Firearms United Ireland

This is FUNI's statement on the FEC and on the firearms situation in Ireland in general.Also,this was sent to the chairman of FURG appx 9months ago with no reply.

Looks like the FEC reports for the Minister will be out soon.

The meeting minutes have to be out on or before the 20th of April so the reports should be out before then.

I direct your attention to the Dail debate from 29th March. Page 266:
https://data.oireachtas.ie/ie/oireachta ... @/main.pdf

Deputy Martin Kenny proposed an amendment on behalf of shooting interests and was defeated:

Deputy Martin Kenny: I move amendment No. 2:
In page 14, after line 33, to insert the following:
“Recommendations of the Firearms Expert Committee
26B. The Minister shall-

(a) not more than 3 months after the completion of work carried out by the Firearms Expert Committee, publish in full the considerations and recommendations of
the Firearms Expert Committee, and

(b) not more than 6 months after the publication of the Firearms Expert Committee report, engage in a public consultation process regarding the recommendations
made by the committee related to the future of licensing.”.”.

Amendment put and declared lost.

The amendment for public consultation after the FEC report is published, with the relevant bodies, was defeated.

SACF licences issued after 18 Sept 2015 are now revoked.

FEC recommendations for the Minister were released today. The two reports are attached.

Have a read. We will have an important update ready on Monday regarding these reports and the FEC. To be continued.

Take away so far:

Part one is a partial train wreck but also has some good points as well. Part two is a complete and utter trainwreck with a plane crash on top of it! If you have a substantial number of firearms(unspecified what number is specified) the report recommends you get gun dealer level of security inc CCTV and timelock.

Game clubs to become registered like gun clubs.
Compulsory insurance policies for all firearms applications.
Training and refresher training for people who have years of experience.
We will have some more news on Monday about this so stay tuned.


Thank you,
Firearms United Network Ireland

https://www.gov.ie/en/publication/d1647 ... -committee

BREAKING NEWS!!! FUNI has been contacted by one of the FEC members, Fabian Connolly. He states in a txt to us the following;

Hi all,
The report from the FEC has been released.
I do NOT support this report as a number of charges that were to be made were not included. I notified the chair and the Minister of this, their response was to release their non-agreed version.
Regards
Fabian

And

Government policy is to stop the licensing of semiautomatic Center fire rifles. They have no grounds for this decision other than paranoia. They say they are worried about the proliferation of these types of firearms despite the fact that only 30 have been licensed since 2015.
The minister initially said in the Dail that she had heard from us after our second meeting, then changed her tune that she was taking advice from AGS, doesn’t sound like the commitment given in 2015…
Fabian also stated that he contacted Min Browne via email about his concerns and was not even afforded the courtesy of a reply.

More to follow from FUNI on Monday.

Fabian Connolly a member of the Firearms Expert Committee has contacted FUNI to discuss his experiences with this committee. He will be making contact with opposition TDs in the Dail to discuss his disappointment with how this committee was run and the one sidedness of this now confirmed rigged to one outcome exercise.

Mr Connolly alleges some of the following:

This committee was a rubberstamp exercise with an agenda.
**Edit: Removed at Mr Connollys request **
The agenda of demands is nothing more than a Garda wish list of firearms and equipment they want OUT of civilian gun owner hands in Ireland.
While not yet fully confirmed, the graduated training idea is an idea for a soon to be retiring Senior Garda figure as a retirement project to provide this training.

The chair was neutral and made sure Mr Connolly got a fair hearing.
**Edit: Removed at Mr Connollys request **

We are sure Mr Connolly will disclose further information and stand over his allegations and also provide details as time progresses. FUNI will be the first to cover and provide Irish gun owners with developments as they happen.

FUNI would call on all gun owners to now continue to lobby their TDs and shooting organisations by email, letters and in person even more. In the eyes of this new evidence, call for a public inquiry and for Minister Browne to consider his position in this growing debacle. FUNI and others have expressed grave concerns since day one about this committee and its makeup and Minister Browne’s decision from day one to preclude any current Irish shooting groups from this committee.

Please like and share to get the word out to our fellow shooters.
https://www.facebook.com/FirearmsUnitedIreland

** Important update on the FEC/DOJ situation**

We have received correspondence from Minister James Browne seeking a written submission from Firearms United Ireland on the recommendations made by the FEC. He is contacting other stakeholders regarding this as well.

Minister Browne has also notified us that the online consultation will be going live tomorrow.

FUNI are considering a submission pending discussions with FURG on general strategy and how the majority consensus prevails.

Stay tuned,
Firearms United Network Ireland

**Important Notice**

As many of you are already aware, the online consultation for the FEC reports is up and is linked below.
We will be publishing a template soon giving advice for each answer to help guide people as some of the questions can be quite confusing and misleading. We have until the end of the month before this consultation is closed so don't feel rushed to fill it out, BUT it is important that everyone does this survey as it could be used by the Department Of Justice as a mandate to make changes to our firearms legislation. Thanks.

https://justiceiresurveys.qualtrics.com ... AtTH5mD8ma

Some good news. Firearms United Network Ireland have been invited to speak with the Chair of the Oireachtas Justice Committee TD James Lawless on Tuesday.

We will be discussing issues facing firearms owners in the FEC reports and expressing our concerns about the online consultation and the direction we seem to be heading in relation to restrictive firearms legislation.

Shoutout to The Irish Hunting Podcast for their initial meeting with Lawless that opened the door for groups to work on getting their own meetings with the Justice Committee Chair.

The bill that will ban SACF rifles licensed post-2015 will be at the Senate committee stage this coming Tuesday.
Please contact Senator Robbie Gallagher to politely inform him about the issue facing guys licensed post-2015 and that we would like to see these guns grandfathered.

Senator Robbie Gallagher
robbie.gallagher@oireachtas.ie

There are up to 89 people affected by this, so as it isn't a huge number we are hoping the Senate will help.
Otherwise theses sports shooters will be left out of pocket as they cannot sell on their guns.

Other Senators contact details can be found here, reach out to as many as possible:
https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/members/senators/

The Seanad debate on this bill can be found here:
https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/debates/de ... -05-23/10/

Thanks,
Firearms United Network Ireland