Last week, on 8 September, a legal team and plaintiffs supported by GOSA and GunSite South Africa launched the first in a series of legal actions to address numerous issues regarding the processing of firearm licences by the CFR.
The first court case has been successfully settled, with the full description of its significance provided by GOSA’s Paul Oxley below. On the same day there was also a meeting between the SAPS and firearm owner organisations with the intent on relaunching the stagnated stakeholder engagement process and to solve problems affecting gun owners and the police.
The legal actions are by no means a hostile attack on the SAPS, whom GOSA has a constructive relationship with, but rather as part of the process to gain clarity on the way the existing law is interpreted and implemented.
GOSA, and their legal team, needs your support. A formalised membership structure and a new bank account is currently in the works, and will be up and running in good time. For now you can join them on Facebook and follow them on Twitter.
I am personally very grateful for their efforts and the personal sacrifices they have made to protect my rights.
Molon Labe.
An Urgent Application was issued out of the High Court on 26 August 2015 against CFR, on behalf of an Applicant, who has started its process with the particular DFO and CFR, to obtain firearm licenses, more than a year ago, during May 2014. No amount of correspondence or efforts to get cooperation from the CFR, saw the issuing of the licenses coming even one step closer, and due to the particular circumstances of the Applicant, it was left with no option but to litigate. The matter was therefore set down for hearing on the 8th of September 2015, on the Urgent Court’s roll. The Team representing the Applicant, received notice of the CFR’s intention to oppose the application, just before the matter was called for the hearing thereof on 8 September 2015. The team representing the CFR then, on the afternoon of the 9th of September 2015 (after filing answering affidavits, during the morning of 9 September 2015), made certain settlement proposals to the Applicant’s Team, that included that the licenses would be granted, printed and placed in the hands of the Applicant, no later than early next week. As a matter of fact, the licenses were then all of a sudden approved on the same day, being the 9th of September 2015, even before the Court made its interim order in the matter. The Applicant is currently waiting for the printed license cards to be furnished to it, but believe it may happen before the end of this week.
Part of adjudication of some of the relief that was sought in the matter, was postponed for argument to a later date, that will still be determined between the parties to the dispute. This is not a big issue, however, in our view it still means that we should respect the sub judice rule, and respect the Court and its processes, and it is not the intention of the Team to make a circus out of the Court. Ultimately, we believe that authority of the Courts and the Rule of Law, are under enough untoward pressure from Government in particular, as it is, and that these fundamental values as referred to earlier, must be protected vigorously.
The Court will therefore still be called upon to pronounce itself on a number of principles, as referred to in the Application, from which we believe all parties that are affected, by what is currently going on at CFR, will benefit even further.
But in the mean time, the Team is in possession of Court papers, in which the CFR have now stated under oath that their position is that license applications should be finalized within 4 months. We believe that this is already of much importance, since the FCA is silent on this, and up to date, there has been no judgment to this effect.
The Team is also of the view that CFR will in future perhaps think twice before acting against the law, now that they have been taken to Court, regarding the “degeneration” that has been taking place there, for too long now.
All & all, the Team is of the view that what has already transpired in Court up to now, can with a little bit of caution, already be regarded as a big win for upholding of the Rule of Law, and for putting the State in its place when it acts against its own laws and duties to serve and protect, in terms of the laws of the land, and where it goes even further, and through its conduct, prevent law abiding people to protect themselves and their lawful interests.
The Team is also confident that people with similar issues can be assisted (easier) from here on right now, and that the fact that this matter and the plight of so many others in the same position, has come under the attention of the courts, will assist further applicants that are desirous of taking up their rights in the immediate future.
GOSA will therefore be looking into all the expressions of interest received from interested parties, during the next couple of weeks, and be in contact with the legal team and with the interested parties, to create some structure on how the matters to follow will be rolled out and made ready for court.
The Team would like to thank all the supporters for their voices offering assistance and support.
We are a very special community indeed, and we would like to extend a particular word of thanks to Gunsite, for standing behind the team all the way.
The Team will also be looking further into PR & communication issues with supporters, that we intend to sharpen up on in future, and this will in all probability be addressed with professionalizing the scene further.
Further information to follow soon.
Thanks again.
TEAM GOSA
Brittius
•9 years ago
Reblogged this on Brittius.
timvictor
•9 years ago
Sadly the CFR can be ridiculously slow. I was concerned that the recent slowdown has to do with the intended changes for sports shooters licensing of firearms. Good to hear that GOSA is shuffling things on. Thanks for the update.
Peter
•7 years ago
Of what specific use is a faster more efficient FCA to crime fighting or public safety? Is it true that firearm owners have absolutely no interest in what they do to promote or aid crime and decease public safety? If it is maybe we do need more gun control to prevent such uncaring people owning firearms.
1735099a
•9 years ago
One Aussies view of your deranged society.
Read it and weep.
“In his very fine speech this morning, full of sorrow and frustration, President Obama made a mistake: Australia is not like the United States. We decided not to be.
We decided to grow up instead and become a more reasonable, rational society that explicitly values human life and prefers to think the best of people, rather than the worst.
The US is too immature a society to be allowed to play with guns. It has never shed its Wild West mythology. Americans still use their courts to kill people, which sends a message in its own way. Read The New Yorker’s account of the Rodricus Crawford case and see a state that thinks taking a life is a no big deal. It’s a country that values property more than life.
Unlike the US, we collectively decided to have a decent social safety net, the concept of a living wage and make good education freely available. Most of us are wary of those with extreme views of any kind. Inherent scepticism about church and state turns out to be not such a bad thing.
Unlike Australia, the US is at war with itself, strongly divided on racial, religious, political and social lines. We have our problems, significantly worse in some places than others, but overall our gaps are bridgeable. The US seems to prefer to use its societal chasms as moats and defend their borders.
The dystopian viewpoint is a significant theme in American literature, the assumption that the country is a disaster away from rape and pillage, from turning into plundering carnivores. Having never made peace with its past, which pretty much was one of rape and pillage, it hasn’t escaped it.
From The Road to Hunger Games, the effect is numbing. The National Geographic Channel features a show called Doomsday Preppers, a how-to guide for armed and dangerous “survivalists” building redoubts on the assumption that everyone else is armed and dangerous and out to get them. It is a nation that is collectively paranoid.
It doesn’t seem to help to have a large body of religious fanaticism – it doesn’t help anywhere, whatever the particular brand of religion. There’s little difference between the violently fundamentalist Christian, Muslim, Hindu or Jew.
There’s an American brand that hasn’t evolved far from justifying slavery. It carries a fundamentalist certainty that is in equal parts both ignorant and frightening. The concept of American exceptionalism – that God has a chosen mission for the USA – is a dangerous adjunct.
It’s all fodder for the deranged fanatics of the American gun lobby, with a bible in one hand and an assault rifle in the other. It’s fuel for the paranoid interpretation of a line in the constitution that is a blatant anachronism.
We have our share of deranged individuals, but we try not to empower them. We don’t promote violence for good or bad and increasingly decry the bad.
That was another mistake Obama made: talking of responsible gun owners having firearms to “protect their families”. The statistics have long been in – having firearms is more likely to endanger families than to protect them. Obama is not immune to the paranoia.
And so, when domestic terror struck at Port Arthur and John Howard showed political leadership, we overcame our ratbags, our Leyonhjelms, and agreed to reasonable controls on firearms. They’re not particularly tough, except in restricting access to weapons specifically designed for killing human beings. Only an NRA member could think that unreasonable.
The restrictions demonstrably work.
The immediate American-like response at the crazier end of the National Party has abated. It’s safe to say we’re now rather proud as a nation of our gun laws. We haven’t suffered another mass shooting. In National Party heartland, there are men alive who would not be if guns had remained so freely available when they were troubled youths.
And I write as a person who grew up with a knowledge and enjoyment of and respect for firearms. My father was a policeman. We had firearms in the house. I have a gun licence. It’s been a little while now, but I enjoy shooting clays when I have the chance. And I think only a madman would want to water down our gun laws or, in America’s case, not adopt them.
But, no, we are not like America. We’re a society the USA should aspire to be.”
Michael Pascoe
Contributing editor
Sydney Morning Herald
October 2 2015
Peter
•7 years ago
Why is it that firearm organisations know of the harm gun control does to our country and yet they do nothing about improving public safety? Why instead is their only interest in aiding both government and the SAPS in not only retention of this utterly useless law but in making it workable and improving it’s utterly useless requirements for the SAPS. Which firearm organisation official can explain why they want firearm owners to help them promote and forward gun controls objectives. I can understand that greed plays a part in some using this fake aid to firearm owners as advertising and promotion of sales and services. I don’t understand how such people could not care what damage they do as long as they make money but realise such people exist.
Are these officials honestly trying to sell promotion, collaboration and removal of opposition as “fighting” for public safety or the right to self-defence.
Is there anyone who can tell me what these organisations objective is other than self-interest and how what is being done to ensure opposition to a bad law is never brought into question or even objected to. It is not firearm organisations or owners duty to fix the absolute fiasco the FCA is and the fact gun control cannot solve crime nor can it prevent crime. However indoctrinating your members into the belief that gun control is acceptable because organisation officials hove no courage or desire to oppose such laws is inexcusable.