License Application.

Citizen_Erased

I suppose many of you are aware of this , but there is a serious problem in the way gun licenses works. All gun licenses are renew on the same set date each year regardless of when you go them. This means I you apply for a license in say , March and pay the whatever the fee is. By time time you get that license it it will be roughly the middle of April. What this means is that come 1st July you will
have to pay the fee again to have your license renewed. That mean you are paying the 40 odd euro for the privilige of A month and a bits shooting. It is amazing how they can run such an unefficient system.


Anyways , thats my application now , which means I should get the longest possible time from the fee but gun has now been sitting at the dealers for over a
month and half and I gave had to wait.

Anyone else encounter this problem?

Vinniew

Yeah.....IT's common enough.....applied in January for Pistol License and I only got it last week......
Trying to get a license transferred from one Ruger 10/22 to a new one has taken me more than 10 days so far......despite me witnessing a mate gettiing his done at the counter.........go figure.

As for the cost involved......38yoyo each license........I have loads of money so that doesn't bother me spending on a permit that will last only a couple of weeks. :eek:

Vinnie
(Damn ........ sitting on these stacks of fifties is doing me back in)

By the way......any really macho guys out there......check out my Bike for sale in the FS Motors section.......will really compliment any firearm!!!!!! :cool:
(have to sell it to pay for licenses!!!) :mad:

Umiq88

yea i applied for my licence around a month ago andf just got it monday pretty quick compared to what it normally takes if you've any experience with the person isuing liceneces in kilkenny you'll know what i mean again im not to bothered about the fee its my first rifle and all i can think about is shooting stuff regardless of what it costs me

Sparks

It's more than just an uneconomic way of doing things - it ties up lots of garda man-hours in one lump sum every year at this time. It'd be far better to do things on a rolling basis. Write to the DoJ and tell them, don't just complain here!
See the sticky thread in the forum on their request for comments...

Flattop 15

Or just apply in the beginning of May for the lic, that gives them 12 weeks to consider and grant or refuse by July 31st.

Citizen_Erased

Well , one letter wont do much , a petition or something might be good though.

But with regards to transfering guns on a license I was told on several occasions by my local sergeant and the superintendent that it is not possible to change the gun on the license.

I origionally had a .22 air rifle and my new gun is just a firearm .22 which is the same class of firearm. But there would have been a gap between the sale of the air rifle and the purchase of the bolt action . (sako finnfire varmint if you're curious)

Sparks

Well , one letter wont do much , a petition or something might be good though.

Yeah, but we have what, 100,000+ shooters in this country with 213,000 licences, all of which they have to pay for? Shooters may not agree on political matters, but on something more practical and basic as this, I suspect you'd get a somewhat more uniform and favorable response. Would 100,000 or more letters to the DoJ do much though?

Flattop 15

There is a group in the US called "Grassroots Network".They literally bombard via email,fax,phone and snailmail politicans who propose further gun control and applaud the pro gun legislators the same way[Well,not as strongly obvisouly].But they do have a 90% sucess rate and have been described by anti gun politicos as "very annoying".Ok it is the US where you can get overwhelming support for such things.BUT,the tactic could be used here on a smaller scale.Pointing out the amount we pay into the national exchequer,that there is a gen election soon and most importantly, we vote!
Even if 60K of us shooters did this,that is a worrying enough tally for a political party.

Sparks

60k might actually get noticed allright flattop, but to be more realistic, the largest shooting group in the country is only 20k or so. Getting 60k to all agree on a topic would be hard enough (remember, most of these lads use their firearms as a tool and care as much about political activism for those firearms as we care about political activism for screwdrivers). Getting them to volunteer their time to write letters and pay for stamps, well, good luck to you

Degsy

psittacosis wrote:

yea i applied for my licence around a month ago andf just got it monday pretty quick compared to what it normally takes if you've any experience with the person isuing liceneces in kilkenny you'll know what i mean again im not to bothered about the fee its my first rifle and all i can think about is shooting stuff regardless of what it costs me

I have to agree,i got my licence a couple of weeks ago and i was glad enough to get it that i dont mind having to renew it in a couple of of months.I'm licencing a shotgun as well at the moment and the chances are i'll have to re-licence it a month or so after i get it.To be perefctly honest,i dont think the price of the licence is all that excessive really,the cost of the .22 and the shotgun together is less than the cost of a night on the razzle!

Citizen_Erased

Its more than the cost , its the sheer principal of it you know.

I would imagine that they are already trying to change this system anyway because it most slow down everything the gardai do in that run up to July such as logging crimes etc or is it all done by a specific branch?

Anyway , no one is trying to start a mass protest here...

Umiq88

well i know its slow enough already it took 1 month for my father to get the rifle licence he currently holds a licence for 2 shotguns and last year had a licence for a 22/250 and hes 57 i mean what could take it so long i know it has to be sent off but it should take 2 weeks at most

Flattop 15

Sparks wrote:

60k might actually get noticed allright flattop, but to be more realistic, the largest shooting group in the country is only 20k or so.

Getting 60k to all agree on a topic would be hard enough (remember, most of these lads use their firearms as a tool and care as much about political activism for those firearms as we care about political activism for screwdrivers). Getting them to volunteer their time to write letters and pay for stamps, well, good luck to you

Hmmm true enough,unfortuneatly.BUT wether we like it or not we and that means ALL types of shooters WILL have to get to some degree politcaly active.But as you have said in many posts here gettng anyone in any group is like trying to shovel mercury with a pitchfork.
Sooo unless the groups start talking to each other and stop trying to be all mini overlords over each other.We will be stuck with being fleeced every July 31st. :mad:

Sparks

BUT wether we like it or not we and that means ALL types of shooters WILL have to get to some degree politcaly active.

I'm doubtful that that will ever happen. How many drivers belong to a motorist's political lobby group? And from what I keep hearing, the largest group of shooters in the country aren't target shooters or hunters, but farmers that use shotguns to scare dogs away from sheep or birds away from crops. Has the IFA ever weighed in on the firearms legislation?

It's something we might like to have happen, but that doesn't mean it's particularly likely or realistic.

Citizen_Erased

But most those farmers do not have licenses - there are about 3 or 4 illegaly held shotguns in my area. So they have no say and do not appear in statistics.

Sparks

Well, if you want the IFA to say anything CE, that'd be one way to do it - I just don't think you'd appreciate the result, which would be a ducks-eye view of a shotgun blast...

And I was referring to the legally held firearms in the country. There are some 213,000 of them; 160,000 shotguns, 50,000 or so rifles, and at last count, 120 pistols (though that was five months ago). But, the NARGC has 20,000 people, the various rifle target shooting bodies come to maybe half that if all added together, I'm not sure of the ICPSA (anyone know?), but I doubt it makes up the numbers to the estimated 100-150,000 licenced gunholders in the state. The majority, I keep hearing, are farmers who don't bother joining organisations like the NARGC or ICPSA because it's got nothing to do with what they use the shotgun for, in the same way that you or I wouldn't join the Irish rallying NGB when we get a VW Golf...

civdef

But most those farmers do not have licenses - there are about 3 or 4 illegaly held shotguns in my area.

Bull****. You're basing that statement on very little evidence. ("About 3 or 4"? which is it? The uncertainty in numbers makes me wonder how sure you are of the facts).

Most of the legally held firearms in this country are owned by farmers. This is not in doubt. Why would a farmer bother with an unlicenced gun? They get limited licences no hassle for a nominal sum.

Interestingly, as agriculture is in decline, the numbers of licenced firearms has risen steadily over the past few years. Increased affluence means shooting enthusiasts are buying multiple guns, whereas before they might only have one or two.

Rovi

Citizen_Erased wrote:

But most those farmers do not have licenses

I'd love to know where you got that C_E, as it goes exactly opposite to my experience.
As a farmer and member of various farming organisations, I know plenty of farmers with the traditional 'double barrelled gun' for pest control, and every one that I've talked to about shooting has a licence for their gun.
Now that I think on it, I don't think I know any farmer who doesn't have a shotgun, and I have no reason to suspect that any of them are un-licenced.


I like Spark's analogy about car owners, but I think the figures for gun owners and club/organisation membership are probably a bit better than car owners memberships of motor clubs.
If there are 150,000 or so licence holders in the country, and shooting club/organisation memberships are in the region of 30,000, then around 20% of gun owners are involved in some sort of formal shooting activity.
That's a lot!
Bear in mind though, that people with multiple licences are pretty likely to be members of multiple organisations. I know I am.
But, even if the membership ratio falls to 10%, it's still a pretty good percentage.

I wonder what percentage of car owners are members of motoring organisations???
Compare with the approx 90% of farmers who are members of various/multiple organisations, and you can see why they (we ) are such a powerful lobbying group. Although growing less so with the passage of time and the growing urbanisation of Irish society.

.

Citizen_Erased

civdef wrote:

Most of the legally held firearms in this country are owned by farmers. This is not in doubt. Why would a farmer bother with an unlicenced gun? They get limited licences no hassle for a nominal sum.

You obviously dont understand certain farmers up here.

I know this because I have seen two (actually I think one of them is gone now) of them (I am friends with the owner and have done odd bits of work for him etc..) and been told by the owner of them that another farmer up the road has one and I would guess it would not be hard to find a fourth. I am not bulls***ting.

civdef

I was referring the following - "But most those farmers do not have licenses".

That's just not true.

Citizen_Erased

Yes , actually , I must apologise , I focused on the minority and forgot the majority.