Bunfight in a gunfight
SA is awash with guns, many of them unlicensed and illegal, but the country is divided on how to deal with the problem
● Guns have shaped SA’s history, from colonial subjugation to local wars and the near-annihilation of its wildlife. Guns remain contentious, with the latest attempts to curb their proliferation running into a figurative hail of fire.
The Civilian Secretariat for Police Service published the draft Firearms Control Amendment Bill in May 2021. This is the second attempt to amend the law, the first being in 2015 when the authorities issued a draft bill for comment, but that bill was never passed.
“Firearm lobby groups raised many objections,” Stellenbosch University lecturer and criminologist Guy Lamb tells the FM. He says the latest draft bill is unlikely to peter out like the 2015 one, but some provisions will change.
“SA has a serious illegal firearm problem, as most violent crimes typically involve illegal firearms and ammunition. I want to see much tighter firearm licensing.”
Lamb says the draft 2021 bill has created much controversy, particularly the proposed amendment forbidding self-defence as a motivation for firearm licence applications.
“The self-defence provision is important given the high level of SA gun violence, which has been driving murder levels up since 2011.”
Gun Free SA (GFSA) backs the proposed changes, but Gun Owners SA (Gosa) and other pro-gun organisations strongly oppose them, reflecting a huge divide.
GFSA researcher Claire Taylor tells the FM that gun violence is rising because of the proliferation of illegal guns. There are six reasons for the organisation’s support of the draft bill, one of the main being that the Constitutional Court has ruled gun ownership to be a privilege rather than a right (as in the US constitution).
She says the draft bill proposes a range of limits on gun ownership and the GFSA backs the bill because it will reduce the use of guns in domestic violence.
“At the moment, if you are found unfit to own a firearm, you can reapply for a firearm licence after five years. What the proposed amendment does is permanently disqualify someone as being fit to own a firearm,” Taylor says.
She says the bill proposes changes to reduce the risk of illegal gun use and aims to reduce the risk of guns leaking into the “illegal pool” of firearms. The bill also clarifies the responsibilities of gun owners and the state to comply with the law, particularly the renewal of licences.
Gosa, a gun rights organisation with about 100,000 members, is wholly opposed to the bill. Its chair, Paul Oxley, tells the FM the “entire bill stinks”, and he believes “there is a political motive behind it”, first apparent at the Goldstone commission in the 1990s. Oxley says an ANC official testified at that commission that there would be no private firearm ownership when it came to power.
“The problem is that policing has slipped to such a degree in SA that we are trying to find a legislative solution to a policing problem.”
He says the riots last July highlighted the need for civilians to be able to own and bear firearms.
“Firearm owners are the last defenders of democracy. The police did not save the country when the riots started. If anything, the police and army were complicit. If there weren’t those civilians on the frontline in July, we would have suffered billions of rands more in damages.”
Outdoor Investment Holdings CEO Marco van Niekerk says the proposed legislation would give the state a monopoly on firearms. Van Niekerk, who has a major involvement in the firearms and protection sectors, says such a law would force South Africans to rely solely on the state for security, despite the policing crisis and billions of rands in planned policing budget cuts. He told DefenceWeb that the state used long-term private security costing about R16.9bn.
“Not only will this unjustifiably limit our fundamental rights to life and security, but it will also lead to socioeconomic instability,” he tells the FM.
“No-one wants to live — let alone invest — in a place where the security of their life, limb and property is under severe threat. This will lead to the extensive divestment of skills and capital from SA, compounding severe long-standing economic issues.
“Considering these negative consequences, Outdoor Investment Holdings welcomes the decision to withdraw these proposed changes pending further consultation. Pressure should build from all parts of society for the minister of police to withdraw the proposed amendments completely,” he says.
Oxley says the industries that face major financial impact if the draft bill becomes law are the hunting and sportshooting sectors as well as gun shops and security firms.
Van Niekerk says the proposed changes will undermine sport shooting and hunting, with dire consequences for conservation. He says the bill threatens as many as 176,000 jobs on wildlife farms and the livelihoods of 756,800 people who supply those farms.
Oxley says SA has about 1-million armed security guards.
“The private security industry has stepped in where the state has dropped the ball. If the security industry has its firearms restricted — as the draft bill aims to do — people will have to take the law into their own hands. That is a scary prospect. We don’t want to go down that road.”
Van Niekerk says the draft amendment might limit security services and firearms trading providers to possessing no more than 100 rounds of ammunition, rendering the private security industry impotent.
In addition, about 500 gun retailers, employing 25,000 people, will be at risk. “All this in a country with 35% unemployment,” Van Niekerk says.
The selfdefence provision is important given the high level of SA gun violence, which has been driving murder levels up since 2011