Sports Coalition update – RTE Primetime Debate
All,
Please find below an update from Des Crofton, and his request for each and every one of YOU – yes – YOU – the Target shooters of Ireland – to mobilise behind the ongoing work of the Sportscoalition, and approach your elected representatives as soon as the program airs. I will publish the date on Sportscoalition.org website, and will email you all as soon as RTE let us know when it is to be aired. It is no longer OK for you to let someone else carry on the fight for our sport – we need YOUR Voice to help us beat this potential banning of our sport.
Don’t let YOUR inaction be the reason for us to lose our sport. Don’t kid yourself that you’ll not be affected – If this ban goes ahead there will be very few if any target shooting ranges left in Ireland, so even those with firearms not currently being affected by the proposed ban will be in the long run. If you have a licence and have ‘target shooting’ down as a reason to own the firearm, you will be affected.
Please read Des’s update and call to action, and prepare help us keep our sport alive. Feel free to forward this mail to anyone who may be willing to contact your elected representatives.
Regards,
Jeff – On behalf of the Sports Coalition.
FIREARMS REVIEW – FORTHCOMING RTE PRIME TIME PROGRAMME
VERY URGENT !
We took the RTE Prime Time crew out onto the mountain in Enniskerry on the morning of 23rd February for a deer stalk which they had asked to see as part of the above planned programme. There was plenty of snow, freezing cold weather but a beautiful clear sunny day. We saw five deer and shot two with crisp clean shots resulting in instant death. Couldn’t have been better! The gralloching was not filmed. At my suggestion Paul Walsh did the interview from a deer stalker’s perspective. He was excellent!
The producer said that while she had very much enjoyed the Harbour House demonstration shoot for the Oireachtas Justice Committee members, she was much more into what she had experienced with us on the mountain and expressed a wish to come back out with us at a later date. She will notify me of the Prime Time broadcast date as soon as it is decided and the programme format. When I have that information, I will publish it immediately to everyone I can.
In preparation for the programme, everyone who shoots or who supports shooting/hunting needs to be geared up for sending comment by email, twitter, fax, text, letter and phonecall to every politician in their area while the programme is on air and especially immediately after it!!!! We will only get one opportunity to do this so please make it count! Politicians will be watching to see what the reaction is to the programme. Don’t let our critics have the day! Get active and send your comments. Head your comment PRIME TIME. The comments need to be short and varied:
Examples:
- This is just middle Ireland being attacked again.
- You have taken away our post offices, our Garda stations, our hospital beds, our teachers; you have made us pay more for our water, our sceptic tanks and now you propose to take away our sport.
- Why should law abiding citizens be penalised for the actions of criminals?
- By what logic has the decision been made to make law abiding citizens suffer because the Gardai can’t do their job effectively?
- Criminals are targeting areas where Garda stations have been closed and where the number of Gardai were reduced. If criminals are stealing firearms from legal owners it is as a result of the Garda’s and government’s own policies.
- Leave the legally held guns alone. They are not the problem.
- The Gardai would do better seizing the tens of thousands of illegal guns in the hands of the criminals.
- Burglaries are now on the increase. There would be no firearms stolen if the Gardai got on top of the burglaries but with Garda stations closed there is little hope of that.
- The Gardai are talking of legally held guns being a public safety issue. What a joke! Senior officers see nothing wrong in cancelling penalty points for their families, friends and colleagues for no good reason thereby endorsing bad behaviour on the roads, mostly speeding, where nearly 200 people were killed in 2014. But not one person was killed with a legally held firearm in that year nor in the previous year nor in the previous year either.
- What about all the illegal guns coming in with drug shipments? They would be better off tackling that instead of hassling law abiding citizens.
- Can the Gardai tell us how many guns will be removed from the hands of criminals if they start banning legally held guns. I would love to know their answer to that question.
- If politicians give in to what the Gardai want, they will be just rewarding them for breaking the law in all the court cases taken. If they do that, no votes for them at this house.
- I’m fed up of the Gardai trying to take away our sport. Us shooters are law abiding citizens and we are not a danger to anyone. How dare they!
- The only answer to this totally unjustified attack on shooters again is to make the politicians pay at the ballot box.
- These are just some examples of the sort of comments which should be sent to all politicians, but especially those on the Justice Committee. Please draft your own comments also and/or vary the ones above, but we implore you not to send any abusive comments. These are counter-productive and serve only to damage our cause. Just one comment per person please. We need literally thousands of comments and messages going to the politicians when the programme is broadcast.
We need to email and correspond with every RGC and club on this. WE WILL PUT THE PROGRAMME DATE UP ON THE NARGC, NASRPC, WA1500, THE SPORTS COALITION AND OTHER RELEVANT WEBSITES as soon as we know the date.
The contact details for the politicians can be accessed on the link below:
http://www.oireachtas.ie/members-hist/default.asp?housetype=0&HouseNum=31&disp=mem
Please get, not only every club member, but also their family members and friends and supporters to send a comment to every politician in their areas when the programme is broadcast. We also need the support of our hunting and fishing colleagues in FACE Ireland in the same urgent way.
You should prepare your comment NOW and have your email, letter, fax etc., ready so that you can dispatch it the moment the Prime time programme is over. Check who the politicians are in your constituency and have your message for each of them ready and get your friends and family to be equally ready.
I can only impress upon you that this is likely to be a decisive moment and you must not lose it by inaction.
Please follow the Sports Coalition website for the programme date: www.sportscoalition.org
Des Crofton
National Director – NARGC
&
Spokesperson for the Sports Coalition
Email: nargc@nargc.ie