50 guns stolen from cavanmonaghan homes in five years

A total of 50 guns were stolen from homes across the Cavan-Monaghan region over the past five years. Also stolen, making their way into criminal hands since 2010 were a gun safe, six rounds of ammunition, two air-pistols, one imitation firearm and one telescopic sight.

Details of the number of firearms and related items stolen from across the country between 2010-14 were released to the Dáil earlier this month in response to a parliamentary question to the Department for Justice and Equality and Minister Frances Fitzgerald.
In the Cavan-Monaghan Garda District, all of the weapons stolen were shotguns.
That included 11 guns stolen in 2010, 24 in 2011, six in 2012, six in 2013 and three in 2014, made up of two shotguns, four bolt-action rifles, nine semi-automatic shotguns, 14 single-barrel, 18 under and over, one single side by side, and one pump-action shotgun.

Stolen
Also stolen were six rounds of ammunition over that five year period, two air-pistols, one each in 2010 and 2014, and one imitation hand-held firearm which was stolen from a house in the Cavan Town area last year.
In total, over 1,700 weapons were reported stolen to An Garda Síochána nationwide over the past five years.
It’s understood that almost one in 20 people in Ireland now owns a potentially lethal firearm.
There are now just over 200,000 legally-held firearms in the State, compared with almost 180,000 this time last year. 
Earlier this year, before a day-long hearing Oireachtas Justice Committee meeting, representatives of gun ownership organisations here in Ireland accused gardaí of hiding information on firearm thefts to make the threat to public safety appear worse.
They told TDs and Senators of the Committee that official reports of one firearm being stolen for every day of the year and one lost for each week obscured the likelihood that many were antiques, decommissioned models, starter pistols that fire blanks, and guns missing from members of the defence forces and gardaí, themselves.

Weapons
The gun lobby is campaigning to stop the proposed tightening of restrictions on gun ownership, following recommendations from senior gardaí to the Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald that all handguns and many licensed rifles be banned because of fears of they could be used by criminal gangs or in mass shootings.
The speakers also took exception to TDs and Senators referring to their firearms as “weapons” and intervened repeatedly to correct them, arguing a gun only became a weapon when it was used to hurt or intimidate someone.
However, Gardaí say it is not possible at present to accurately identify how many times stolen guns have been used in crimes, but say they are compiling this information and will furnish it to the Committee at a later date.