Mungo Soggot reports on the justice minister’s attitude towards a gun-free South Africa
JUSTICE Minister Dullah Omar says South Africans should be allowed to keep their guns until the country has a decent criminal justice system.
Omar, who this week also warned against South Africa’s descent into vigilantism, said a gun-free country remained government’s long-term objective – part of its “quest to build a human rights society”.
But even if the government did seek to ban gun-owning, “no one would obey it,” Omar noted. “We have to put the pieces in place first.”
His comments follow Safety and Security Minister Sydney Mufamadi’s comments in Parliament last week on illegal gun ownership, when he announced the government planned to take “tangible action” in May on the issue.
Mufamadi was not available for comment.
But Omar said the abolition of guns “will not happen overnight … Present-day reality is far removed from that very clear vision of no guns …. [The abolition] depends on the speed with which the government would be able to establish an efficient and effective criminal justice system that will make people feel adequately protected.”
Omar said government’s progress also hinged on the speed of economic and social transformation which would make people feel less marginalised.
Mufamadi, in his parliamentary performance, unveiled shocking statistics on gun ownership by the South African public.
He said 12 470 people possessed 10 or more licensed firearms; 18 600 firearms were reported lost by South African Police Service members (although he did not specify the period in which they had been “lost”); and that 19 600 people with criminal records were licensed firearm owners.
Omar stressed that gun control was strictly within the safety and security portfolio, though his department, as a member of the National Crime Prevention Strategy, had been involved in relevant discussions.
The government had set up four inquiries into gun ownership: a committee on the Central Firearms Register, a policy committee, a task force examining state- owned firearms, and a team developing a national strategy on illegal firearms, Omar said. The firearms register team includes members from anti-gun lobby Gun-Free.
South African Gun Owners’ Association chairman Peter Smith said there was no question gun ownership was consistent with a human rights society.
“A human rights society is a farce,” Smith noted.
“Since the world began people have been raping, killing and stealing. If I believe there is one person out there contemplating attacking me, I have a right to protect myself.” Smith, who collects guns, said there was no link between gun-ownership and the crime rate.
Smith questioned the relevance of Mufamadi’s statistics. He said many members of the African National Congress had criminal records and carried guns.
Anti-gun lobbyists said a reversal of South Africa’s gun-culture – fed by a lucrative gun industry – was a long way off.
Sheena Duncan of Gun-Free said this was not surprising, given that in the old Transvaal Boer Republic, it was illegal for white men not to carry a gun.