Theory test urged for gun owners
They should also have to store all firearms in a gun safe, even those currently exempted from the gun safe requirement, and should have to fit time control locks to their safes so access is only possible at pre-determined times.
The Oireachtas justice committee also wants a temporary halt on the licencing of .22 calibre short firearms and centre fire semi-automatic rifles, pending a further review.
It calls for a national firearms control authority set up to either issue licences or act as an independent appeals body if licencing powers are to remain with gardaí.
Either way, the new authority should draw up regulations on eligibility for firearms licences, their transport and storage, and it should also be the regulatory body for firing ranges.
The recommendations are made in an interim report by the committee which earlier this year carried out a public consultation and held hearings on the review of firearms licences.
A copy of the report was sent last night to Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald whose department has also been carrying out a separate public consultation on the issue.
In their letter to Ms Fitzgerald, committee members said she should ask the Garda Inspectorate to carry out an independent review of the entire firearms licencing system. They said it was “a very complex matter requiring further detailed study”.
In particular, they said they were “very concerned” about information they had received from the gardaí about the number of firearms lost or stolen each year.
“The number of shotguns [853] reported stolen from 2010 to 2014 inclusive and the further number of shotguns [441] reported as lost in the same years raises a number of very serious questions,” they said.
Those figures have been disputed by the gun lobby, which argues they include replica guns, antique guns, blank-firing guns, and other firearms that can not be classified as weapons.
The National Association of Regional Game Councils, the largest group within the gun lobby with almost 1,000 local gun clubs, has made a complaint to the Garda Siochana Ombudsman Commission about the statistics which they say have created an unfair impression of firearms holders.
However, one recommendation — the establishment of a ballistics record of all licenced firearms — is likely to win favour with the 120,000-strong lobby.
The lobby has argued that if used ammunition recovered from crime scenes was checked against a ballistics database, it would prove that illegal weapons were being used by criminals and that it was not a case of licenced firearms falling into the wrong hands.
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