For those who don’t know, a review of the firearms act has been proposed by the Gardai. It has been, to say the least, controversial.
After the frankly appalling meeting of the Joint Committee on Justice to hear these Garda proposals, submissions to the committee were sought from interested parties. Here’s mine for anyone interested (the formatting below is a little mangled by the conversion from the document to a webpage). Others have been posted on the boards.ie thread here.
Firearms law in Ireland is currently spread across 19 Acts, 2 EU directives and well over 60 Statutory Instruments, before case law and the Garda Commissioner’s guidelines are taken into account. It is estimated that fewer than two dozen people in the state have a working understanding of Irish firearms law as a result of this.
Since 2006 – since which time three acts, approximately twenty statutory instruments and an EU directive have been added – the Law Reform Commission has been calling for a restatement of the Firearms Act to simplify this situation. High Court Justice Peter Charleton has stated, in McCarron-v-Kearney, “the piecemeal spreading over multiple pieces of legislation of the statutory rules for the control of firearms is undesirable. Codification in that area is almost as pressing a need as it is in the area of sexual violence.”
Since 2006, an expert panel has existed, consisting of representatives of the target shooting and hunting community, their insurers, the firearm dealers trade, the Gardai, the Department of Sport, and chaired by the Department of Justice. This panel, the Firearms Consultation Panel, has advised on technical aspects of firearms practice and how that practice and firearms legislation can best coexist. However that Panel’s remit was only to oversee the implementation of the 2006 and 2009 acts and as such is now coming to a close.
We, the undersigned, wish to call upon the Minister for Justice to review the Firearms Act and the Law Reform Commission’s call for a restatement of that Act, and to extend the remit of the Firearms Consultation Panel to become a permanent advisory panel to the Firearms Unit of the Department of Justice. We believe that the current state of affairs with regard to firearms legislation in Ireland is unacceptably complex and that dismissing the Firearms Consultation Panel at this time would be a significant mistake in light of that complexity and the urgent need to address it.
From today’s Examiner’s Letters to the Editor section:
Make firearms panel a permanent body
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
OVER the next 10 days, we will see several target shooting competitions being run in Ireland, from club level matches, to national level matches, to an enormous international shooting competition (the Creedmoor Cup, last held in Ireland in 1875) and the Irish team and their fans and spectators will also be representing Ireland in the Olympic target shooting world cup in Munich.
These sportsmen and sportswomen achieve what they do despite the many draconian obstacles put in their path by the current Firearms Act, a body of Irish law which is so poorly compiled that the Law Reform Commission has been calling for its overhaul since 2006.
At most only one or two dozen people in the entire state are familiar with the entire body of Irish firearms law because it is made up of 18 separate acts, two EU directives and over 60 statutory instruments.
Might I suggest to the Minister for Justice that instead of winding up the Firearms Consultation Panel — the body of experts from all fields who advise the Minister on firearms legislation — he instead make it a permanent body and undertake to carry out the Law Reform Commission’s recommended overhaul of the act, and thus make it harder for criminals to obtain firearms instead of the current situation where criminals find it easy to get weapons but Olympic athletes find it exceptionally hard to get sports equipment?
Mark Dennehy
Read more: http://examiner.ie/opinion/letters/make-firearms-panel-a-permanent-body-158420.html#ixzz1Prl3oNyB
Reviewing the email sent round the usual routes in order to publicise the upcoming meeting, I note the prevalence of one aspect:
A meeting ... will address the legal and other difficulties facing the shooting community...Legal
representation will be present to advise ... it is proposed to ... challenge any unjust
legislation brought forward without consultation by way of legal challenge ...
Perhaps nostalgia is all it’s cracked up to be – certainly this missive is reminding me of the NRPAI AGMs again. For those who never went to a meeting of the National Rifle and Pistol Association of Ireland, it was difficult to go to one and avoid being entertained if your sense of humour was robust enough to take the workout. One memory in particular is prompted, that of the founding of the Firearms Legislation Action Group or FLAG (though I doubt the acronym predates the name). In hindsight, where such things are judged, FLAG must surely count as the most ill-advised venture the NRPAI ever countenanced, but the remarkable thing is that it was recognised in more moderate quarters as being so from its inception. I must confess, at the time I was not well-read in the annals of the NRPAI and was actually optimistic about the idea. The educational process was painful, I’m afraid, but a matter for another time.
The reason that FLAG occurs to me now, is that FLAG’s raison d’etre was to use legal challanges to force the Government to give target shooters whatever they wanted. This may sound somewhat adversarial as approaches go, but on it’s presentation the word I would have chosen would have been stronger, something like jingoistic or gung ho perhaps. The plan was exceptionally simplistic, and I feel that there was a failure to understand the legal system when the plan was formulated – and not a minor failure, nor a technical one, but an enormous gulf of ignorance between the planners and the basic tenets of our legal system.
For example, there is the matter of the famous 1972 Temporary Custody Order (formally, SI 187/1972 ; informally known by less civil terms). The problem here is that the 1972 TCO ran out in 1972, and ceased to operate thereafter. It did not remain in force for over three decades, as is often asserted. Instead, it was through cynical timing and the introduction of internal policies that the de facto ban on pistols and fullbore rifles was implemented by the Government of the day. This may seem a minor point, but when legal representation is engaged on an expensive and hourly basis to challange a piece of secondary legislation that ran out 32 years previously, minor points become expensive points.
This raises the most prominent and fundamental … the word ‘flaw’ seems woefully understated for this purpose … delusion of the plan – funding. Sufficient funds were never available to the FLAG committee to cover their losses in the event of a High Court case being lost, or indeed if it was won unless costs were awarded by the Court. Even a favourable settlement – which would in itself be a failure to establish the desired legal precedent – might have taxed the finances available past the breaking point. After seven years of fundraising and self-proclaimed minimal expenditure, FLAG’s own estimate of funds available came to approximately €7,500. As any new home-owner can inform you, that amount could easily come up short when paying a solicitor alone to do the paperwork involved in buying a single house – which is a relatively straightforward transaction. Taking a constitutional challange against statute law in the High Court is a much more complex and specialised undertaking and a serious attempt would require a team of solicitors, barristers, expert witnesses and would probably take several days of the Courts time. All this would run up a legal fees bill which could reach a six-figure sum without much in the way of difficulty.
The problem would lie in what happens after such a bill is run up. FLAG itself had no assets for the sherrif to seize after its coffers were emptied; the remainder of any five or six figure sum would be taken from the assets of the NRPAI itself, which as an unincorporated association (ie. a club) had no financial protection for its members – which meant the assets of its constituent bodies as they had oversight of FLAG’s actions. Thus, the collective assets of the NTSA, NASRC, NSAI and Pony Club would have been at risk had FLAG ever pursued its plan to challange legislation in the High Court. Whether or not the individuals and clubs affiliated to the NRPAI could have been successfully pursued for their assets in payment of the bill or whether their not being individual members of the NRPAI was sufficent insulation is a question that would have generated more work for the solicitors and barristers of the Government.
I mention this because if legal representation has already been secured for this weekend’s upcoming entertainment with the express plan of taking on legislation in the High Court, one would wonder where the money is to come from. Perhaps the original contributers to FLAG have survived the recent economic downturn and have hundreds of thousands of euros which they would wish to support our legal industry with, but one can’t help but wish that such philantropy would be directed towards our sport instead of its politics.
One would caution those who would donate to this new flag, however, to be sure that they wish no further control of their funds, even if the new organisation is wound up – the original monies contributed to FLAG gave their donators no special privileges such as being informed as to progress of the plan; nor were their donations to be returned on the winding up of FLAG even where records were kept of where the monies originated. Instead the FLAG commitee chose to direct in its resignation letter that the funds be divided equally between the three children’s hospitals in Dublin. And while the worthiness of those recipients is beyond question, one has to ask whether the original donators to FLAG would have liked to have been there when the FLAG chairman handed over the cheques to the hospital masters and received thanks for a job well done…
One of the results of the suboptimal communications between Governing Bodies and their members which we spoke of earlier, is that when certain events are announced, such as the proposed upcoming meeting we mentioned previously here, the ordinary shooter is none the wiser as to the reasons, if there are any, why such events might be considered by any informed right-thinking person to be at best a poor idea, and at worst a cynical one.
Perhaps here we could address that in a manner which we cannot – and on balance, should not – elsewhere.
The announcement of this event makes several assertions – we would ask that the reader’s patience indulge us in examining them one post at a time for the sake of combining clarity with brevity as best can be managed in this medium and under this degree of scrutiny.
The first assertion made, by the very creation of this new proposed body, is that there is a need for a new “grassroots organisation” to represent the “common man” of shooting. Leaving aside the statistical argument that the most common “common man” of shooting is represented quite adequately by the Irish Farmers Association at present, consider the nature of a “grassroots organisation”. The “grassroots” of any sport are, by definition, not organised. A “grassroots protest”, such as the one which effected a reversal in a past Government’s decision to increase firearms licence fees, is a collection of actions taken by individual people without oversight or direction by a central group. It is less comparable to a military unit marching on the parade ground and more comparable to the flocking of birds, an emergent phenomenon in the technical jargon of such things.
To try to create a “grassroots organisation” therefore, can be seen as making a mockery of the true power of grassroots movements and those who participate in them. It is possible to faciliate a grassroots movement, certainly – boards.ie’s discussion forums demonstrate that on a daily basis on a wide range of topics, and demonstrated it for shooting during the protest against the increase in firearms licence fees. But that is done by providing tools and mechanisms, not by providing policy. It is even possible in a grassroots movement to inspire, to set an example – but he who would try to lead such a movement would be well advised to study the nature of stampedes and what happens to those who try to lead them.
It is possible that the attempt to create such an organisation might not be an exercise in cynical mockery. We should note that for fairness. It is possible even that the proponents of this idea might be innocently naieve as to the insult their actions can be interpreted as providing. It might well be the case that they are simply not well versed in the nature of the thing they seek to organise, and thus control. This would however, while absolving them from the sin of cynical manipulation, not reflect well on them in the eyes of many with regard to their suitability for representation of their fellow shooters. Indeed the notion of seeking to control those fellow shooters is not one which should be supported. Even the notion of one shooter representing the interests of his or her fellow shooters is meant to be considered as a necessary evil and mitigated at every opportunity through procedures which permit those represented to direct the actions of their representatives. Control over someone else is not a concept to be encouraged as an organisational element in a sport.
The very idea of a “grassroots organisation” is one which is therefore at best on very shaky ground, if it is not an outright oxymoron. There is even a term for grassroots movements which have such organising elements. It was coined from the American sports world where artifical grass is needed for sporting events. So one question which this proposed meeting should be asked to address is whether we want to take on the risk that the undeniably powerfull grassroots of shooting in Ireland would be dismissed by their detractors as “astroturf”?
There have been numerous observations over the years as to the degree of communication entered into by the Governing Bodies of our sports. In the main, those observations have noted that the degree of communication is felt to be insufficient by the average shooter, who often feels they are uninformed as to the nature and specifics of the activities carried out by their representatives. It has been difficult to disagree with this observation in past years, often to the point where I feel it would have been impossible to do so. Simply put, communications from the boards and committees of our Governing Bodies to the ordinary members of those bodies, have not been as voluminous, as expansive, as frequent, as divulgent or as innovative as we would like.
There were reasons for this state of affairs. Our sport has known the unique inequity of being the subject of a cynical application of the law by the state, and that is the kind of experience which can scar the mind for a lifetime. That it would create an ethos which seeks to control the disclosure of information is at least understandable; but it must be understood as a vice, not a virtue. That the efforts to control disclosure were taken to the degree that the ordinary members of shooting organisations felt that their representatives were at a distant remove is evidence of this, and the infamous “2% problem” is a direct result of that perceived remove. Why should – indeed, how could – the majority of members volunteer to aid their sport when they feel they are so poorly informed as to the state and direction of that sport that they cannot judge where their efforts would be best directed?
There is, however, a distinct trend of improvement in this regard in more recent times. Websites run by the Governing Bodies have been established, have been used, have been improved upon and their use continues in this vein today. New technologies are being adopted, such as Twitter, Facebook, Bebo and other social networks used by the younger shooters in the community – and the younger potential members of the community. We must never forget that when we fail to attract new members to our sport, we take one step away from success and towards failure for our sport. Older and more pervasive technologies such as SMS messaging (how many of our community have no computer, but do have a mobile phone?) are also being exploited, and while it is true that some lead the vanguard in this respect, all shall follow where success is seen to occur, if neither immediately nor without a degree of resistance to change.
By way of an example, consider the current lauding of the Olympic sports within the shooting community by the Powers That Be. This happy change from the outright suspicion the entire community has endured for decades has been rumoured to be evidence of a conspiracy between the Powers That Be and a select cabal of Governing Bodies; in truth, it is evidence that by pursuing a more public image, the Olympic sports have become known quantities, understood, safe and harmless in the minds of those now lauding them. This should not be seen as a coup nor as a fait accompli, but as a successful experiment which shows a path that others may tread along their own individual journeys.
I feel it would be remiss of me not to point out a highly-successful venture in this field, namely the Boards.ie shooting forums. Following a number of posts on target shooting events in the general Sports forum run on boards, the administrators there were generous enough to offer us our own dedicated forum, which has since grown to a main forum and three sub-forums dedicated to Hunting, Target Shooting and a For Sale/Wanted section. At the time of writing this entry, some 73,000 posts have been made in some 5,400 threads on these forums, and they are read on a regular basis by all of the Governing Bodies, the Department of Justice and others amongst the Powers That Be. Of course, such success does not come without a degree of contraversy; but we feel that what has been gained more than makes up for any perceived loss.
All of which serves as prologue to my main thesis, which is that while we have made strides in improving our communication, we as yet have not achieved a sufficient award of laurels to afford us much in the way of respite. We must aspire – and strive to realise that aspiration – to a state of affairs where each and every member of the community, regardless of their status as farmer, hunter, target shooter or otherwise, is fully appraised of the available sources of information of which they may avail, and that those sources are sufficiently well-stocked that no member of the community ever feels that they are under-informed or otherwise isolated from that community. Often we speak of unity amongst shooters with the motivation of politically furthering our interests as shooters; the first, and indeed perhaps the only step along that particular journey is the one of full communication and disclosure of information.
It must be said however, that the step is one of full communication. In the words of one who could surely have claimed to be an expert in such things, we must become the change we wish to see in the world. So it is not sufficient to merely lament a perceived lack of information; we must demand to know what we feel remains undivulged. We must seek out and utilise the avenues of communication which exist and we must seek to know more about our community and our sports, because until we do so, we never will.
Given our sudden increase in publicity earlier today, it is probably only polite to welcome all our new readers.
You might well understand that we are somewhat skeptical of the motivations of some of them, but such is to be expected given events of the past decade or so in shooting politics in Ireland.
Seems that there are different versions of the original email now flying about, trying to whip up support for the unsupportable:
From: Cal Ward
Sent: 14 March 2009 23:51:14
A meeting of the Shooting Sports federation of Ireland will be held in Abbeyleix at 1pm on Saturday March 21st. This will address the legal
and other difficulties facing the shooting community. Shooters from all disciplines and organisations are encouraged to attend.
The Shooting Sports Federation of Ireland is a new umbrella body for shooting organisations. Legal representation will be present to advise
on relevant matters.
There is considerable disquiet among the shooting community, it is proposed to form a new association to represent the grass roots shooters
of the country and in particular stand ready to challenge any unjust legislation brought forward without consultation by way of legal
challenge.
Your support would be much appreciated, please come along to the meeting at least to voice your opinion on current matters. It is intended
to have the new association open to all organisation, clubs associations and individuals.
Cal Ward
Secretary
Long Range Rifle Association of Ireland
Considerable disquiet? I’d have to agree with that, though I’d add that it’s been at a level exceeding Considerable for about six years now amongst the more alert and curious shooters, who must surely have some interesting questions for the proposed new organisation being mooted here.
After all, when there are already more than one or two shooting associations out there which act as umbrella groups (the Shooting Sports Association of Ireland comes to mind, as does the Firearms Consultation Panel it sits on with all of the other stakeholders in the Firearms Acts); and when the grassroots have access to a free forum in boards.ie where anyone can post anonymously (so long as they don’t libel someone) and have their posts seen by the DoJ, Gardai, and all the NGBs of the shooting sports in Ireland; the question of added value does present itself most naturally.
Received by email:
From: Secretary LRRAI
Sent: 11 March 2009
Subject: A meeting of the Shooting Sports federation of Ireland
Dear members and friends
Please forward this to anyone who might be interested.
A meeting of the Shooting Sports federation of Ireland will be held in Abbeyleix on
Saturday at 1pm on March 21st. This will address the legal and other difficulties facing
the shooting community. Shooters from all disciplines and organisations are
encouraged to attend. The Shooting Sports Federation of Ireland is a new umbrella
body for shooting organisations. Legal representation will be present to advise on
relevant matters.
Cal Ward
Secretary
Long Range Rifle Association of Ireland
You have to wonder… would they only stop when there’s a shooting governing body for everyone in Ireland who holds a firearms licence? And I don’t mean one for all 200,000 of us, I mean 200,000 governing bodies – one for each of us 😀
Irish Shooting Politics 