Call for ‘Meyiwa gun law’ grows

Bafana Bafana coach Shakes Mashaba, SAFA president Danny Jordaan, Minister of Sport Fikile Mbalula and Bafana Bafana and Kaizer Chiefs goalkeeper Itumeleng Khune at Meyiwa's home in Umlazi. Picture Zanele Zulu28/10/2014

Bafana Bafana coach Shakes Mashaba, SAFA president Danny Jordaan, Minister of Sport Fikile Mbalula and Bafana Bafana and Kaizer Chiefs goalkeeper Itumeleng Khune at Meyiwa's home in Umlazi. Picture Zanele Zulu28/10/2014

Published Oct 29, 2014

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Cape Town - The country is flooded with illegal guns that have ended up in the hands of criminals through corruption or the carelessness of owners, lobby groups say – echoing comments made by the SA Football Association (Safa) after the shooting of Bafana Bafana’s captain.

Safa president Danny Jordaan, speaking the day after Senzo Meyiwa died on Sunday night, called for stricter gun controls and for action to be taken about the number of illegal guns in circulation.

The association’s spokesman, Dominic Chimhavi, said there were too “many illegal guns in the hands of irresponsible people”.

Police investigating Meyiwa’s murder in Vosloorus released two identikits and took two people in for questioning on Tuesday.

Although lobby groups opposed to and in favour of guns disagreed on Tuesday about whether laws should be tightened, they agreed that the country was flooded with illegal guns.

Experts said some guns were smuggled across the border, licensed fraudulently by police, or lost by or stolen from licensed owners and used by robbers. The head of the Institute for Security Studies’ governance, crime and justice division, Gareth Newham, said criminals were targeting gun owners for their firearms. Thousands of firearms, lost by their owners, ended up in the hands of criminals who used them in robberies.

The Firearms Control Act had contributed to the decrease in the number of murders in the past 14 years, but a lot needed to be done to tighten the administration of the regulation, Newham said. This included “rigorous” background checks to ensure gun licences did not fall into the hands of irresponsible people.

“You want to ensure that when you are giving someone a licence for a firearm they will be able to look after it,” Newham said.

There was also a need to look at the shortcomings of the regulations.

Claire Taylor, spokeswoman for Gun Free SA, said the Firearms Control Act was “strict”, but the way it was implemented was problematic. Since its introduction in 2000, the number of people killed in a day had declined from 34 to 18.

“The question is, now that we’re still seeing people being shot dead, do we look at the possibility of a total ban? That is what is being debated.”

Gun Free SA demanded that Police Minister Nkosinathi Nhleko make public a report by the commission of inquiry set up last year to investigate unscrupulous dealers in firearms and illegal firearms training institutions, Taylor said.

In an interview with Enca on Monday, Gideon Joubert, of the Gun Owners Association of SA, estimated that about four million illegal guns were in circulation. There were about three million licensed gun owners.

Joubert said gun control laws had failed and tightening regulations would not improve the situation.

“Some of us would like to live in a gun-free South Africa, but it will never happen.” The country had a “violence problem” and individuals had to protect themselves.

Cape Times

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