If Oscar didn’t have a gun
PLAINTIVE: WHAT MOM WOULD ASK PARALYMPIAN
... My Reeva would be alive today,’ laments June Steenkamp, mom of the model killed by Oscar Pistorius. She had no inkling about Pistorius’s 10 guns, shooting out of cars or life in the fast lane.
Reeva’s mother did not know about Oscar Pistorius’s many firearms, shooting from cars and fast-lane lifestyle.
Just days before Oscar Pistorius’s legal team go to court to challenge the state’s leave to appeal the judgment against him, June Steenkamp – the mother of slain model girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp – says if the jailed athlete had not owned any guns her daughter would still be alive today.
Speaking during a discussion about her book, Reeva, A Mother’s Story, June Steenkamp yesterday said: “If Oscar didn’t have guns, Reeva would be alive today. She would be here with me today – if Oscar didn’t have guns.”
The once world-renowned Paralympian was found guilty of culpable homicide last year for shooting dead girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp on Valentine’s Day in 2013.
“She would have walked away from a situation. That is a point factored. Why should somebody have 10 guns? Why should they? It’s too easy,” said Steenkamp.
“I did not know he had guns or he was shooting them out of cars, or his lifestyle in the fast lane. I knew nothing of that.”
Steenkamp raised the issue of gun control at the University of Johannesburg yesterday.
She asked mothers to meet their daughters’ friends and confidants.
“... So you know where they are. See who they’re going out with. And check out what is going on. But they must have that confidence to be able to come to you openly and discuss what’s going on.
“Reeva was afraid, I think, to tell me some of the problems. She did say they were fighting all the time, but you don’t tell your mother everything ...”
Pistorius’s legal team return to court on Friday to challenge the merits around why the state was granted leave to appeal Judge Thokozile Masipa’s judgment and sentencing.
Pistorius’s lawyers are seeking leave to challenge Masipa’s decision to give the state the right to appeal her finding he was guilty of the culpable homicide of Reeva.
Masipa sentenced him to five years’ imprisonment for shooting Reeva through the toilet door of his Pretoria home.
Pistorius held that he mistook her for an intruder.
Asked on what she would say to Pistorius if she had to come face to face with him, Steenkamp said: “I would ask him maybe to consider what he’s done to Barry [Reeva’s father] and I.
“He’s taken the most perfect,
He’s taken the most perfect, wonderful daughter out of our lives
wonderful daughter out of our lives. He’s killed her and he’s taken her life, her career ... She was doing well ... she was going somewhere.
“She will never have a baby for us; our grandchild. She will never have a wedding and the white dress ... He’s taken her life away, that’s what I will say to Oscar if I come face to face with him.” –
June Steenkamp mother of Oscar Pistorius’s slain model girlfriend Reeva