Despite serious confusion, the Firearms Control Amendment Bill is expected to be finalised next week.
Assistant Commissioner of the SA Police Service's legal division Philip Jacobs told the parliamentary safety and security portfolio committee this week his team expected the Bill to be ready for publishing and taken to Parliament next Friday.
"The redrafting of the Bill has taken into account problems experienced by prosecution as well as proposals from the Firearms Appeal Board and public submissions," he said.
He said while the renewal process presently scheduled for staggered implementation would not be affected by the Bill, it did extend the validity of certain licences.
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"Business licenses for game ranching and hunting have been extended from five to 10 years and licences to possess firearms for businesses... (other than those mentioned) extended from two to five years," he said.
He said dealers, manufacturers and gunsmiths' licences were also extended from one to five years.
"The motivation is that, especially where businesses are involved, there is no sense in having relicensing every year," he told the committee.
He also said the current Bill and Firearms Control Act still placed no limit on the number of weapons a registered collector might own, but did state that "prohibited" and "restricted" weapons such as automatic and semi-automatic rifles like the AK-47 assault rifles must be made "inoperable".
The draft Bill - which had been made available for public comment - initially demanded that all collectable weapons be made inoperable.
Legislators have also softened their approach to approve those who would want to own a firearm, limiting the period of ownership instead.
The Act was rigid, severely restricting and regulating gun ownership, hence the pressure for amendment.
But the Bill has been described as "unimplementable" by the pro-gun lobby, including the vocal South African Gun-owners' Association (Saga).
On the other hand, anti-gun lobby groups feel the amendment does not go far enough to take guns off the streets, arguing the only reason people die from bullets is because guns are readily available.
Jacobs told the committee that while the Bill still forced licensed gun owners to re-apply for their licences, the deadline was extended to June 30 2009 to alleviate the pressure on law enforcement agencies to process applications.
The first batch of applicants - those born between January and March - were supposed to have been processed by the end of December last year. But unexpected pressures on registering bodies forced the Registrar of Firearms to extend the deadline to April this year.
Saga trustee Bruce Shaw said this was the reason why Saga had filed a last-minute Pretoria High Court application demanding the postponement of the legislation in June 2004 to allow the police more time to "get their operations in order".
"We lost the case but the minister later had to postpone the deadline because our fears were realised," he said.
He said while his organisation had no problems with stricter firearm regulation, he believed a simple audit of weapons would have sufficed.
- This article was originally published on page 5 of Pretoria News on June 02, 2006
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