Recently a turn of events involving Easons and its hunting/shooting magazines led to the banning of such publications to the top shelf. This relegated such publications to the category of pornography and is available only to those who are 18+. This turn of events was instigated by an anti hunting group who petitioned for the removal of said publications on CHANGE.ORG. Here is Easons reply to their petition :

Easons move hunting mags to over 18/top shelf section. sign petition here! 
 ''The Irish Council Against Blood Sports has thanked Easons for responding positively to our appeal and acting to move graphic hunting publications out of the reach of children.

In an email to ICABS, Easons Head of Marketing, Brendan Corbett stated: "We are currently in the process of moving such titles from our bottom shelves to shelving at a height out of reach for children. We will also set up a prompt at our cash registers that ask anyone purchasing such titles whether they are over 18 (as per anyone purchasing cigarettes)."

A big thumbs up to Easons for this tremendous response.

In an appeal to the company earlier this year, we expressed concerns about the bottom shelf placement of publications containing very graphic and violent images.

"Often these publications present images of dogs or wildlife on the covers, which could entice unsuspecting children to open and look through them," we pointed out. "The horrific images inside – including bloodied carcasses of foxes, deer and birds hunted to their deaths – could prove very upsetting and traumatic."

"These offensive publications glorifying violence and killing should not be accessible to minors," we stressed, urging the company to move them to the top shelf or behind the counter and avoid selling them to under 18s.

An online petition urging Easons to act was signed by more than 1,000 people. A big thank you to everyone who signed! ''

I think this is a disgrace,and I ask all here to email Eason and express your dissapointment and disgust at Eason's.

Conor Whelan,
Managing Director,
Eason & Son Ltd
40 Lower O Connell Street,
Dublin 1
Email: customerservice@easons.com
Phone: (01) 858 3800
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Now I would like to point out a few simple facts..... 

(1)You don't need to be 18 to hold a firearm certificate in Ireland....you can get a training certificate on a non restricted firearm at 14 and can hold a full cert at 16.

(2)Not everyone who owns a gun uses it for the purpose of hunting wildlife....some people use guns for target shooting in a similar way to golf....i.e. placing a small object a great distance away to a specified area.

(3)Some people hunt for food.....its cleaner and healthier than farmed meat.

(4)Vermin need to be controlled otherwise they will detrimentally affect local wildlife and farming stock.

If the law says a 14 year old can use a firearm then these publications are a good educator and promote hunting in the best manner possible. It should not be up to Easons to decide who gets to read perfectly legal material just because a handful of people don't like the material within...nobody asked them to purchase or read the material. Some publications are purely for target shooting and have nothing to do with hunting. I find this more an attack on firearm holders than hunters.

Lets have some common sense and reverse this ridiculous ban.....Easons need to know that those who hold firearms for whatever reason in Ireland far outweigh those who oppose firearms and their legitimate uses.