Burglary victim to go to jail

[Sparks]

No, only those free from any felony conviction, or domestic violence record, are eligible.

That doesn't rule out a lot of people over here whom the dogs in the street know shouldn't have anything more dangerous than a TV's remote control, but against whom we can't prove anything in a court of law (think OJ).

In which part of Ireland do you live?

Greystones, a small town about twenty miles south of Dublin.

 

[Cool Hand Luke 22:36]

That doesn't rule out a lot of people over here whom the dogs in the street know shouldn't have anything more dangerous than a TV's remote control, but against whom we can't prove anything in a court of law (think OJ).

We have precisely the same situiation here in the US, and it has yet to lead to any significant problems in relation to shall-issue CCW. Virginia has had exactly none (or one, my memory fails me) unlawfull shooting by a permit holder since the law went into effect here a decade or so ago.

 

[wildcard]

It can and will happen here. In the guise of Officer Safety and For the children.....

 

[Sparks]

We have precisely the same situiation here in the US

You've had a terrorist problem over the last thirty years with some americans shooting and killing other americans because some of you want to be in canada instead of in the US, and you can't prove who's actually pulling the triggers and who's a sympathiser?

And you've got a problem with alcohol consumption that takes in over half your population, including kids as young as twelve?

 

[Cool Hand Luke 22:36]

You've had a terrorist problem over the last thirty years with some americans shooting and killing other americans because some of you want to be in canada instead of in the US, and you can't prove who's actually pulling the triggers and who's a sympathiser?

First, I was referring to your assertion that Ireland has some especially bad problem with alcohol induced violence, not to the problems associated with terorism.

Second, I should think that you'd be well aware of the fact that the gun control laws in the Republic have no legal or practical effect whatsoever on keeping firearms out of the hands of the IRA or Protestant groups in N. Ireland. The IRA is and will be well supplied despite any laws forbidding gun ownership, either in the UK or the Republic. Or do you imagine that any law passed in Dublin will dissuade Khadaffi et al. from supplying guns and money to the IRA?

And you've got a problem with alcohol consumption that takes in over half your population, including kids as young as twelve?

I doubt very much that half the (adult) population of Ireland has a problem with alcohol abuse as you suggest. The figures I have seen indicate a rate of adult alcoholism of around 6-7%, contrasted with 5% in the US. That fact that you make such a unlikely assertion, and can't seem to quote an actual source for such, indicates that you are indeed just repeating a stereotype.

And yes, the literature concerning alcohol abuse in the US has the occasional story of children as young as 12 having a substance abuse problem, as does the literature of the UK and every other western country.

 

[agricola]

The figures I have seen indicate a rate of adult alcoholism of around 6-7%, contrasted with 5% in the US. That fact that you make such a unlikely assertion, and can't seem to quote an actual source for such, indicates that you are indeed just repeating a stereotype.

Do you have these figures to hand while you criticize Sparks for not doing so? Also, the term "adult alcoholism" is a bit of a red herring - you can either mean "drinking alcohol in amounts dangerous to health" (of which, depending on age, up to 50% of people are) or "alcohol dependent" - which is the classic alcoholic.

http://www.dohc.ie/publications/pdf/stfa.pdf?direct=1

 

[Sparks]

First, I was referring to your assertion that Ireland has some especially bad problem with alcohol induced violence, not to the problems associated with terorism.

Well, both are of an equal level of seriousness for this particular question...

Second, I should think that you'd be well aware of the fact that the gun control laws in the Republic have no legal or practical effect whatsoever on keeping firearms out of the hands of the IRA

Of course not - but that wasn't the point of the control, preventing outright war with the UK was the point. Remember, in '72, the Irish government had a faction that was preparing to arm the IRA up North, and had they not been stomped on, there would have been open war over it (hell, at one point we'd deployed troops up north, it was that bad). And had there been a situation where the IRA were buying arms in the south legally and then shooting British soldiers up north with them, it wouldn't have been long before everyone was shooting everyone again.

Or do you imagine that any law passed in Dublin will dissuade Khadaffi et al. from supplying guns and money to the IRA?

*ahem* No more so than we could dissuade the US... *ahem*

I doubt very much that half the (adult) population of Ireland has a problem with alcohol abuse as you suggest.

http://www.healthpromotion.ie/topics/alcohol/alcofacts/statistics/

Binge drinking (6 drinks per session) was up on the 1998 survey: 41.4% of men (34.7% in 1998) and 16.2% of women (11.6% in 1998);

No, not quite 50%. Close enough though. And the level of alcohol-caused random violence has become one of the main problems for our police right now, without everyone being entitled to carry firearms in public.
If it works for you, wonderful - it just isn't something most people here want. (And by most, the split between gun owners and those who don't own, is about 100,000 to 3,900,000)

And yes, the literature concerning alcohol abuse in the US has the occasional story of children as young as 12 having a substance abuse problem, as does the literature of the UK and every other western country.

I don't mean "occasional". Examine that link, in particular the part about the drinking habits of Irish children.

 

[carebear]

Sparks,

Not trying to jump up on ya but your "children" statistics only get significant, especially controlling for societal and economic issues, at the teenage years. In a country where the legal age for drinking is what, 18 I'm guessing?

3 sessions of binge drinking (6 or more per session) per month among 44% of high schoolers is not out of line with a culture of heavy partying. 4 weekends a month, 1 party a weekend, 6 beers at the party?

That was me in high school.

In any case, if the cultural concern is alcohol-fueled violence, then treat the alcohol problem, not the weapon end. The cause, not a minor symptom.

Of course not - but that wasn't the point of the control, preventing outright war with the UK was the point. Remember, in '72, the Irish government had a faction that was preparing to arm the IRA up North, and had they not been stomped on, there would have been open war over it (hell, at one point we'd deployed troops up north, it was that bad). And had there been a situation where the IRA were buying arms in the south legally and then shooting British soldiers up north with them, it wouldn't have been long before everyone was shooting everyone again.

Wouldn't that have been the same kind of illegal international gun trafficking that is already being dealt with between the US and Middle East and Northern Ireland? The Republic had the political duty to close its borders to illegal export and Britain had the responsibility to protect the North's borders from infiltration of arms.

Disarming free Irishmen due to dual governmental unwillingness or incompetence seems a bit of overkill.

That'd be like Mexico preemptively hamstringing its citizens to keep them from provoking a war with the US rather than both countries just patrolling the border.

 

[Stand_Watie]

As long as we're on the topic of the drunken Irish not being trustworthy enough to own firearms, shouldn't they be prohibited from driving as well? We all know they're dangerous and need to be protected from themselves.

Slave mentality dies hard after a few hundred years of subjugation I guess. We have enough examples of our own here, too.

 

[Sparks]

shouldn't they be prohibited from driving as well?

There have been times (usually after watching someone drive the wrong way round a roundabout or back up a slip road) that I could agree with that
But instead, we just introduce penalty points on licences, the creation of a traffic corps in the gardai, and lots and lots of roadblocks, mandatory third-party insurance and so on. Plus driving licences, driving tests, road taxes... are you sure firearms and cars should be treated the same way?

Not trying to jump up on ya but your "children" statistics only get significant, especially controlling for societal and economic issues, at the teenage years. In a country where the legal age for drinking is what, 18 I'm guessing?

Legal age is 18 here, yes, and we do have a fairly tolerant attitude to underage drinkers - so long as they're supervised, many kids are allowed to drink by their parents. France is more liberal, but we're pretty lax about it so long as it's not totally out of hand. The problem is really the violence that comes out of heavy drinking (you wouldn't walk down the main street in Dublin at closing time not so long ago - one minute you'd be walking along, the next, picking bits of someone's ninth pint glass out of the side of your head). And there, it's not the kids, it's the 18-24 age bracket. It's getting better, and it's not the only problem, but it's still a problem.

6 beers at the party?

Er, not to rag, but six pints of guinness here and six glasses of beer in the US are rather different amounts of alcohol...

In any case, if the cultural concern is alcohol-fueled violence, then treat the alcohol problem, not the weapon end. The cause, not a minor symptom.

Quite correct - but you if you're fighting a fire, you don't pause to throw petrol on it!

The Republic had the political duty to close its borders to illegal export and Britain had the responsibility to protect the North's borders from infiltration of arms.

The duty yes, but not necessarily the ability. Stopping every car driving from the south to the north - well, imagine trying to enforce full border crontrol between Canada and the US! Quite a lot of stuff got stopped - but not everything.

 

[Stand_Watie]

Plus driving licences, driving tests, road taxes... are you sure firearms and cars should be treated the same way?

I didn't say they should. But yes, treating firearms as you treat cars would be a huge improvement over an outright ban.

 

[Sparks]

We don't have an outright ban though - you can own any firearm you want in Ireland (we just got pistols back a few months ago after the de facto ban was rescinded), but they're licenced, as cars are. There are three (soon to be four) preconditions - you have to have a reason to have one, you have to be eligible (and the list of those not eligible is strictly laid out, and it's things like being insane, having been convicted of an indictable offence in the past five years, being underage, and so on), and you have to not be a danger to the peace or the public with a firearm. (Soon to be added is a requirement to have secure storage for the firearm). It works for us. It wouldn't be what many people in the US would like, but different cultures, different priorities.

 

[Stand_Watie]

(we just got pistols back a few months ago after the de facto ban was rescinded)

Sorry, I thought you said you had a complete ban. Are you predicting a homicide increase in relation to the lifting of your "de facto" ban?

I don't think your homicide rate would rise at all if you allowed CCW like 37 of the US states - as our history bears out.

***

http://www.claytoncramer.com/driverslicense.htm

Licensing Guns Like Driver’s Licenses

"Al Gore, trying hard to find an issue on which he can beat Governor Bush, has latched on to gun control. On July 12, Gore proposed national gun licenses with a photo, a fingerprint, and passing a safety test. Gore compared a national gun license to a driver’s license. This sounds perfectly reasonable, since both cars and guns are potentially dangerous machinery that shouldn’t be readily accessible to kids, drunks, or criminals. Surprisingly enough, many gun owners would jump at the chance to have guns licensed like cars. Especially for gun owners who live in California, New York, Chicago, and Washington, DC, this would be a dramatic improvement over the current system.

You don’t need a license to drive a car on your own land or at a race track. You only need a license if you want to drive on public roads. If Gore wants a "national gun license" modeled on driver’s licenses, it should only be required to carry a gun in public places. Like a driver’s license, it shouldn’t be required on your own property.

The tests for a driver’s license are fairly undemanding; relatively few adults fail them. A national gun license – on Al Gore’s model – should be similarly relaxed. But we can be pretty sure that this isn’t what Al Gore has in mind.

When you apply for a driver’s license, you don’t need to persuade anyone at the DMV that you have a good reason to drive, and you don’t have to wonder whether a bribe or a "campaign contribution" would improve your chances. Residents of New York City, and for that matter, many counties in California, would be overjoyed to see an end to the cronyism, racism, and "campaign contributions" associated with concealed weapon license issuance.

Once you have a driver’s license, you can buy as many cars as you want. You can buy or sell from another private party without asking permission from the government. You can buy a racy looking Porsche or a boring Ford – and the government doesn’t pass laws that prohibit Porsches because they can go 140 mph and appeal to teenagers of all ages. Many California, New York, and Massachusetts gun owners would be overjoyed to have that same level of freedom!

Your driver’s license is accepted in every state. If you drive from California to Maine with a gun, and stop to visit your relatives, you commit felonies in several states – even if the gun is unloaded and locked in the trunk. If Gore is serious about this "national gun license" being like a driver’s license, then every state will have to recognize a gun license issued by any other state... "

 

[P95Carry]

Stand_Watie - re the "Licensing Guns Like Driver?s Licenses" ...

QED methinks eh!?

 

[Sparks]

Sorry, I thought you said you had a complete ban.

No, we had a de facto ban on everything over .22 calibre up to the mid-90s and up to .270 up till a few months ago. Peace process comes in up north, reason for ban goes away, efforts to remove it succeed. It's still in flux - people are still figuring out the details - but it's a relaxing of things where you're talking about what most people see as stuff that's not silly (don't expect to see .50 cal machine guns being licenced, for example, but you want that .475 nitro express for your safari trip to africa? Well, grand so. AR-15 for target shooting? Shouldn't be a problem, so long as you have a range to shoot it on. And so on).

Of course, should up north go critical again, expect changes again. That's the nature of things - the only constant is change.

 

[Stand_Watie]

Of course, should up north go critical again, expect changes again. That's the nature of things - the only constant is change.

Don't mean to be too critical...but it's a different country and has been for what 85 years now? Isn't it about time to tell them to get stuffed and legislate the law of Ireland based upon Ireland? If the people of NI want to keep on killing each other they will, without regard for the laws of Ireland, America or any other nation.

 

[Stand_Watie]

QED methinks eh!?

Yeah, that's not going to happen is it? I'll note in case you read the article without following the link that that is not my writing.

 

[mmike87]

It's disgusting and inexcusible when a government makes it's citizens choose between death or jail.

"Sir, you should have done the right thing and let them kill you."

 

[Cool Hand Luke 22:36]

As long as we're on the topic of the drunken Irish not being trustworthy enough to own firearms, shouldn't they be prohibited from driving as well? We all know they're dangerous and need to be protected from themselves.

Many Irish-Americans despise the Kennedys for the embarrasment that they are to us all.

 

[Chuck Jennings]

Many Irish-Americans who despise the Kennedys for the embarrasment that they are to us all.

Count me in on that!

 

[Cool Hand Luke 22:36]

No, not quite 50%. Close enough though. And the level of alcohol-caused random violence has become one of the main problems for our police right now, without everyone being entitled to carry firearms in public.

You are overstating the problem somewhat, but I have to concede that you are correct at least in your assertion that Ireland has a problem with binge drinkers.

According to:

http://www.healthpromotion.ie/uploaded_docs/Irish_Drinking_Culture.PDF

Per Capita Alcohol consumption in Ireland is about in the middle range for Europe, and not much higher than the UK.

The Irish also seem to mostly drink beer, as opposed to most other Europeans who prefer more wine or other spirits along with beer.

The Irish are less likely to be daily drinkers, prefering instead to drink more at one session on the weekend, and that is the characteristic you are noting, namely, the higher level of binge drinking. The 41% figure is of the adult respondents who report weekly drinking, not 41% of all adults. In fact Ireland has a higher percentage of it's adult population, around 20%, who abstain from alcohol consumption of any sort, than most other European countries.

I think the important point to note is that the overall level of violent crime in Ireland is quite low. Vastly lower than iin the US, where CCW "shall issue" has led to no problems at all.

If it works for you, wonderful -it just isn't something most people here want. (And by most, the split between gun owners and those who don't own, is about 100,000 to 3,900,000)

True, but the tyranny of the majority is still just that, tyranny.

 

[Sparks]

Per Capita Alcohol consumption in Ireland is about in the middle range for Europe, and not much higher than the UK.

Yes, but there's also this:

Ireland has experienced the highest growth in alcohol consumption among EU countries. Alcohol consumption per capita increased 49% over the period 1989 - 2001. Consumption decreased in virtually every other EU country, with only four countries demonstrating even a modest rise.

And that report's a tad old - we're currently one of the worst in the EU for binge drinking and that's the kind causing the problem. It's a social problem, and we'll solve it, but these things don't get sorted overnight, as you know.

True, but the tyranny of the majority is still just that, tyranny.

But where does "the tyranny of the majority" become "a democratic decision"? Where's the dividing line?

 

[Chuck Jennings]

But where does "the tyranny of the majority" become "a democratic decision"? Where's the dividing line?

The dividing line is when the majority decides to deprive anyone of fundamental human rights. One of the purposes of our Bill of Rights is to enumerate those items that cannot occur, even if a majority votes for them.

 

[Stand_Watie]

Many Irish-Americans despise the Kennedys for the embarrasment that they are to us all.

When I lived in Maine I knew a number of Kennedys (they had a houseful of guns too). You can't throw a rock in that state without hitting an Irishman. I didn't notice they were any more prone to drink than anyone else (although I think there might be something to the rumor that they are more likely to have red hair).

 

[beerslurpy]

The "irishmen are drunkards" thing is lame stereotype that should not be a basis for policymaking. It sounds EXACTLY like the old "if a negro gets on a carriage with a revolver and a jug of mean whiskey, you can expect a murder or at least a fight" justificiations for disarming postwar (post US civil war) blacks. Even if half of irishmen were drunkards, that is still no reason to deny the entire race the right to self defense. If people get drunk and do irrisponsible things with guns, punish them. Dont punish people before any crime has been committed.

Democracy crosses over the line and becomes tyranny when people use the state to ask of others things they would not want asked of themselves. The concepts in the American bill of rights were borrowed directly from Blackstone's commentaries on English common law. These fundamental rights of property, liberty and life were alive and well in England up until the 1920s when fear of a bolshevik style revolution drove the English to insanity.

And now after centuries of hard-fought armed struggles to preserve their freedom from foreign and domestic tyranny, they have a socialist government that is voluntarily ceding the sovereignity of the British isles to the continent. I guess if the British are going to give up all the things they might possibly need guns for and choose to become slaves to the State and to criminals, then there really is no need for anyone to have weapons. After all, everyone belongs to everyone else.