June 30th, 2009
Minister rejects criticism on handgun licence reform
Proposed Irish legislation would ban new handgun licenses except for those needed for Olympic sports.
[Minister for Justice] Ahern said he was determined to stamp out a practice known as “practical shooting”. His department had monitored with concern “competitions in which people shoot their way through multi-stage target courses based on real life combat scenarios, such as a home invasion or a hostage rescue”.
He said: “This activity is one that seeks to glorify and normalise attitudes to high-powered handguns and promote their use and ownership,” he said. Mr Ahern said “practical shooting” was a “highly undesirable” recent development in Irish shooting sports.
And here is why “practical shooting” is not practical:
“It’s simply not in the public interest to tolerate the development of a subculture predicated on a shooting activity which by the liberal standards of the US is regarded as an extreme shooting activity.”
He said any cursory research on the internet showed that these activities were marketed as being at the “extreme end” of handgun ownership and were “anathema to the tradition of Irish sporting clubs”.
Ah. Cursory research on the internet shows that practical shooting is extreme. Might he be a bit selective when conducting research? Perhaps taking folks like the Brady bunch as the experts with the final word?
“Rural Ireland isn’t like rural America of the George Bush Republicans, with a chicken in every pot and a gun under every pillow. We have no such tendencies in this country,” he said.
Nope. No bias there.
How many handguns have been licensed under the current system? 1,800 in the past five years.
Hat tip to the reader who sent this in.
