THE decision by Cabinet to replace the 1957 Firearms Act with modern legislation that fits Zimbabwe and takes advantage of modern technologies now available, since it is fairly clear that we need better control of firearms and need to prevent them getting into the hands of criminals.
This week, Cabinet approved the general principles that the new draft legislation should include, and we hope that Parliament will also think hard about what is needed when the draft Bill comes before it, so we get the best possible legislation.
Zimbabwe does allow private ownership of a limited range of firearms for a range of approved needs and purposes: personal protection, sport, legal hunting, and business and banking security. Firearms are limited to handguns, shot guns and non-automatic rifles, usually bolt-action rifles, and the rules outline the sort of security needed to store and carry the weapons and the ammunition.
The police issue the firearms licences, using the old manual system. They do demand fingerprints and make sure that convicted criminals miss out, and they like to have backing documents, such as evidence of what sort of business a person is in, or letters from an employer, or letters from a gun club for a sportsperson, and the like. But that is about it.
So long as the applicant is not actually exhibiting extreme mental illness or other oddities and can satisfy the fairly minimum requirements, they get a licence. Crucially there is no need to prove that you can use a firearm, or even know basic safety procedures. In 1957, admittedly, firearms licences were largely limited to the tiny settler population and police officers probably knew many personally. This has not been the case for decades.
The idea of psychological testing seems overdue considering the problems that near lunatics in other countries have been causing with modern weapons.
While a weapon has to be kept "securely", no one has to describe what sort of lock-up they use or how they carry a weapon in their car. An occasional charge is laid when police find out, during other investigations, that a weapon is not properly secured but there is no inspection of how it is locked up and no licensing of the sort of cupboard or safe or vehicle box that is needed.
Outlining the sort of upgrade required, Home Affairs and Cultural Heritage Minister Kazembe Kazembe brought up the opportunity that now exists to have a proper database for all firearms.
This would obviously start with the transfer of the sort of information that already exists in the manual files, the names and addresses, or at least the address given, by licence holders and the type, calibre, make and maker's number of each licensed firearm. That would allow a search and automatic follow-up when a licence, generally issued for three-years, expired. Even that would be a start as a lot of weapons seem to just be kept long after a licence has expired, and gun owners can be lax in notifying the police of changes of address.
But we can go a lot further. Police ballistic experts can identify a round fired from any particular firearm with a rifled barrel, that is these days all handgun and all rifles. In fact, this is evidence used in court to prove a particular round recovered at a crime scene, or even in a body, was fired from a particular weapon.
It should now be possible that all firearms, before they are licensed, have to be fired in a ballistics test and the details of the fired round entered into the database. Rounds recovered at crime scenes could then have their details run through the database routinely and hopefully tied to a particular weapon, which even if stolen would still have details and maker's number recorded.
It seems sensible, as Minister Kazembe noted, to raise the minimum age from 16. Again his suggested 21 does not seem outrageous, although courts might have to rule on how that affects the law over the age of majority. There are special cases, such as sports people and those hunting vermin, but a teenage sportsperson would only fire weapons at a gun club, and so their weapon could be kept by others.
In many countries with tight firearms laws, arrangements are made for sporting use and special use and often the licence holder cannot even keep the weapon at home but can only use it for accepted purposes on approved premises and it has to be secured when not in use in authorised premises.
We think that all prospective firearms owners should have to be trained, passing a theory examination in safety and the legal duties of a gun owner, including the securing of weapons, and a practical examination on use of a weapon. Gun clubs could offer the courses. All this would have similarities with what we do before we let people drive on our roads, insisting they pass a test on the Highway Code and then prove they can drive a car.
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From the rising thefts of firearms, it is clear that securing weapons is sometimes not a top priority for owners, and perhaps the time has come to insist on enforcing tight standards. Safes, gun cupboards and the like would all need to be licensed as suitable for firearms storage, often generically, and those carrying a firearm in a vehicle, and that might mean an additional licence would have to have a suitable place to hold the weapon, perhaps a locked box bolted to the vehicle.
Zimbabwe is still moderately safe when it comes to firearms crime, but they are becoming more frequent and we do not need to degenerate into the sort of near anarchy that seems to prevail in the United States, nor the widespread possession and use of illegal weapons we see in South Africa.
Fixing up our firearms law so we know where each firearm is, who holds and uses it, that this person is a suitable person to use a firearm and has a legitimate need to use one, and we can easily identify the rounds any firearm fires, seem to be the main starting points.
