Johannesburg - Think of this before taking a gun to a crime: it could soon mean spending at least five years in jail.
Tough new gun laws are on the way, aimed at tightening controls and introducing minimum sentences for using guns in crimes.
The changes were drafted by the Civilian Secretariat for Police, and are in the Draft Firearms Control Amendment Bill that was gazetted last week for public comment.
“Every single gun in South Africa must have ballistic testing and it must have a microdot,” said Reneva Fourie, the acting Secretary for Police. The Secretariat provides civilian oversight of the police.
“We absolutely need to tighten the control of guns.”
The bill proposes new five-year minimum sentences when a victim is “killed by means of a firearm”, or “was threatened with a firearm” or in robberies “where a firearm was used in the commission of the crime”.
It also adds the five-year minimum to “any offence relating to the dealing in or smuggling of ammunition, firearms, explosives or armament; or the possession of any firearm, explosives or armament”.
Semi-automatic rifles and shotguns may currently only be licensed to law enforcement, private security or sporting individuals, and the bill limits sports shooters to two of these.
The microdots and ballistics will improve the tracking of weapons, even when criminals file off serial numbers.
The ballistics logging will start with the SAPS, which will have a year to do this from the date the bill becomes law. The SAPS has already budgeted for this.
Next up is the private security industry and then individual gun owners, when they relicense their weapons.
Licensing will be made more efficient, to deal with the substantial backlog, with designated firearms officers at every police station.
Fourie said there were two sources of illegal guns over which controls could be improved: in the SAPS and among tourists.
“We are putting in a mechanism to hold the gun holders in the SAPS accountable for their guns,” she said.
Tourists, particularly hunters, bring in guns and leave them behind.
“When you come in with a gun you must take your gun out again,” Fourie said.
The bill estimates costs including R5.4 million for the SAPS to appoint and train more firearms officers. Microdots cost about R450 per firearm, while the ballistics costs still needs to be established.
While the processes of adding the microdots and doing the ballistic tests sound onerous, Fourie is confident it will happen, saying they were already improving some controls.
“The SAPS just has to make it happen. It will be up to the SAPS to see how they make it happen,” she said.
The secretariat has also gazetted two draft white papers: one on the police and the other on safety and security.
“We want a demilitarised police service. We want a professional police service.
“Already the SAPS is beginning to do work around these things,” Fourie explained.
Also coming up is a policy and bill on the national key points law.
“Next week, we’re taking those to the cabinet committee,” Fourie said.
She described this as a more pragmatic approach to the key points, aimed at assessing what was really necessary.
The secretariat was initially set up under the SAPS to enable it to start functioning, but is now increasingly moving away from the SAPS to function more clearly as an independent oversight body.
“This is the most exciting time in the secretariat,” Fourie said.
She was appointed as acting secretary in September last year.
By next year, the secretariat expects to have its own budget vote and be in its own offices, separate from the SAPS, Fourie told The Star.
The Star