Night-time hunters on the warpath

SIR, Ireland’s firearm owning community is on the warpath.

What has upset these gun gurriers is that at a recent meeting of the Firearms Consultative Panel (FCP), a committee tasked to advise the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform on firearms issues, a report from the National Parks & Wildlife Services (NPWS), compiled with the help of a working group, which included the Sports Coalition (SC), was presented to the meeting for its approval concerning the issue of night-time hunting.

The use of firearms to hunt wild animals and birds at night is an ongoing issue in the Irish countryside with reports of illegal hunting, trespass, criminal activity and incidents involving the shooting of humans and farm animals.

The report made a number recommendations to tackle the issue of the use of firearms for night-time hunting. Among them was a ban on shooting between hours of 12am and 6am from the 1st September to 31st March; a requirement to inform the landowner of your hunting starting and finishing time as well as that the Gardaí be notified that you will be hunting in the area.

Irish firearms owners have been preaching for years that they are upholders of the law pertaining to firearms usage so you would think they would welcome these recommendations.

Think again, as the small Irish shooting community have gone into spasms of outrage in response to what appear to be sensible recommendations to tackle the scourge of night-time shooting.

Ireland’s gun lobby is spraying verbal vitriol like an out of control machine gun while, predicting the end of the world as we know it if any attempt is made to restrict access to night-time shooting.

The display of such opposition to an attempt to put a control framework on night-time shooting exposes the true nature of those who engage in the recreational killing of wild animals and birds.

They want unfettered access to their live victims even if it means disrupting the lives of those living in the countryside who wish no harm to wildlife.

Sincerely, John Tierney, Campaigns Director, Association of Hunt Saboteurs.