Too many firearms

gunny123

Grizzly 45 wrote: »

not suffer from the "Good evening,here are the approved opinions we want you to have hour."programme on the family stupidifier in the living room corner.

Talking of irish media, none is more biased then RTE, while i can and do refuse to watch it, the thing that sticks in my craw is the fact i have no option but to pay a substantial licence fee for it. Sitting there watching a deliberate hatchet job on Irish shooting sports/gun ownership, we seen with o'callaghan and primetime, knowing (A) its a lot of lies and (B) I am paying for it, really galls.

ezra_

Slightly off topic but the judge in question has just gone up further in my estimation:

http://www.leinsterleader.ie/news/news/219716/an-insult-to-the-court-judge-slams-td-clare-daly-s-absence-on-speeding-charge.html

Will be very interesting to see how he handles the firearms cases.

Chiparus

ezra_ wrote: »

Slightly off topic but the judge in question has just gone up further in my estimation:

http://www.leinsterleader.ie/news/news/219716/an-insult-to-the-court-judge-slams-td-clare-daly-s-absence-on-speeding-charge.html

Will be very interesting to see how he handles the firearms cases.

He was very popular with the gardai in Donegal .

gunny123

Chiparus wrote: »

He was very popular with the gardai in Donegal .

He might be less popular if he starts calling bs on the reasons supers/chief supers used to refuse firearms licences.

Chiparus

I read somewhere that he listens to and respects the opinion of gardai- I would be surprised if he does not agree with the superintendent.

gunny123

Chiparus wrote: »

I read somewhere that he listens to and respects the opinion of gardai- I would be surprised if he does not agree with the superintendent.

Why ? I know applications refused on the most spurious of grounds, in fact i reckon the super/chief supers were chancing their arms.

tac foley

Here in UK, of course, the law is somewhat different. Here, the Chief Constable of the county SHALL grant the issuing of a Firearms Certificate, unless there are very strong legal reasons why he or she should not do it. Actually, if that is the case, then the process of acquisition would never have gotten that far, nor anywhere near it, having been stopped at source by the secretary of the gun club that the applicant had been compulsorily attending for the previous three or six-month probie period. It is his or her signature on the FAC application form - or lack of it - that is the initial decider, and the applicant will be told to go away and forget about it. 'Trying your luck' in another club will just land the applicant in deep do-do, as the secretary is required in law to notify the county police HQ firearms licensing department that Mr X is not a suitable person to be entrusted with a live firearm.

Same goes for shotguns - every legal citizen person who is of UK nationality, over the age of eighteen, of sound mind, good health and good character is entitled to own a shotgun unless the police can prove that they are not.

We all have to live within the constraints imposed on us by the law, although in many cases, the law seems to be a total ass. I'm currently engaged in a learning process as to how the UK gun laws cope with a multi-barrel, multi-calibre rifle license, and have found that interpretation of the guidelines is just as flexible here as it seems to be in the RoI, except that the police over here do not seem to be so antagonistic/intractable as yours are. With the rank of superintendent lower by at least two grades than a county CC, hereabouts they tend to do as they are told. It is also a great help to have a CC who is part of the shooting scene, whatever their shooting interest might be.

tac

ezra_

ns086 wrote: »

this being my case I am glad to say that the refusal has been overturned in court.

Congratulations!

Bogwoppit

Update here, not surprising.

https://www.kildarenow.com/news/gun-licence-granted-to-man-despite-strong-concerns-by-supt-about-high-proximity-per-square-kilometre/126748

Cass

It's a just and good result.

Court is never the first or even second option but Super feel it's easier to refuse and let people go to court. I thought with the introduction of costs that these stupid cases would reduce.

Perhaps the Super will think next time before refusing for no good reason.

gunny123

Cass wrote: »

It's a just and good result.

Court is never the first or even second option but Super feel it's easier to refuse and let people go to court. I thought with the introduction of costs that these stupid cases would reduce.

Perhaps the Super will think next time before refusing for no good reason.

I often feel that a super refusing a licence and letting the court make the decision is a way of dodging responsibility. if something were to happen the super can throw up his hands and say "well its not my fault, i refused it".

g00167015

Sparks wrote: »

Unfortunately not true and the Minister (McDowell) even defended the practice. It's not explicitly stated in the act as a specific section though. It's covered under section 4(2)(b) and "guidelines", which is why that section is so loosely worded.

'Guidelines' and 'Statute' are two very different things as was vindicated by the Supt being ordered to grant the firearms certificate, having failed in the manner of exercising the discretion vested within him by an Act of the Oireachteas.

Either way, well done to the appellant.

The penny might slowly begin to drop with AGS once more and more cases have their costs awarded against the state owing to the district court rules being updated/clarified by S.I. a couple of years ago, meaning that awarding of costs in Appeals under s15A_(b) fall within the jurisdiction of the DC. 'Clarified' being probably the more accurate term, in the case of that particular Statutory Instrument.

These ultimately come out of divisional budgets and have a negative impact on service delivery in other aspects of policing.

Sparks

gunny123 wrote: »

I often feel that a super refusing a licence and letting the court make the decision is a way of dodging responsibility. if something were to happen the super can throw up his hands and say "well its not my fault, i refused it".

True, but when the costs for a loss come from his station's budget that becomes less of an option.

Sparks

g00167015 wrote: »

'Guidelines' and 'Statute' are two very different things as was vindicated by the Supt being ordered to grant the firearms certificate, having failed in the manner of exercising the discretion vested within him by an Act of the Oireachteas.

You're preaching to the choir there, but you're doing it because I've not explained what I'm saying clearly enough.

When the statue was written, it was specifically stated by the Minister in the second stage debates that not all guidelines issued to Superintendents should be made public; and the exact use case he was referring to was where one of your neighbours was suspected of criminal activity (but where it had not yet been proven in court). The guidance would (hypothetically) be that section 4(2)(b)'s requirement that the public safety and the peace not be threatened by the granting of an application was blocked by "knowing" that the guy a door up from you was a drug dealer who might want to nick your firearm for nefarious purposes.

I'm not saying he was right, by the way, because when a Minister says things like "Sometimes transparancy is brought too far", then they are wrong aroundabout 99% of the time (and the remaining 1% is usually governed by existing law or are cases where the word isn't "transparent" so much as it is "defamation").

Either way, well done to the appellant.

Very much so. It's something that they should never have had to do, and quite expensive, risky and stressful to do, so well done for seeing it through and congratulations on the result.

The penny might slowly begin to drop with AGS

So far that hasn't happened as quickly as we had hoped; the new civilian appeals board that was announced some months ago might be a better step forward, but it's not yet set up.

These ultimately come out of divisional budgets and have a negative impact on service delivery in other aspects of policing.

Which is why it's not the ideal solution - those negative impacts affect us, after all.

gunny123

Sparks wrote: »

So far that hasn't happened as quickly as we had hoped; the new civilian appeals board that was announced some months ago might be a better step forward, but it's not yet set up.

Haven't heard about that, who will these civilians be though ? Retired supers bumping up their pensions, or worse members of the green/aaa/pbp loons ?

Sparks

It's right in the first post on the "New SI" sticky at the top of the forum gunny:

The Minister intends to make fundamental long term reforms in this area by proposing legislation for a Firearms Assessment and Appeals Authority.

We've not seen many details on it since and I wouldn't expect to for a while yet, I would expect that the FCP would be involved heavily in the drafting. And while I'm told I'm somewhat pessimistic about such things, I would wait to see the heads of the bill before abandoning all hope.