Gun paper only for ‘discussion’

GUN OWNERS SA: WOULD HAVE BEEN ‘SNEAKED THROUGH’

Current firearm licences will remain valid until date of expiry.

T he highly detailed draft Firearms Control Amendment Bill was nothing more than an internal, confidential, departmental “discussion document”, but gun owners believe government may have attempted to sneak it through the system.

The document – stamped “DRAFT DO NOT COPY” across each page – also provided for “the declaration of amnesty to enable the surrendering of unlawfully possessed firearms”.

According to Police Secretariat secretary Alvin Repea, it was just a “discussion document”, reported Volksblad yesterday.

It’s something Police Minister Bheki Cele has wanted since July and was supposed to happen between September and February.

However, it bit the dust alongside Fikile Mbalula and Nathi Nhleko’s attempts from years ago when they were still ministers.

“There’s nothing good about this. It will break the system,” said Gun Owners South Africa vice-chairperson Gideon Joubert.

He believed the Bill would have been “sneaked through” during the December holiday period when “no one was paying attention”.

Police portfolio committee chairperson Francois Beukman said everyone should await the formal publishing of the draft legislation. “Once the Firearms Amendment Bill [is] tabled, all relevant parties will be given the necessary opportunity for input,” he said.

A closer scrutiny of the draft legislation also revealed that, despite claims to the contrary, current firearm owners would not lose their weapons immediately. Instead, the licence would remain valid until the date of expiry of that licence.

According to the Small Arms Survey released in June, South Africa ranked 20th worldwide with an estimated 5.4 million firearms in circulation for 2017.

Of these, three million were estimated to be legal, while 2.35 million were deemed unregistered. Slightly more than 600 000 firearms belonged to the state. –