It is by now old news that parliament approved a new six-month firearm amnesty, effective from 1 August. I harbour serious and material concerns about this. The 2010 firearm amnesty resulted in thousands of law-abiding citizens (who failed to renew their firearm licences in 2009) surrendering their guns to the SAPS. Colonel Chris Prinsloo and his criminal associates in the police then stole thousands of these guns, and sold them to violent criminals and gangsters on the Cape Flats.
These gangsters then committed countless violent crimes, and at least 1000 murders, with these guns. Guns that were once safe and sound in civilian hands, before their owners surrendered them to the police. Correlation does not equal causation, but our murder rate has increased year-on-year from 2011 onwards. The fact that criminal members of an increasingly broken and corrupt SAPS are facilitating arms deals with criminals, as opposed to fighting crime, certainly doesn’t help.
It is no secret that the police are woeful custodians of their own firearms. Back in 2012 the DA’s Dianne Kohler-Barnard revealed that over 14 000 police firearms were in criminal hands. My own calculations estimate that the SAPS lose at least 8 times more firearms per capita than civilians do. And this counts private security companies and parastatals who licence their firearms as “civilians”. So it really is a very conservative estimate.
We also know the SAPS haven’t gotten their internal levels of corruption and criminality under control. The latest SA Institute of Race Relations ‘Broken Blue Line 3’ report (published in 2018) paints an utterly damning picture. Marius Roodt, the researcher and author, states “We noted in 2015 that there was no doubt that police officers planned and committed significant numbers of violent crimes, and that it seemed nothing had changed since 2011. This observation still holds true.”
Equally concerning is the fact that the National Commissioner of Police, Kehla Sitole, in October 2018 told parliament that the “SAPS mandate is overstretched and impossible to fulfil.” Hardly the words of a commissioner who has his organisation under control.
Yet here we go again – down the same rabbit hole that is certain to end in disaster.
The reason why we supposedly need the amnesty, is because we have succeeded in criminalising between 400 000 and 700 000 South Africans who failed to timeously renew their firearm licences. In other spheres of life, like drivers or vehicular licences, the penalty for failing to renew on time is a fine. Not so when it comes to guns.
The Firearms Control Act of 2000 was written in a way that makes no provision for renewing a licence that has expired. As soon as a licence expires, its existence effectively terminates. This means that the firearm owner, who up until 23:59 the night before their licence expires, turns into a criminal who is in unlawful possession of firearms and ammunition the moment the clock strikes 00:00.
To make matters worse, this is a charge that has a possible 15-year prison sentence attached to it. The crime is completely victimless, and it is a purely administrative infraction. Yet the Supreme Court of Appeal saw nothing disproportionate about the matter when it ruled in favour of the Minister of Police in the State’s appeal against Gun Owners SA’s high court interdict in July.
The GOSA interdict brought much-needed relief for around 450 000 citizens when the North Gauteng High Court granted it just over 2 years ago. And it brought time for the SAPS and government to fix a broken system. Instead the state appealed the interdict, as opposed to seeking a genuine solution. And then succeeded at it. For citizens sitting with expired firearm licences, there are literally no remaining channels of litigation. Unless they approach the Constitutional Court, which harbours no guarantee of success.
The only way out of this catastrophic quagmire, is for expired licence-holders to make use of the new firearm amnesty. Doing so allows them to either apply for a new licence (as if from scratch) for what used to be their lawful property, or request that the firearm be destroyed. Yet this is a road that is far from straightforward, and with a great many pitfalls and traps.
The police need to answer a number of pressing and serious questions regarding how they plan on implementing and facilitating the amnesty. The voluntary surrender of hundreds of thousands of firearms, and millions of rounds of ammunition, into their hands hold serious security risks for all citizens. Especially considering their abysmal track record as custodians of arms and ammunition.
- How do the SAPS propose to handle 500 000 (if not 700 000) firearms with expired licences being surrendered during a six-month period? That’s an average of 100 000 per month minimum.
- What do they propose regarding the mandatory ballistic testing of these firearms? Especially those that are in uncommon calibres, or that are unserviceable or unsafe to fire?
- How do they propose to timeously, transparently, and with due adherence to administrative justice process well-over 500 000 firearm licence applications within a six-month period? There is already a serious problem of arbitrary and unlawful firearm licence refusals. If this is the hallmark of amnesty licence applications as well, then the appeals board and courts will find themselves clogged with processing tens-of-thousands of incorrectly refused licence applications.
- How do the SAPS propose to fulfil their lawful obligation of due care regarding these firearms? And ensure they are not damaged, or worse – lost and stolen by corrupt SAPS officials and then sold to criminals and gangs at the rate of thousands (if not tens-of-thousands) a la Colonel Chris Prinsloo and Company?
The last question is especially serious. The sheer scale and magnitude of firearms that civilians will have to surrender is unprecedented. If only 1% is stolen and channelled to criminals, that translates into 5000 guns and 600 000 rounds of ammunition in criminal hands. I don’t think it would be remotely hyperbolic to refer to this as a potentially apocalyptic threat to national safety and security.
The SAPS therefore saddled themselves with astronomical liabilities. And ones that they are highly unlikely to service. They frankly do not have the required infrastructure, manpower, expertise, and institutional honesty and transparency to succeed.
What is utterly maddening about this mess, is that it was entirely avoidable. If parliament applied itself, and amended the FCA to allow for the late renewal of expired licences with the penalty of a fine, this problem wouldn’t exist. Why doing so now isn’t a priority for parliament baffles me. Either they are ignorant of the implications of the status quo, and the horrific potential consequences of an amnesty-gone-wrong, or there is no political will to make our firearm legislation remotely workable.
Both possibilities are intensely worrying.
Ultimately the only real solution to this is a complete overhaul of how firearm licencing works. We need a system of Licence the Person, Register the Firearm. It would completely do away with the inefficiency and arbitrary nature of the present system, while retaining the spirit of the intended purpose. The reality is that guns and gun owners are not going to go away. And criminalising them via badly-written, ill-thought-through, and disproportionately punishing legislation is certainly not going to give us a safer and more law-abiding society.
Written by Gideon Joubert
Gideon is the owner and editor of Paratus. He made two videos about the new firearm amnesty. You can watch them here:
Bernard
•5 years ago
Good evening,,I have a Martiney Henry, +- 150 years old (family item) and a .22 rifle. Inherited from my father. I still have the green license pasted in my ID. Then, I don’t know why I got the white license now expired. Isn’t it so that the green license is still okay? And when the white license was given, there was no way that the green was cancelled. Sorry if I sound stupid. There was a court case in 2009 where the Hunter’s organisation won the court case stating that Green license is still valid even if the white has expired? The end. Is that a Comrades Marathon cap on your shelf? If so I also did the Comrades 20 times. Goodnight
Bernard
•4 years ago
@Bernard, disclaimer also not a lawyer.
So the 3 opinions on this:
1. GOSA green is gold and the green remains valid regardless if you have a white license.
2. SAPS legal the green license was made null and void when you applied for a white alicense.
3. Motivus and MJ Hood (both IMHO the best 2 firearm lawyers in the country), depends on the how you read that judgement and it is a legal grey area until there is a court case.
So IMHO not a lawyer opinion if you do not have a fat wad of cash to defend point 1 in a court case and willing to take the risk that it will not go your way especially in the SCA might be a good idea to consider using the amnesty.
Eddy
•4 years ago
If the firearm has a very old license from many many years ago, can the weapon be given in during this amnesty with no questions asked as they did in the amnesty many years back or will they question why the firearm has no current up to date license, and investigate further?
Peter
•4 years ago
Firearm organisations have known from day one that the ANC wants those firearms. There is nothing new in the way the police and government have acted. Every firearm organisation is aware of the duplicity and hostility of all interaction with both police and government yet still this utterly foolish and ineffective policy of collaboration and appeasement by firearm organisations continues.
It is ludacris to claim that making it easier to get a licence in any way helps firearm ownership. Sales yes. This is obviously nothing more than aiding the government to entrench gun control that serves no useful purpose. To now suggest they want different legislation that they propose on your behalf is shamefully ironic and so full of hypocricy it is unbelievable. Who pays them? You or government? Is this what you want, your firearm organisation writing GUN CONTROL legislation for government? Best you put a stop to this lunacy.
Oh! and do not listen to the bullshit and lies you will get of there is no other way. Be reasonable, you cannot fight government and a host of cowardly excuses of why they will not object or fight for your life and rights. If they will not fight do they represent you? Ensure you take that representatioin claim away from them, they do not deserve it.
Sheryl McBride
•4 years ago
Please give me the contact details you referred to in your 2nd video who can help us with the necessary documentation.
Thank you