South Africa's tough new gun control law could close down security firms, including armed response companies, gun owners told the Pretoria high court this week in a bid to stop the implementation of the new Firearms Control Act.
Several organisations, including the South African Gunowners' Association and the South African Arms and Ammunition Dealers' Association, brought a high court application on Friday against President Thabo Mbeki and Charles Nqakula, the minister of safety and security.
The gun owners want the high court to grant an order suspending the implementation of the act, claiming that the government had not consulted widely on the implementation of the laws and that the laws threatened their businesses.
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The gun owners told the court they feared the law would result in a shut-down of the security, arms dealing and professional hunting industries, as well as lead to the criminalisation of tens of thousands of firearms owners.
| Result in a shut-down of the security |
"Unfortunately, none of our concerns has either been acknowledged or addressed in a meaningful manner," said Martin Hood, the spokesperson for the gun owners.
In terms of the law, all gun owners will have to take theoretical or practical tests when renewing their licences during the next five years.
The law also makes it compulsory for gun owners to carry a firearm licence, and failure to do so can result in 10 years imprisonment.
Firearm owners are also obliged to carry an identity document with the firearm licence or face the prospect of a year in prison, and the firearms registry must be informed of a change of address within 30 days, or the owner can face a prison term.
Failure to report personal details, such as a change in marital status, to the central firearms registry can be punished by a two-year jail term.
| 'The trend has been going up ever since, indicating 5 960 in 2001' |
However, problems at the central firearms registry, where officials nationwide are facing allegations of corruption, such as its failure to handle a backlog of 80 000 applications, has led many to question how it would handle the influx of licence renewals required by the new legislation.
Andrew Lesch, a spokesperson for the South African Police Service, said SAPS was awaiting the court documents but it was "all systems go" for the implementing of the act.
"There is a lot of misleading information being put out... We don't want to criminalise gun owners, but reduce the number of weapons in the country," he said.
Lesch said the police were confident they could handle the paperwork and training required by the implementation of the new law.
Addressing parliament this week, Nqakula said guns had become the weapons of choice in South Africa. The new laws were designed to help the police prevent the proliferation of illegal firearms and remove them from society.
"The measures also allow the police to establish a comprehensive control system in order effectively to control legally owned firearms," he said.
South Africa has 2 079 759 registered firearm owners, with 3 696 089 licensed firearms. The country has 554 firearm dealers, 160 gunsmiths and 19 firearm manufacturers.
Nqakula said that between January and May 2000, 9 108 firearms were stolen from or lost by owners. That figure rose to 9 951 in 2002.
Between January and May this year, 7 993 firearms were reported stolen or lost. During the same January to May period in 2000, 5 821 firearms were confiscated or recovered.
"The trend has been going up ever since, indicating 5 960 in 2001, 7 655 in 2002, 9 405 in 2003 and 14 263 this year."
The minister said from April last year to March, 25 975 illegal firearms and 1 679 940 rounds of ammunition were confiscated, and 5 990 people were arrested for the illegal possession of firearms and ammunition.
Nqakula told parliament the act would be fully in place from July 1.
"We have allocated to the firearms control project R63 199 956 to cater for the purchase of 458 vehicles, 1 153 computers, 728 scanners and 573 printers."
Nqakula said 640 police officers had already been trained as designated firearms officers, and training had been provided to 2 384 additional personnel, including station commissioners and clerks, 32 firearms tracing detectives, 420 firearms test-firing personnel, and 1 874 people had been trained on the enhanced firearms register system.
The response from private shooting instructors for accreditation, however, has been slow. According to Hennie Richards, the chief executive of Poslec, the sector education and training authority for police and justice workers, the lethargy among private training instructors was due to their associations informing them that the act would not be promulgated.
"On Monday, after the minister announced that the laws would become effective on July 1, we were inundated with applications," he said.
The training authority has processed more than a dozen applications and intends finalising about 70 within three months. Richards said extra staff would be hired should the workload increase.
"People should not panic, as existing licence holders will be told whether surname or date of birth will be used for them to go through the process of renewing their licences." At least 400 000 people were expected to apply each year over the next five years.
Nqakula said the government planned to make schools firearm-free zones and that the public had until August to comment on this idea.
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