By Mbulelo Baloyi and Willem Steenkamp
There has been growing anger among gun owners and lobby groups who say new regulations make it virtually impossible for citizens to obtain gun licences.
Martin Hood, the South African Gun Owners Association (Sagoa) spokesperson, said the safety and security ministry must brace itself for a barrage of court actions.
The Freedom Front has also threatened to launch a constitutional court action against the government, which it says is systematically disarming law-abiding citizens under the new Firearms Control Act.
Hood said he had been inundated with calls from concerned licensed firearm owners regarding the Firearms Control Act of 2000.
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"Every day of the week I field calls from gun owners seeking information on this new Act, particularly around the renewal of licences."
He said the government had not adequately disseminated information about the new Act and this has put most licensed firearm owners at a disadvantage.
"All that the Central Firearms Registry said when it began implementing the new legislation was that licensed firearm owners would be timeously informed when they were due to renew their licences but to date very few have received those notices," said Hood.
As a result, he said, many affected licensed owners were contemplating taking the legal route in the form of the Promotion of Access to Information Act to force the government to furnish reasons for refusal to grant a firearm licence or renew it.
"As an association we are all for responsible gun control and ownership but constitutionally the process must be fair," said Hood.
He said the new Act was alienating many law-abiding responsible gun owners who "out of frustration will resort to underhand means to get firearms to protect themselves".
Abios Khoele, the chairperson of the Black Gun Owners Association, said many renewal applicants were increasingly becoming frustrated at the prospect that their renewal applications could be turned down.
"Frustrated gun licence holders who already suspect that their renewals will be refused are trying to get value for their firearms and are resorting to selling them on the black market," said Khoele.
Police are unable to furnish statistics on reported stolen firearms since July last year. According to Superintendent Ronnie Naidoo, the national police spokesperson, those statistics are not yet available on the police database.
According to the Institute for Security Studies (ISS) SA Crime Quarterly, the loss and theft of legal firearms is recognised as a source for illegal weapons in the country.
An analysis by the Small Arms Survey of annual gun theft ratios shows that South Africa has one of the highest rates of stolen firearms.
"When guns reported stolen are calculated as a ratio of those legally owned, South Africa has a theft ratio of 1:150 meaning that for 150 licensed firearms, one is stolen," says the ISS SA Crime Quarterly.
Recent data shows that in 2003/04 of the four million firearms registered nationally in South Africa, more than 20 000 were reported stolen or lost. Between 2002/03 and 2003/04, most firearms were reported lost or stolen in Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal.
Pieter Groenewald, the Freedom Front's safety and security spokesperson, has accused the government of using strong-arm tactics to expropriate guns.
Because each person may own only a limited number of weapons, depending on the type of weapon, under the new legislation, many citizens have started to hand in surplus weapons without receiving compensation. These weapons are destroyed.
"The state thus expropriates property rights of legal gun owners without compensation. This is a contravention of section 25 of the constitution," said Groenewald.
Groenewald said the Freedom Front would meet legal experts next week to consider the route forward.
"We are definitely considering having the gun law tested in the constitutional court. The aim would be to force the government to compensate legal gun owners for their losses, or to amend the law."
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