Well, if you were watching RTE tonight, you pretty much know why a hundred thousand or so people in Ireland are feeling fairly annoyed at the use their TV licence fee has been put to tonight.

The full debacle is up on the RTE player here if you really want to torture yourself more:

http://www.rte.ie/news/player/2015/0310/20741579-do-we-need-to-tighten-up-our-gun-laws-in-ireland/

But instead, I’d recommend writing an email to complaints@rte.ie. Here’s mine in case it’s of any use to you:

Dear Sir/Madam,

I wish to make several complaints regarding the above Prime Time

report, on the grounds that it violated the Broadcasting Act 2009,

Section 39(1)(a) and 39(1)(b). My specific complaints are:

1. That the report failed completely to present to the public the

current state of the firearms licencing laws, including any coverage of

the basic requirements for obtaining a firearms licence or the powers

granted to the Gardai and the duties placed on the Gardai by the law in

relation to firearms licencing and public safety.

2. That the report failed completely to present to the public the

actual proposals which have been made by the Department of Justice

Working Group and which the Joint Oireachtas Committee are considering.

3. That the report failed to make clear that the proposals will only

affect firearms which are solely used for target shooting and that no

proposals have been made regarding the criminal abuse of firearms, or

regarding the minimum security standards for firearms ownership.

4. That the report failed to permit equal time and equal opportunity

for both interviewed guests to make their case, with Deputy McGrath

being allowed to ignore the host and speak over Mr.Egan on several

occasions for a significant period of time.

5. That the report failed to present the evidence which had been sent

to its producer regarding significant flaws in the Garda statistics

which Deputy McGrath mentioned regarding stolen firearms; to wit, that

approximately 1700 firearms had been stolen between 2010 and 2014,

a number which transpired upon the release of the raw data by the

Minister in the Dail on March 3 to include hundreds of items which are

not legally firearms in Ireland and which no reasonable person would

count as a firearm, for example, 12 toy guns, 26 gun safes and so

forth.

6. That the report failed to question the Garda statistics from PULSE

given the flaws in the data regarding stolen firearms which the

producer of the report was informed of by email the week prior to the

report, and which Deputy McGrath was informed of by Oireachtas

correspondence the week prior to the report.

7. That the report contrived, with both sinister sounding music and

graphics, to portray the legal ownership of firearms in a negative

light despite a perfect safety record for the firearms under

discussion (see time index 2:20)

8. That the report on several occasions displayed airsoft replicas

which are not firearms in a way which unfairly portrayed legal firearms

ownership (see time index 1:25)

9. That the report used terms such as “gun enthusiast” instead of the

correct term “target shooter”, creating a negative image of the target

shooters being interviewed, who are no more enthusiasts of guns than a

GAA hurling all-star is an enthusiast of sticks (see time index 3:40)

10. That the report portrayed the official scheduled inspection of

the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice to the range at Nurney as a

happenstance casual visit (see time index 3:46) and that the report

made no mention of the members of the Joint Committee who did not

attend this official scheduled inspection nor of the official meeting

with the Gardai at Garda HQ on the same day, including Deputy McGrath.

11. That the report continually gave uninterrupted time to the victims

of criminal acts to elicit an emotional reaction while editing the

statements of other interviewees, despite the fact that the proposals

under discussion do not affect in any way the portions of the Firearms

Act which deal with criminal abuse of firearms (see time index 1:50,

6:20, 7:30).

12. That on several occasions, the report showed footage of firearms

which cannot be legally licenced anywhere in the EU under EU directive

91/477/EEC Section 6 while discussing proposals that only affect the

legal licencing of firearms, thus creating an impression that such

firearms are under discussion when they are not (see time index 7:58)

13. That the report presented figures in a highly misleading context,

stating that there were approximately 200,000 firearms in Ireland

without explaining that this means we have the fourth lowest firearms

ownership rate in the EU (see time index 4:26) and without explaining

that the term “Firearm” in Ireland has a very wide legal definition and

includes many items that the general public would not consider to be

firearms as well as the EU in general, which would lower our ownership

rate even further.

14. That the report presented figures without any form of context

in a manner which created fear in the audience, such as listing the

statistic of approximately 1,800 licenced handguns in Ireland without

the context that this represented a 30% reduction in handgun ownership

compared to the ownership levels before the Gardai refused to licence

pistols in 1972 (unconstitutionally according to the Supreme Court in

Brophy and McCarron) (see time index 4:47)

15. That on several occasions it was alleged or implied that firearms

stolen from licenced firearms owners were used in crime, but at no time

was it made clear that despite repeated requests in the Dail, had any

confirmed case of a stolen handgun being used in crime been recorded

(see time index 5:15)

16. That the report completely failed to discuss the current powers and

obligations on the Gardai with respect to the issuing of firearms and

public safety as laid forth in Section 4(2)(b) of the Firearms Act as

amended and Section 5 of the same act, nor at any time were the Gardai

asked to comment on these powers and duties (see time index 6:20)

17. That Olympic pistol shooting was misrepresented by the report as

having a defined standard pistol, which it does not; indeed many of the

firearms the proposals would affect may be used in the Olympics. This

was not mentioned in the report at all (see time index 8:36)

18. That the report discussed Olympic pistol shooting without any

Olympic shooting expert being interviewed or consulted to confirm facts

presented in the report by non-experts such as Chief Superintendent

Healy who is not an ISSF accredited expert on Olympic target shooting

(see time index 8:40)

19. That the report used unfair editing and voiceover narration to

portray deer stalking in a very negative light (see time index 9:23),

failing to present the reasons for deer stalking, the legislation

governing it, the effects that banning it would have and portraying it

as a casual activity undertaken without significant reason.

20. That the report stated that deer hunting rifles would not be

affected by the Working Group’s proposals which is categorically untrue

as the proposals would introduce new and arguably erroneous or

frivolous grounds to refuse to licence deer hunting rifles (see time

index 10:15)

21. That the report introduced and discussed mass shootings in

Hungerford and Dunblane without discussing their context or details,

ignoring the many issues that the Cullen Inquiry raised with the

Scottish Police in Dunblane and the documented incidents preceding

Hungerford, all of which would have permitted the police to preempt

those shootings under existing legislation (see time index 11:00)

22. That blatent editing was used by the report to cut off an

interviewee while he was attempting to explain the many safeguards

present in existing firearms licencing law, thus giving the impression

to the audience of a less regulated situation than exists in reality

(see time index 13:!3)

23. That the interview permitted the use of unsubstantiated and

incorrect statistics without challange despite the producer having been

informed of the problems with these statistics over a week beforehand

(see time index 15:47, 16:46)

24. That the host of the interview in the report deliberately prevented

Mr.Egan from correcting Deputy McGrath’s use of an incorrect statistic

relating to stolen firearms by saying Mr.Egan would “bamboozle us with

statistics” even though the producer of the report had been informed a

week earlier of the flaws in that statistic as related by the Minister

in the Dail.

25. That at no point in the report was the context for the proposals

presented, including but not limited to the several million euro bill the Gardai are

facing in court costs for over six hundred and fifty lost court cases

regarding licencing; the several supreme court judgement which have

stated that the Gardai and Minister acted unlawfully in regard to

firearms licencing for over thirty years; or the current development

which has seen District Court case appeals being permitted to seek

costs from the Gardai in the event of an applicant being successful in

appealing a licencing decision.

26. That at no point in the report was it presented that firearms

owners played an enormous role in drafting the current legislation

through the Firearms Consultation Panel.

27. That at no point in the report was any mention made nor footage

shown of the Joint Oireachtas Committee hearings on the current

proposals.

Yours sincerely,

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