/ 2 March 2008

Gun owners’ call to arms

South Africans should arm themselves to ward off criminals, regardless of government’s efforts to disarm citizens, Gun Owners South Africa (Gosa) said on Saturday.

Gosa’s national chairperson Thomas Eastes said in a statement: ”We advocate that all citizens of SA legally arm themselves regardless of government’s ideological intention to disarm them with the Firearms Control Act 60 of 2000, and thereby ensure the freedom, prosperity and future that we owe to our children.”

”The onus to protect yourself and your families resides with you, the legal citizen alone, as the SAPS [South African Police Service] appear not to be trustworthy and caring of the plight of the law-abiding citizens that pay their salaries,” he said.

Gosa said South Africa’s justice system was ”on the verge of collapse” and that the police and security forces were ”in a state of total disarray”.

Corruption was rife from the from the lowest to the highest levels of the police force.

Gosa said it believes that the situation may have deteriorated past ”a point of no return”, and therefore appealed to all citizens to pursue a path ”that will assure their safety, livelihood and future”. – Sapa