President’s ‘solution’ against gun ownership a bigger danger

FOLLOWING our President Jacob Zuma’s interview on the state broadcaster SABC, and his renewed attack on legal firearm owners, the president has mentioned on at least two separate occasions a call for “discussions” on making South Africa safe by removing all firearms from the civilian population and only arming state institutions.

His reasoning sounds more like the grammatically void speech of an idealist utopian than the pragmatic leader of a sensible and free country. I quote him verbatim: “The guns are too much, they are armed, they shoot, they do everything. South African’s need to discuss… should we have these guns all over the country? Do we want everybody to own a gun because they are afraid of something and therefore to increase the chance of guns out there that are taken by criminals or should we disarm the society? Only the police, soldiers and para-security that carry guns – so that there is less of people that is carrying guns?” (sic)

Mr President, it is precisely these government armed forces that you are referring to that the criminals swarm around to obtain their firearms in bulk.

It is a worrying affair that our elected leaders discuss the solution to crime being a policy that only the security forces of the state may carry the means to quell behaviour and perhaps even outbreaks of dissidence within its own population. These same institutions have a track record of violently putting down any perceived rebellion against the state on direct orders from the current ruling party.

The state fails dismally to protect its population from crime and criminals, and now seeks to disarm those who resist crime by sanctioning the removal of the means to protect oneself. This in the guise of being a solution to crime?

How convoluted and frankly nefarious is this stance? And this garbled message above from our No 1 citizen during an SABC interview. From the most protected man in South Africa. A man surrounded by a crack team of submachinegun-wielding bodyguards and blue-light bulletproof transports, 24 hours a day.

His message is to tell the civilian public that they should not own a means of self-protection against rising crime. Our president motivates this by unanimously deciding that no civilian is responsible enough to own a firearm. That should any of us dare to own one, we will eventually just lose those firearms into criminal hands.

This arrogant view of elected officials – that the docile population that voted them into power are responsible enough to secure the vote but not responsible enough to carry a means of self-defence – needs to be strongly opposed.

As usual, the president and his senior politicians make no distinction between a 30-year-old single mother protecting her family with her licensed revolver and an armed thug carrying a stolen (sold) police-issue Z-88 pistol. To these officials, both are to be viewed in the same light – “people with guns”.

Make no mistake, the opinion of the public is being primed for the disarmament of citizens in the face of total state control of all weapons. A state that “loses” hundreds of fully automatic assault rifles, grenades, rocket launchers, mortars, pistols and ammunition a year straight into the hands of gangsters and thugs. These are deadly tools that will be used against the same population they are supposed to be protecting.

Sensible firearm owners strongly oppose the government’s embryonic victim-disarmament campaign, and call on all South Africans, regardless of whether you own a firearm or not, to view this fabricated solution to crime and direction that the ruling party is taking with growing alacrity.