Page "Gun politics" Paragraph 50

Irish firearms law is based on several Firearms Acts, each of which amends those Acts which were issued previously.

The initial Firearms ( Temporary Provisions ) Act, 1924 which was introduced as emergency legislation following the founding of the state, was replaced by the Firearms Act, 1925, which laid the foundations of the system of licencing that has continued unaltered until quite recently.

Relatively small modifications were introduced in the Firearms Act, 1964, the Firearms ( Proofing ) Act, 1968, the Firearms Act, 1971, the Firearms and Offensive Weapons Act, 1990, the Firearms ( Temporary Provisions ) Act, 1998 and the Firearms ( Firearm Certificates For Non-Residents ) Act, 2000.

By 2006, such was the confusion from these multiple Acts, each amending the others ( and not all of which were ever actually commenced and thus were in the public record but not enforced as actual legislation ); and the amendments of Irish firearms legislation by other Acts ranging from the Wildlife Acts ( mostly relating to hunting law ) to the Road Traffic Acts ( relating to how and where firearms could be transported ) and others ; the large amount of secondary legislation ( Statutory Instruments, which set out regulations, the design of application forms for licences and so forth, as well as the details of when various parts of the Acts came into force ); as well as the introduction of EU firearms law into the canon of Irish legislation ; led the Irish Law Reform Commission to recommend that all the extant legislation be restated a legal process by which all the existing primary and secondary legislation would be read as one and a single document produced as the new Firearms Act ( and all prior Acts would be repealed ).