A HIGH Court judge has said reasonable people are “entitled to feel alarmed” about a large increase in the number of pistols licensed for private use in Ireland in recent years.
There is “a pressing need” for drawing together into a clear law the multiple “piecemeal” rules on the control of firearms here, Mr Justice Peter Charleton added.
The judge said the increasing numbers of weapons licensed here for personal use – with 1,600 pistol licences last year – was “exactly the opposite” to Britain, where handguns had been banned in line with recommendations of the inquiry into the shooting dead of 16 schoolchildren and a teacher by a misfit armed with four handguns in Dunblane, Scotland, in 1996.
The recommendations of the Cullen report on Dunblane reflected a determination to move in a different direction to the “apparent policy” in this country over the last four years, the judge said.
He described as “undesirable” the “piecemeal spreading” of the statutory rules for the control of firearms over multiple pieces of legislation – five firearms Acts and the 2006 Criminal Justice Act.
Codification (the bringing together of various laws) of these laws on control of firearms was almost as pressing a need as codification of the laws in the area of sexual violence, he stressed.
The judge also said the murder and suicide rate, the general proliferation of guns and the kind of guns that were particularly dangerous could be important factors in any “sensible view” on licensing firearms here, despite arguments that gardaí were not entitled to take these into account.
Mr Justice Charleton noted he had been given information by counsel with wide experience of such cases that, from 1972 to 2004, coinciding with “one of the most vicious periods in Irish history”, no revolvers, pistols or rifles above .22 calibre were licensed here except in the most “exceptional circumstances”.
In addition, in 1995, some licences for .27 calibre rifles were issued where a Garda superintendent was satisfied these were for hunting deer. However, the policy against the licensing of pistols was relaxed last year “for whatever apparent reason” and some 1,600 pistols were licensed for private use that year, the judge said.
While this proliferation of pistols and larger calibre rifles may not have been noticed and a general policy of permission for private use of such weapons may not be pursued, a reasonable person was “entitled to feel alarmed”, he said.
The judge made his remarks when refusing a challenge by Ronan McCarron, who shoots for sport, to a decision of Supt Peadar Kearney of Letterkenny Garda station in 2005 refusing him a firearms certificate for a .40 calibre Glock model 22 pistol, which Mr McCarron had bought for target practice and sought to license.
Supt Kearney said he refused the certificate because he did not believe the pistol was a suitable weapon for target practice and regarded it as a combat weapon and a type declared particularly dangerous under the Firearms (Dangerous Weapons) Order 1972.
Mr McCarron argued there was no statutory basis to refuse him the certificate. Once he had decided in good faith to buy a weapon, it must be licensed as he was not ineligible under the firearms Acts to hold a firearm and was trained to safely use it, he contended.
In his decision, the judge said it was accepted Mr McCarron was trained to use such a pistol and was not disentitled under the firearms legislation from having one.
However, he ruled the superintendent had exercised “a sensible policy” through an individual decision within the terms of legislation “concerned with the public good”.
Possession of a firearm was not a right but a privilege granted in contradistinction of the prohibition imposed in the 1925 Firearms Act, as amended, he said. He was satisfied considerations of public safety were uppermost in the legislative policy behind various provisions of the 1925 Act.
The 2006 Criminal Justice Act required a person to have a “good reason” for requiring a particular firearm, which had to be more than a simple desire to use it or to have sport with it in some way.
The more dangerous the weapon, the greater the onus on the applicant, the judge said.
