New statistics involving gun-related cases handled by emergency service Netcare 911 show a decline over recent months, the company said on Tuesday.
”As shootings are becoming a less frequent reason for people to access the emergency medical services, it may well that stronger policing and gun laws in South Africa are having an effect on reducing the number of guns and gun-related violence in the country,” said Netcare 911 CEO Dr Ryan Noach.
Figures showed that 2,11% of Netcare’s cases were shootings in November last year, while just 1,21% were shootings in June this year — a reduction of 43%.
Shootings accounted for a high 2,26% of Netcare 911’s cases in December 2001.
Noach cautioned that the figures cannot be definitively interpreted because they only showed gun-related incidents as a percentage of the total number of emergency cases handled by Netcare 911 each month.
However, he believes they reveal a trend away from guns.
Netcare emergency teams have found that the majority of shootings are due to crime and violence, as opposed to gun-related accidents.
Netcare 911 has also had to deal with a ”rather astonishing” number of gun accidents.
The statistics, covering November 2001 to June this year, show that the highest proportion of gunshot patients were treated in November 2001 and December 2002.
This number dropped during the middle of 2002, but rose again sharply towards the end of the year — probably largely due to the upsurge in crime that is characteristic of that time of the year, said Noach.
There was a fairly high proportion of gunshot wounds in 2003, but this decreased in January last year and has shown a steady average decline since then. — Sapa