Banning guns does not work
STUDY: POLICE PRESENCE IS MORE EFFECTIVE
It is time to stop listening to Gun Free SA.
Following a spate of publicised shootings, there has been the usual clamour of calls from a single sector of society to restrict or ban firearms and I am, of course, referring to Gun Free South Africa (GFSA).
While some would wish to chastise them for being virtually 100% foreign donor-funded, they are allowed to be as such, even if it calls into question their legitimacy. Nobody appointed them “voice of a silent majority”.
Others point out that they are not actually subject matter experts. This may be fair, but anyone is allowed to pretend to be anything they want.
Let us dive into this criticism a little and see if there is any merit to it. Surely expert claims will not be easily confounded.
GFSA points out that the Firearms Control Act (FCA) saved lives between 2000 and 2005. This is impossible, because the FCA was not promulgated/implemented into law until July 2004 with the publishing of the FCA regulations. Therefore, 80% of the GFSA’s claim is impossible.
Related to this is the cherry picking of data, and lazy cause-and-effect analysis. Apart from the obvious problems with lazy analysis, there is also the thorny issue of what actually constitutes a successful law, which is something GFSA is either unaware of, or avoids.
While GFSA talks about the “illegal firearm pool” coming from civilian owners, there is no breakdown of this data, nor appreciation for the size of the illicit market. Assuming 2.5 million firearms and a recovery rate of 3 000 per year (SA Police Service data), this is an 830-year long project, and laughable.
University of London’s Prof Antony Allot wrote that legislation effectiveness can be considered to the extent that the legislation “achieves its objectives and intended results”.
While the FCA achieved its objectives – 6% decrease in lawful firearm circulation – the homicide rate increased 15%. It is abundantly clear that the Act has failed, because even though it achieved the stated preconditions for success, it still failed.
The answer to why it has failed is quite simple: firearm possession does not affect homicide rates. If it did, homicide would decline. At about 3.5 million registered firearms, South Africa has a homicide rate of nearly 40 per 100 000. The US has nearly 350 million firearms and a national homicide rate of only five per 100 000 (that varies widely between states). Ironically, GFSA’s prime example of “successful gun control” disproves them: The United Kingdom.
For all intents and purposes, the UK banned firearms in 1996 and reached a “perfected” stage in 2000 (nearly 100% implementation). The homicide rate then spiked 75% until 2003, only coming down after 2003.
Clearly the ban did nothing. What did have an effect was the optimisation of the police force.
When offered two explanations to explain something, go with the more reasonable one. For the UK, they increased and optimised the police significantly from 2001. It is uncontroversial that police presence reduces crime, because it di
UK banned firearms... The homicide rate spiked 75%
rectly targets crime. Is a piece of paper targeting the lawful citizen more likely to prevent crime than a police officer in the crime hot spots?
The government commissioned a 2014 study by the Wits School of Governance to review the effectiveness of the FCA.
The study decisively found that policing presence was more effective. It also found the often cited studies by GFSA were severely flawed.
The government then hid the report, leaked a copy to GFSA (but nobody else until 2021), and tripled down on the FCA by introducing amendments making the FCA stricter.
Of course, GFSA supported the amendments. It is increasingly irrelevant. It has said the exact same things in every radio showing and article published.
Ecclesiastes 1:9 says: “…there is nothing new under the sun”, and so, too, is there nothing new about GFSA.
Almost every social media post referencing GFSA comments proves to be massively unpopular. It is time we stop listening to them.