Talk:Firearms policy in the Republic of Ireland

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is this politics or law?

This article is mainly the actual law surrounding firearms licencing in Ireland rather than firearms politics (which in Ireland is mainly internecine politics between the sporting bodies who govern different shooting sports; there isn't much in the way of actual government politics here). Is the page (or the category) in need of a renaming? --MarkDennehy (talk) 18:05, 13 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, it should really be "Firearms law in Ireland". "Gun Politics" should cover the policy of whether a state should issue licences at all, and the US attitude to the right to bear arms, which is not the policy in Europe. This page should be about the current laws. I have just been re-granted a licence that expired 7 months ago in February; there were no problems at all, but it's not a priority for the Gardai. Compare that to renewing my driving licence which took 3 weeks.PatrickGuinness (talk) 12:04, 24 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Its not a very consistant article title. Gun legislation in Germany is more about law aswell. I would propose a move to Gun legislation in Ireland, or even Gun legislation in the Republic of Ireland if needed for clarity, and leave this title as a redirect. Murry1975 (talk) 12:52, 24 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The RKBA stuff is not the policy in Ireland, but it's not true to say it's not the policy in Europe. It was policy in Northern Ireland for many years, for example (though not south of the border), and it's policy in several EU member states (Germany, for example, where US-style concealed carry permits are available). However, publicity-craving TDs from the back benches aside, nobody really wants to see a change in that policy within Ireland today. All that aside, yes, Gun legislation in Ireland would be a better title (Gun legislation in the Republic of Ireland would be incorrect because the name of the state is officially Ireland even though the RoI form is seen in everyday usage) MarkDennehy (talk) 13:01, 24 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

BTW, "Firearms" would be better than "Guns" for a few technical reasons ("guns" get mounted on ships; "firearms" are what get certs in Ireland, and the term covers all the things that the Firearms Act covers, which is a more extensive range in Ireland than other countries even in the EU, so it would be less confusing) — Preceding unsigned comment added by MarkDennehy (talk • contribs) 11:41, 16 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

editing notes

On the last edit to the page, I've reverted it for two reasons - one, while most of the firearms in use by the drug gangs at the time were class A firearms in the EU and so not licencable, there were large numbers of handguns smuggled in along with the class A firearms (one single seizure at the time found more handguns in a single drugs shipment than were licenced in the entire country at that time), so you can't say it was 99.99% of the firearms; and two, it was asked several times in the Dail if there was any proof that licenced firearms had been stolen and later used in crime (references are given in the wiki page) and the answer was always that none was available, so you can't say that either. MarkDennehy (talk) 13:01, 24 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

rewrite needed

There is ample information here, but it needs rewritten. We need a simple overview in the header, and move what is presently the header into a separate "legislative history" section. --81.145.165.2 (talk) 10:37, 12 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Done. I've also updated the information since I was the one who wrote it in the original page which was used to create this one. --MarkDennehy (talk) 18:01, 13 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

You deleted the lead. And not enough in-lne citation, btw boards.ie isnt a reliable source on that point so they need to removed/replced. But a hard rewrite well done (other than the aforementioned). Murry1975 (talk) 18:11, 13 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

We can probably swipe some of the overview for the lead (the lead we had really needed to be in the history section). Citations for the legislative stuff will be tricky because the majority of the time the citation isn't one source; it would be something along the lines of "The 1925 Act, section X, as amended by the 1964 Act, section Y and the 2006 Act, section Z and none of those individual components would be a complete citation (that, incidentally, is exactly the problem with the legislation, as mentioned in the article). I'll add in more, but I'm not sure how to handle the legislative ones. The boards.ie links are all citing answers to parlimentary questions; I can find the originals on oireachtasdebates.ie so they can be changed out for those, but it'll take a little searching. Thanks for the wd. --MarkDennehy (talk) 21:21, 13 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Snappy is a good editor with a very good knowledge of legal bills, maybe he could help. Murry1975 (talk) 15:34, 14 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 2 October 2015

It was proposed in this section that Firearms policy in the Republic of Ireland be renamed and moved to Firearms legislation in Ireland.

The discussion has been closed, and the result will be found in the closer's comment.

Links: current log • target log

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: MOVED MarkDennehy (talk) 23:18, 16 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Gun politics in Ireland → Firearms legislation in Ireland – As discussed in this page's talk page, the title is inappropriate. This article is on the existing firearms legislation in Ireland; and firearms owners in Ireland work with the Department of Justice who draft the laws and the Gardai who enforce them, through the mechanism of the firearms consultation panel. NRA-style confrontational politics on the scale seen in the US is just not a done thing here, it's not part of the culture. MarkDennehy (talk) 21:59, 2 October 2015 (UTC) --Relisted. Natg 19 (talk) 19:50, 9 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Support to more appropriate title. --Iztwoz (talk) 07:47, 3 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose: At first glance I was going to support this renaming until I looked at the other articles in this series and they are named in the same way plus the Category:Gun politics by country exists for those articles so this fits exactly within the naming structure. Otherwise one may have to change all the other similarly named articles which too seem to focus on the legislation but remember the laws are made by the politicians not by the DoJ or Gardai so it is linked to the politics. ww2censor (talk) 10:40, 5 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia article titles should be designed to useful for readers, not to simply look nice in a category. Also, cf. Gun legislation in Germany which is also in the category, and note that the Gun politics in Ireland article is also in Category:Firearm laws which has other articles with titles similar to the proposed title. — AjaxSmack 07:00, 12 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Support per nom. The proposed title accurately reflects the content of the article whereas the current one does not. — AjaxSmack 07:00, 12 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Support per AjaxSmack's reply above, and because "law" & "politics" are related but separate topics. The WP:CONSISTENT argument doesn't hold much water: the existing titles were mostly chosen when the articles were stubs, to match with the most-edited members of the series (e.g. Gun politics in the United States). However as the articles in the series have developed, most of them barely discuss politics (e.g. lobbying, public opinion, gun culture, influence of guns on elections), and consist solely of descriptions of legislation, regulations, and enforcement. Some titles reflect that already (Gun legislation in Germany, Firearm legislation in South Africa), and others (e.g. Gun politics in Jamaica, Gun politics in Kuwait) should be moved to reflect that reality. 210.6.254.106 (talk) 07:34, 14 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

This is not the appropriate page for the discussion as the top of the page shows (due to an arbcom ruling), Second Quantization (talk) 10:58, 16 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I think this is a rather extreme interpretation of the Arbcom ruling. The ruling concerned renaming articles from "X in/of the Republic of Ireland" to "X in/of Ireland" and vice-versa. Since that's not proposed, the ruling doesn't apply. — Blue-Haired Lawyer ^t 12:36, 16 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, the article talk page is the correct place for discussion of this requested move. Second Quantization has inadvertently highlighted an ambiguity in the banner at the top of the page. "Discussions relating to the naming of Ireland articles" means the Ireland, Republic of Ireland and Ireland (disambiguation) pages, i.e. the article on the island, the article on the state and the dab page that links to them. It does not mean any articles relating to Ireland. I can only guess that the banner was put there in case somebody tried to move it to "Gun politics/legislation in the Republic of Ireland", which might conceivably need to be discussed at IECOLL. As it is the discussion should continue where it is. Scolaire (talk) 12:50, 16 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Support - This article is clearly about legislation and not politics. Notably the US has both Gun politics in the United States and Gun law in the United States, so I'm not sure the series argument makes any sense. — Blue-Haired Lawyer ^t 12:41, 16 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Support. There are no politics in the article, and people in Ireland don't talk about "gun politics". I suspect that other articles in the "series" are similarly misnamed. I'm guessing that the "series" was created by an American with an interest in gun politics, who assumed that it was a thing everywhere in the world. Scolaire (talk) 12:55, 16 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Support The article is about firearms legislation in Ireland. The article isn't about gun politics which I doubt would even meet WP:GNG for Ireland. Second Quantization (talk) 13:47, 16 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

(I don't think we even have gun politics in Ireland in the usual meaning of the term) MarkDennehy (talk) 14:00, 16 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Name of page

The name of this page, or the lede, or something, should make it clear that the laws, policies and politics regarding this issue are confined to the border of the Republic of Ireland specifically, and do not cover the whole of the island. I will change the lede to ensure the reader knows this article concerns a specific jurisdiction. --98.122.20.56 (talk) 23:16, 5 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I don't particularly object to the change as carried out, but it is still unnecessary - see the very first section in this talk page: "Gun legislation in the Republic of Ireland would be incorrect because the name of the state is officially Ireland even though the RoI form is seen in everyday usage". MarkDennehy (talk) 03:07, 6 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

What the country is determined to call itself is a different thing from clarity. It is important to be clear as to which legal jurisdiction we are talking about. The country which is the topic of this article actually allows for disambiguation by offering an alternative name: Republic of Ireland. In the article itself, there is nothing to suggest that gun law in the Republic of Ireland is a separate thing from the gun laws of the two separate jurisdictions of Ireland, and that there is in fact no gun law pertaining to and in common with the whole of Ireland.

I think it is necessary to point this out, and it is necessary to do it in the lede. In accordance with wikipedia policy, the rest of the article is left stating "Ireland". I also think that the article name should be changed to be in line with the policy regarding the country article itself: Republic of Ireland. There is precedent for not using the 'official name' in Wikipedia. The article for the Republic of China, for example, is 'Taiwan'. There are a few others, the Republic of Ireland being one of them.

I am reverting the revert made by Ww2censor for a couple of reasons (and I will reiterate this on their talk page):

Ww2censor has been lazy and simply reverted my whole edit, instead of changing the specific detail that they had issue with.
Ww2censor is incorrect in his assertion that a) I do not "respect" other peoples' version of English and b) that the spelling I changed was wrong. To clarify, the spelling in English (which is the form of spelling that is used in the Republic of Ireland) for the NOUN is '(a) licence'. The VERB is '(to) license'. Likewise, the spelling in English for the VERB is 'licensing' and 'licensed'. The same is true for the words 'practice/practise' and 'advice/advise'.

--98.122.20.56 (talk) 16:35, 6 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps you feel that what the sovereign state calls itself is not relevant; bluntly, that's a deeply arrogant and offensive position. Not to mention, it's kindof ignorant of quite a long period where names were a bone of contention. The official name is Ireland; the official name of Northern Ireland is Northern Ireland. That is how we differentiate between them. If you wish to make it clear what page addresses what country, create another page on firearms legislation in Northern Ireland and link to it in the lead-in to this page, and cross link this page in the lead-in to the new page. But your changes here are not appropriate. MarkDennehy (talk) 19:17, 6 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

On a personal note, I wonder if you ever considered how deeply arrogant and offensive it is to some that the state itself chooses to use the name of the island to describe itself? However, emotion is not relevant to the issue.

The name of the state is Ireland or, where necessary to differentiate, the Republic of Ireland. That isn't verbatim from the Republic of Ireland legislation, but it's certainly the intent and spirit. The state refers to itself as the Republic of Ireland quite frequently. Also, the name of the island is Ireland. You don't see the conflict here, and how easy it might be to confuse these regions?

There is already a page that deals with gun politics in Northern Ireland (as well as the rest of the UK).

The changes here are highly pertinent. As the article stood before I changed it, it looks very much like the article was describing gun politics in the whole of the island.

I presume it isn't - but only because I happen to know that the Gardaí have jurisdiction only in the Republic and not the whole of the island. Other readers will not be as well informed as I am. I will leave you to try to see the logical sense of what I am saying before I revert again. It is not my intent to "offend" or appear "arrogant" (and I do resent the accusation, by the way). It is my intent to approach this with logic and with a view to making things clear to the readers and researchers who may happen across this article.

I should tell you, before you get to talking about established Wikipedia consensus or policies/guidelines, that I am aware of the 'Manual of Style'. I am also aware of things like WP:CCC and particularly WP:COMMON.

Now we sit here at an impasse wherein you appear to be (at least from what I can tell) speaking from an emotional point of view, and I just want the article to be clear and unambiguous. In accordance with the guidelines, I have not endeavoured to change any other instances of the word 'Ireland' in the article. From this it is clear that I am not merely attempting to change the article to be offensive or arrogant.

I have been WP:BOLD here and I will now step back for a while. It is not in my interest to go about wikilawyering my way to success in this. Especially against the systemic bias that exists in this particular field. I will put in some time, but I am frankly sick to death of the effort required to make common sense prevail on this website. If you are truly concerned as an editor, over and above political sensibilities, you might want to take this further through the wikipedia process.

To any non-partisan admins out there who may be reading this - this is my appeal to step in now, before an editor with decent common sense ideas gets trampled once again by the system of 3RR etc. Let it be on record that I am not trying to be merely "offensive", or cause waves merely to make a point. Let it be on record also, though, that I would very much like to affect change. I believe a change in policy is needed.

I also have an idea with regard to this specific sub-set of articles: boilerplate text on each article that specifies which particular jurisdiction the article is referring to, and making it clear that the article refers only to that jurisdiction and not to the island (which has unfortunately had the misfortune to come to be named EXACTLY how the state is named!).

Back to you Mark, political joke and sarcasm aside. Are you willing to consider alternatives which disambiguate? Or are you going to simply stick by your guns (pun fully intended!) and suggest that we let the readers remain confused? Are you willing to put political sensibility aside and potentially expand readers' knowledge and clarify their minds? --98.122.20.56 (talk) 20:12, 6 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I have reverted the page, but removed the change to the name of the state, as Mark has objected to it. I await your response, Mark. And hopefully some good advice and objective discussion as to how to proceed. --98.122.20.56 (talk) 20:17, 6 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The name of the country is Ireland. The name of the other country is Northern Ireland. That's pretty unambigious and in case it isn't there's a wikipedia page to explain the name. I think that's the way to go. MarkDennehy (talk) 21:01, 6 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

OK, since you have taken an intransigent stance with regard to this, and not given me the time I have clearly made for you, I will escalate this to the next level of assistance.

Your tone is also quite patonrising (WP:BITE) and, on top of that, you have also elected to insult me [1] in another section of this talk page. I am quite aware of the difficulties arising from the name the Republic chose for itself in 1937, which is why I removed my edit and suggested leaving some time to consider our approach. I have also made suggestions which you not merely dismissed, but actually completely ignored.

In both these cases (see below) I have acted according to policies and guidelines set out in Wikipedia, and in both cases I have been met with intransigence and ignorance. This really makes Wikipedia more trouble than it's worth, but I am going to try to go through the correct channels and methodology in order to achieve some better discourse, rather than this - the feeling of simply having the door shut in my face. --98.122.20.56 (talk) 03:00, 8 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

English vs US variation

I have already addressed this issue in the section above. I am reverting Ww2censor's revert (again), and I've supplied a source which describes the differences in spelling with the verb "to license" and the noun "a licence" in English. I have attempted to change the article from non-existant word usage (licencing, licenced) to the spelling which is correctly used in the British Isles (licence, license, licensing, licensed). I have NOT changed this article to the US/Webster variant of English. This is clearly demonstrated by the fact that I did not change the spelling of the noun licence.

Also a note to Ww2censor (again): please do not revert edits wholesale. If you have a specific issue you think should be addressed, then revert ONLY that issue. Leave other edits intact.

Here is source information on how to spell words like licence, license, advice, advise and practice, practise in English with the text and a link:

Is it license or licence?

There is always the difficulty of recognising American English spellings and British English spellings with words like these.

Whether we like it or not, much of our language is now heavily influenced by American English spellings. We use both forms in British English – one is a verb (doing word) and the other a noun (thing). License

This is the verb ‘to license’. Examples:

   I license this pub.
   You are licensed to run this pub.
   The officer licenses the taxis here.

Licence

This is the noun ‘a licence’. Examples:

   I have a driving licence.
   She wants to buy a licence for her car.

Making major changes to the page without discussion

Folks, you may or may not know this, but this page is one of the main sources of information on firearms legislation in Ireland. Editing large swathes of it and dropping references willy-nilly is a very bad idea. Please at least post here before you do that, large amounts of people's time went into making this page as accurate as possible, it's wasteful to just change it without talking about the changes. — Preceding unsigned comment added by MarkDennehy (talk • contribs) 17:02, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I am not required to inform you before I edit the page. You are not the owner. This page must conform to wikipedia guidelines with regards to sourcing such as WP:SECONDARY and WP:NPOV. Wikipedia is not a how-to manual. Instructions on how to apply do not belong here WP:NOTHOWTO. Familiarise yourself with the guidelines. The article was and is in such a bad state that it even included links to boards.ie. Bring appropriate secondary sources. Second Quantization (talk) 10:48, 16 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, thank you, I and everyone else are fully aware that I am not the owner and you are not required to get my permission. But neither am I required to get your permission to revert your edits and if we don't discuss changes we'll wind up in a useless edit war for no good reason. And if you want to bring in secondary sources, go for it; but having worked on this specific chunk of the law for the last fifteen years, I can tell you that there are almost none at all. This is one of the most badly written and esoteric chunks of Irish legislation out there. There are over twenty seperate Acts that modify the principal act, as well as two that create additional pseudo-principal acts, and two EU directives and over sixty SIs and a rake of case law and a century of practice. It is not a well-documented and simple thing and if you apply wikipedia rules to it blindly, you'll take a useful page and render it into inaccurate noise. And btw? Boards.ie is good enough for the Department of Justice to use it as an official channel for communications on things like legislative changes, safety product recalls and so on. It's not exactly 4chan; it's moderated and it's the single largest forum for discussing shooting in Ireland. Including links to it was the most accurate option available. MarkDennehy (talk) 11:33, 16 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

"but having worked on this specific chunk of the law for the last fifteen years, I can tell you that there are almost none at all." Then wikipedia does not include it. That is how wikipedia works. Read the policies. Second Quantization (talk) 11:58, 16 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

So we've gone from "you don't own this page" to "I determine what wikipedia does in edge cases", along with calling people "gun advocates" now? I'm finding it hard to believe this is about improving wikipedia. This page has existed in its current form for quite some time. There just aren't any online secondary sources to point people at. That doesn't mean the page is inaccurate or useless. So unless I can cite http://www.claruspress.ie/shop/fire-arms-offensive-weapons/ as a secondary source, you're asking to remove an entire page on what look from here to be ideological reasons by appealing to standard rules while standing in an edge case. MarkDennehy (talk) 12:16, 16 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

"This page has existed in its current form for quite some time." This page has been rubbish for quite some time. This article isn't an edge case. Wikipedia policy is pretty damn clear. Spend less time arguing and more time reading actual policy. I don't see any problems with using the book you linked to just don't use forums, and don't rely on primary sources except to back up secondary sources. Sources are not required to be online. Second Quantization (talk) 12:24, 16 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Actually this page was competely wrong for several years before it got edited into its current form; and by completely wrong, I mean it stated things as fact which were simply not true. This *is* an improvement on that. MarkDennehy (talk) 13:32, 16 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Unofficial 3O: I agree with all of Second Quantization's edits to date, and also with the placing of the "manual" tag at the top of the page. Quite simply, the article as it stands is unencyclopaedic. Scolaire (talk) 13:04, 16 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Rename discussion

I've posted for a rename discussion here: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Ireland_Collaboration#Rename_Gun_politics_in_Ireland_to_Gun_legislation_in_Ireland

See https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Talk:Gun_politics_in_Ireland#Requested_move_2_October_2015 — Preceding unsigned comment added by MarkDennehy (talk • contribs) 11:38, 16 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Changes in Irish legislation on firearms

As a note, there have been some changes in recent weeks to the legislation governing firearms in Ireland; some changes to the page will be needed^[1] (excuse the informal citation, this isn't the main page...) — Preceding unsigned comment added by MarkDennehy (talk • contribs) 12:21, 16 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

^ http://www.broadsheet.ie/2015/09/21/their-aim-is-true/

Is there any relationship between Mark Dennehy the "firearms expert" who wrote that and MarkDennehy the editor? If so, it might not have been any harm to mention the fact in previous discussions (if you have, and I've missed it, I apologise). Scolaire (talk) 13:08, 16 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, same person; I know I've mentioned that here at some point before. Also note the apology for the citation being informal; this was the talk page, not the main article and that was the first link I had to hand. The actual changes won't use that. MarkDennehy (talk) 13:30, 16 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

If you have mentioned it, then you are due an apology for my suggestion that you didn't. Just to note that I not not mean to imply that the bare url was intended as any sort of cover-up. Scolaire (talk) 13:59, 16 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

No apology needed, it's not like I maintain a biography page or anything; it was just an informal citation to give an overview before doing any edits -- we've been a bit contentious in here recently and I dislike that and would prefer to reduce it and those changes (and some updates - it's been a few years since this page was brought up to date) ought to go in but just dropping them in out of the blue right now seemed... rude to other editors. MarkDennehy (talk) 14:06, 16 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

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Scope of article and recent multiple page name moves

We seem to have ended up in the rather unsatisfactory situation that the page name and opening paragraph refers ambiguously to "Ireland," even though the scope is restricted to the Republic of Ireland. I am therefore reverting to a earlier and more appropriate name. Nick Cooper (talk) 19:54, 19 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Crackdown

Contrary to a claim in the article (Section: 1972 Temporary Custody Order and Pistols in Irish firearms law), Dermot Ahern did not announce a ban on handguns, he announced a "crackdown" (an ambiguous term) according to the RTÉ reference cited ("Homes, pubs could be bugged under new bill"). O'Dea (talk) 17:00, 17 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

http://ipo.gov.ie/en/JELR/Pages/Minister%20Dermot%20Ahern%20Outlines%20Handguns%20Ban

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ahern-outlines-handgun-ban-proposals-1.831820

Both the press and the press release used the word ban. The Minister himself stated "no new licences will be issued". MarkDennehy (talk) 20:53, 17 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

If the citation you provide mentions an actual ban, please add it to the relevant part of the article as the existing citation only mentions a crackdown, not a ban. Thank you. O'Dea (talk) 22:49, 19 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I gave up wasting time on this page a few years ago because of wikipedia pundits incorrecting me about something I was one of the few actual experts on. You said you wanted a citation to a ban - I just gave you a link to a government statement called "Minister Dermot Ahern Outlines Handguns Ban". The actual Irish Government, releasing a statement from the actual Minister of the day. You think this means that the citation does not mention an actual ban. I am done wasting time on this. Make the page right or make it wrong, whatever you want yourself. MarkDennehy (talk) 18:35, 22 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

[1] ttp://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/1925/act/17/section/2/enacted/en/html#sec2

[2] ttp://www.broadsheet.ie/2015/09/21/their-aim-is-true/

[1]

[1]