Minister James Browne is confident that new gun licensing laws will not unduly affect the 200,000 currently licensed guns and their owners. The Firearms Expert Committee he appointed last year met nine times from July 2022 to March 2023, with its final report published in March.

During that process, the Minister of State in the justice department has kept his counsel.

“While the expert committee was at work, I was precluded from comment,” he explains. “The committee was only ever an advisory committee, which looked at the whole situation around guns and made recommendations.” There followed an online public consultation, which ran until 2 June.

“We’ve received over 1,950 submissions,” says Browne. “Some people found it frustrating because some of the questions were quite technical, relating to barrel size, types of bullets.

“We invited the national organisations to make open submissions, there were no restrictions, and I met in July with the Firearms Users Representative Group (FURG) and the IFA.”

So why was a review needed?

“In part, this came from frustrations within the gun owner community around a lack of consistency. We’ve a lot of new superintendents, and in fairness to them, during COVID-19 there was little opportunity to train them in gun licensing, which is very technical. The challenge is to get consistency, so that people who are entitled to a gun licence will actually get it. We looked at streamlining the whole process, perhaps having licensing online.”

Licensing

“One aspect is, can we move from licensing guns to licensing the person?

“I would have hunted as a teenager, I’m comfortable around guns, they are an important part of life in rural Ireland, whether it’s a farmer being able to shoot vermin, whether it’s hunters or clay pigeon shooters, whatever it is.

“There’s no hidden agenda here. One of the few restrictions being suggested is that someone going for their first gun would have to undergo some safety training. There might be some fear that this is a wedge to something else, but it’s not,” he says.

“How the training will take place is up for discussion, but it is only for first-time licensees. It should be about situational awareness, about understanding the range of your weapon, about gun maintenance, care and safe storage and transport. Most gunowners are very good at maintaining their guns, they are expensive pieces of equipment.”

Security

James Browne says security checks are already in place if needed.

“If superintendents have a concern about a gun licence applicant, they have the right to contact the person’s GP. We know that legally held guns are exceptionally rarely used in any type of crime in Ireland. We have seen some tragic situations including murder-suicides involving legally held guns. They are rare, and it’s very hard to predict those situations,” he says.

Where someone has a significant amount of guns, it’s recommended that additional security measures be required. “This is not about owning four or five guns,” Browne says, “For instance in Northern Ireland 80 guns is the trigger.”

The IFA has expressed concern around a recommendation that a gun should be secured and out of sight when being transported.

“This is not about a farmer going down the road to a field,” says Browne. “It’s about someone travelling a distance with a gun, say, if you’re leaving Wexford to go to Sligo for a shoot.”

“There will be no surprises when the legislation is finally prepared,” he concludes.