Ernest Mabuza
11 October 2007
Johannesburg — A MAJOR threat facing the country was the number of illegal firearms which were once legally owned but were now being used to commit crime, Deputy Safety and Security Minister Susan Shabangu said yesterday.
Shabangu, addressing a South African Chamber of Business function in Johannesburg last night, questioned the public's need for firearms to defend themselves.
The process of obtaining gun licences has been a slow and onerous one since the Firearms Control Act, which imposes stricter licensing requirements, was introduced three years ago.
Gun dealers said competency testing and licensing were taking as long as 18 months and this resulted in a long wait for dealers before they could conclude a sale to an individual. There has also been a massive increase in the number of refusals for gun licences since the act was passed.
The pro-gun lobby believes it has a right to protect families and properties.
Shabangu said most illegal weapons were at some point legal ones. "They get stolen from law-abiding citizens when criminals break into their homes.
"Maybe we need to discuss as a country whether guns are there to protect us."
However, not all illegal firearms are stolen from people's homes. In a study conducted by lobby group Gun Free SA and the Centre for Conflict Resolution three years ago, it was found that there were regular losses from government stockpiles.
Police lost on average 1626 firearms each year and the South African National Defence Force lost 189 each year.
Explaining the high crime rate, the deputy minister repeated the oft-stated explanation that the majority of contact crimes, or crimes against the person, were committed by people who knew one another and that it was difficult for police to monitor those crimes.
Shabangu also said that closer partnerships between the police and business were important in the fight against crime. She said although there had been a number of cash-in-transit heists in the past two years, there had been a reduction in that crime category because of a partnership with the banking sector.
"The success of policing can only happen when all of us work together," she said.
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