and safety course, at least the last time I did it it was and that has not deterred anyone from deer hunting.

The HCAP is not a prerequisite for a firearms license. If a proficiency course was you'd see a drop in license numbers if for no other reason than people not "making the grade".

All the NRA courses in America are safety and proficiency courses.

You cannot compare America to Ireland in any shape or form. Different laws, different licensing (if any), and different social attitude. Also they are still not prerequisites for a firearm.

On a new firearm application there is a section requesting competency in use of said firearm, so how would you prove that?unless you did some type of induction in use of chosen discipline.

• Competence course
• Letters of support from people you have gone shooting with
• Previous history with firearm
• Training license

A competence course is one of many ways to prove competence, not the only way.

No standard of certification leaves it well open to abuse.

Agreed. However i said this many times to you that there is a difference between competence and proficiency and the competence courses are NOT the only way. They are simply the easiest way.

What I also said in previous threads was if the associations involved had the money they could invest in providing such courses to develop the sport.

Most ranges provide proficiency courses, on the sport training, development, etc. However its not a requirement to get the license for the firearm, is voluntary, and usually free of charge to the members of said range.

The standard of RO's is not great as they are not even certified.

What makes you say this? Do you know how ROs are trained, where, what process and how long they must train to become one?

hermes2011

competency and proficiency are both the same meaning, your just hair splitting. Someone asked the question how it would be done in Ireand I am only giving examples of the HCAP and the NRA. NRA run course in all disiciplines from air rifle to heavy caliber firearms. For safety you would only have to do one course if you were applying for a pistol why would you do a pistol course if you wanted to use an air rifle. two totatlly different disicplines. My original post was to do with safety.

Cass

hermes2011 wrote: »

competency and proficiency are both the same meaning, your just hair splitting.

No they're not.

As for hair splitting, one is a requirement in law, the other is not.

Someone asked the question how it would be done in Ireand I am only giving examples of the HCAP and the NRA.

As above. Not prerequisites for a firearms license so moot.

hermes2011

someone has no history of shooting or friends in shooting the only way they can get firearms is by joining a club. He would only have letters from club after he pays membership. there are people out there as mentioned previously making money from courses up to 130 euro and in theory the super could refuse them, so in theory why should new shooters be taken advantage of. I have been on an RO's course in Ireland and its probably the worst course I have been on. In comparison to RO course in USA, the standard gained in Ireland would not be accepted.

Cass

hermes2011 wrote: »

someone has no history of shooting or friends in shooting the only way they can get firearms is by joining a club.

Wrong.

Two permissions from land owners, and a competency course done and s/he can get a license. There are many people out there shooting without club or range membership.

In comparison to RO course in USA, the standard gained in Ireland would not be accepted.

Yet we have never had a death, or serious injury in over 160 years so we must be doing something right.

hermes2011

Cass wrote: »

Wrong.

Two permissions from land owners, and a competency course done and s/he can get a license. There are many people out there shooting without club or range membership.

You keep mentioning competency courses I only mentioned Safety induction in original post. I saying that they should have recognized competency courses too. Rather than paying money for old rope

Yet we have never had a death, or serious injury in over 160 years so we must be doing something right.

I have shot all over the world and I have to say the RO course in Ireland is probably the worst ever for someone with huge responsibility on the range.

Cass

hermes2011 wrote: »

You keep mentioning competency courses I only mentioned Safety induction in original post. I saying that they should have recognized competency courses too. Rather than paying money for old rope

A competency course is a safety course. It is to make sure you can competently and safely handle a firearm.

I have shot all over the world and I have to say the RO course in Ireland is probably the worst ever for someone with huge responsibility on the range.

You may think of them as the best, but as most of it had to be self taught due to the lack of Governmental support that most other countries enjoy i'd say we're doing fine.

Also unless you've visited every range in the country you are not speaking fairly of them. The RCOs in my range have had to go to England to get certified so by saying they are not good enough you are saying the English course is not good enough. I believe a lot of ranges use the NRA (American model) so again by criticising them you are criticising the American system.

So what exactly would suit you high standard?

clivej

IMO
No amount of safety or 'competency and proficiency' courses will prevent this kind of accident happening. You always do your best at all time but there will be the one time when all sense goes out the window

An accident like this is preventable by ppl that know and have care drilled into them, but on occasion it will happen.

And there is at least one man here that has the training for firearms safety courses. Maybe the only NRA approved instructor in Ireland.

hermes2011

Cass wrote: »

Also unless you've visited every range in the country you are not speaking fairly of them. The RCOs in my range have had to go to England to get certified so by saying they are not good enough you are saying the English course is not good enough. I believe a lot of ranges use the NRA (American model) so again by criticising them you are criticising the American system.

So what exactly would suit you high standard?

You are agreeing with exactly what I am saying, why should people have to go to the UK to do a certified standardized course. Surely as Irish shooters we should have our own standard. So why don't all associations get together and put together a standard in?

hermes2011

clivej wrote: »

IMO
No amount of safety or 'competency and proficiency' courses will prevent this kind of accident happening. You always do your best at all time but there will be the one time when all sense goes out the window

An accident like this is preventable by ppl that know and have care drilled into them, but on occasion it will happen.

And there is at least one man here that has the training for firearms safety courses. Maybe the only NRA approved instructor in Ireland.

From what I know there are a few NRA instructors in Ireland some don't like it to be known.

Sparks

hermes2011 wrote: »

competency and proficiency are both the same meaning, your just hair splitting.

The Minister who drafted the law bringing in competency requirements stated in public that it was a test for competency, not proficiency and that he was opposed to proficiency requirements. Proficiency requirements would also be directly opposed to official Irish Sports Council policy on participation in sport.
And you are talking about legislation here. The phrase "hair-splitting" is simply not applicable. This is what legislation is, it's why it's such a pain in the arse and ours is such a mess because of a long succession of people who've said "erra, that's just hairsplitting, I'll just write common sense rules that everyone understands", just before drafting legislation that once again proves that "common sense" is not common, it's unique to the person who's busily not understanding why everyone else has their head in their hands at the sight of it.
For example, as far as the Minister was concerned, the restricted firearms list was "common sense" and now paintball is illegal and carries a seven year jail sentence, as do the toy bows being sold openly in the gadget shop.
And as far as the Minister was concerned, it was common sense that you should only be target shooting on a range, and now it's illegal for hunters to take a shot or two to sight in their rifle before going hunting (and it's also arguably illegal for them to not do so under animal cruelty laws).
Hell, as far as everyone at the time was concerned, having firearms licences at all was common sense, and now we have a situation where we've licenced the firearms, and nobody has any accurate idea how many people in the country actually legally hold firearms - the very piece of data everyone thought made the whole idea common sense!

TL;DR - when it comes to law, common sense isn't. Stop thinking it's written in english - it's not.

Sparks

hermes2011 wrote: »

I have shot all over the world and I have to say the RO course in Ireland is probably the worst ever for someone with huge responsibility on the range.

I'm sorry, what RO course? There is no such thing here as "an Irish RO course". There are courses run in Ireland by several different bodies to train their ROs; they are all completely seperate and independent, and not only have to be, but should be.

And for what it's worth, I don't think there's any such thing as an American RO course either, for similar reasons.

Cass

hermes2011 wrote: »

You are agreeing with exactly what I am saying,

No i'm not, you're bastardising my response to suit your agenda.

why should people have to go to the UK to do a certified standardized course.

They don't, but to get the best credentials possible they do.

Surely as Irish shooters we should have our own standard.

We do, however like our laws they are an amalgamation of laws from other countries with the typical Irish, unnecessary, twist.

So why don't all associations get together and put together a standard in?

what part of this are you not understanding. A safety/competence course for air rifles is useless to pistol shooting. Gallery rifle courses useless to long range shooting. Any rifle shooting useless to shotgun shooting.

They simply don't transfer between sports.

Sparks

hermes2011 wrote: »

You are agreeing with exactly what I am saying, why should people have to go to the UK to do a certified standardized course. Surely as Irish shooters we should have our own standard. So why don't all associations get together and put together a standard in?

First off, we're not agreeing with you, we are trying to explain explicitly why you are wrong.

Secondly, we shouldn't and don't and haven't done that because (a) not all the associations want to, (b) there's no requirement to do so and it's make-work, (c) it wouldn't impact on safety at all, (d) it would eat manhours better spent elsewhere, (e) there is no UK standard anyway to try to keep up with the Jones over, (f) we don't want to go down the road of bringing the state into the proficiency measuring road in firearms licencing but that's precisely the road you're pointing at, even if you don't recognise it yet, and (g) because decades of experience tell everyone involved that a small few people (most of whom we know very well) would take this and make it into a financial monopoly for their own pockets at our expense.

This isn't people arguing against safety either, by the way - this is people arguing for safety. By not wasting time and resources on a one-size-fits-all pipedream that could never fulfill the requirements, and instead advocating per-sport courses that do.

Sparks

hermes2011 wrote: »

From what I know there are a few NRA instructors in Ireland some don't like it to be known.

And the Gardai and the state do not recognise the NRA course. You can do all the NRA courses you want, and your local Super can still say no (and then you can't demand your money for the course back, because you got exactly what you paid for). This is the kind of problem I'm talking about when I said that common sense isn't when it comes to law.

hermes2011

From what I have read Cass said his own club have used UK RO training as Irish one not adequate. NRA in USA are not a government department and run courses in all aspects of shooting including RO and safety. Why can it not be done in Ireland as we are a smaller country and not as many shooters on the US Scale per head of population. I think its just rubbish. It would be very easy to do. AS the same was done in the security industry and construction industry. I know the course that is done in UK and it goes up to military range standards and I can guarantee you that it is recognized anywhere in the world.