In recent weeks the media has been full of arguments both applauding and opposing the move towards stricter gun controls in South Africa. This Briefing identifies three themes as it examines some of these debates.
Theme 1:
Stricter gun control will not affect criminals
According to this theme, criminals are outside of the law. Thus, stricter gun controls can not impact on them, but instead will penalise licensed gun owners.
The reality is that stricter controls over legal firearms will significantly impact on criminal activity. As citizens are disarmed criminals have little to fear from them. Countries like Britain and Ireland where handguns are virtually banned have consistently shown that criminal activity and violent crime will increase. Studies have shown that the criminals' greatest fear is being aposed by an armed victim. Those criminals can always obtain guns from the easiest available source if they are desired. Disarming the citizen makes criminal gun ownership more desirable and criminals are less afraid of being opposed.
The sources of firearms used in crime.
a:
Legal guns that are stolen from the police
The Minister of Safety and Security reported that in 1998 1 775 guns were stolen from policemen. The vast majority of these guns were not recovered. The police have "lost" 60% of their firearms.
b:
Licensed guns that are misused by legal gun owners
Are insignificantly small 0.05% of licensed firearms owners. It is noted that predatory criminals are not likely to attempt to licence their weapons assuming that any of them have a licence as these are easily traced. Licensed firearm owners are not a problem.
c:
Legal guns that are stolen from state armouries
200 000 known State firearms are unaccounted for according to the Minister of Safety and Security. Fully automatic rifles such as the R1, R3, R4 and R5 have become more popular than the AK47 because of the easy availability of guns and ammunition from the state. The State has been identified as the major source of illegal guns and ammunition.
d:
Guns which are smuggled into South Africa and sold illegally
Guns like the AK47 which are used in major crime like cash-in-transit robberies and bank robberies. Handguns have become very popular item because criminals easily carry and conceal them.
e:
Firearms stolen from licensed owners
Are the result of an enormous demand. Criminals who see this as a source to supply this demand. It is unknown how many are used in crime and how many are sold to illegal owners who can not afford the purchase price of a licensed firearm for use for self-protection. To claim that all are used for violent crime is clearly wrong and misleading. To claim that firearms removed by criminal action is the responsibility or the victim is blame transference of the states responsibilities.
Negligent owners who "lose" their firearms can be charged under present legislation and brought to justice. There have been an insignificant number of prosecutions.
As state guns are involved in 3 of these 5 sources, controlling licensed firearm owners will have little impact on the criminal use of guns. The criminal use of firearms by licensed owners is insignificant. Any law introduced to control them will be a complete waste of time, effort and money. This is also reflected by the unwillingness of police to implement ineffective laws. There is a strong indication that the demand for firearms is a result of crime and criminal activity and not the cause.
Theme 2:
New gun controls are not needed, the current law just has to be enforced.
While enforcing a law is critical to its success, not attempting to enforce a law is doomed to failure. The current Arms and Ammunition Act was tabled in 1969. Its aim was to register and enable the police to keep track of licensed citizens. As such it is geared towards registration and control of firearm owners. Consequently, it does not:
- Adequately screen criminal records. Currently there are no rigorous background checks to verify, for example, whether they have a history of violence. Criminal records are lost misplaced or never consulted.
Regulate state firearms. For instance, there is no firearm license system in place. Consequently, there is no control over state issued guns and personal who lose their weapons,
State accountability. Currently, nearly 200 000 firearms are not accounted for. Under a new Constitution it is necessary that this bias toward legal gun ownership be reversed. The state must be held accountable for their contributions to illegal firearms in the same manner citizens are.
Theme 3:
Stricter gun controls are financially untenable
According to this theme, the implementation of stricter gun laws and controls will be economically costly, as more resources will be needed to implement these. Stricter controls also threaten jobs in the arms and ammunition industry. In addition, the hunting and conservation industries will be adversely affected, so impacting negatively on South African tourism. There is a belief by gun control organisations and government that control of licensed firearms will in some unexplained manner reduce or remove the number of illegally held firearms.
- The costs to the Canadian citizen of their firearms registration will when complete be more than CDN$800 per person. The original state estimate has been exceeded by more than 4 times and registration is only half complete. The Canadian government has ignored and exceeded by more than double a limit set on the total cost of CDN$150,000,000. The estimated accuracy of the register will be extremely low due to the incompetence of state officials. The current expenditure of more than CDN$380,000,000 on controlling citizens will have contributed almost nothing towards crime control.
Any discussion of costs has to acknowledge the tremendous cost of violence in South Africa. While overall murder rates have recently decreased in South Africa, the number of people murdered by illegal firearms has increased steadily, with more than half of all murders in 1998 resulting from these illegal firearms. Although attempted murder rates are an under estimate of injuries as many people do not report these to the police, at least 29,418 attempted murders occurred in 1998. Spending vast amounts on gun control will not change the violent nature of people.
Treating people with gun injuries is financially expensive because gunshot injuries are so severe. A cost analysis undertaken at Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town looked at how much the hospital spent on treating firearm-injured patients who presented at the hospital in 1993. It was calculated that the 969 firearm injured patients who were treated that year cost the hospital nearly four million rand. As these medical costs account for only an estimated 13% of the total costs of violence, the composite costs for these 969 patients was calculated as nearly 30 million rand per year. This figure is for one hospital only and does not include the greater cost of injuries due to sharp instruments.
Further, as new gun controls will be aimed at controlling citizens who have not broken the law and do not intend to, raising the barrier for legal gun ownership and the ability of people to defend themselves. Money that could be better spent in upgrading the criminal justice system, the police and prisons, will be wasted in bureaucratic recording, testing and gathering of information. Information that will not solve even 1% of crime. There is no successful example of such legislation in the world.
South African tourism is constantly being battered by media reports of escalating crime and violence. In contrast other countries enjoy a booming tourist trade despite their more sensible gun controls. Finland, Norway, and Switzerland, countries that virtually bristle with legally owned firearms enjoy more freedom from violent crime. Showing that legally held firearms are not a contributory factor to violent crime. Criminals are controlled by capture, prosecution and incarceration. The better the chance of a criminal being captured and processed by the system the less attractive a life of crime becomes. The better chance a citizen has of defending themselves the less likely a criminal will see them as victims. The chance that a criminal is captured and processed by the criminal justice system in South Africa is less than 25%. Three quarters of all crime remains unpunished. Crime pays with the help of a government unwilling to address the problems of putting criminals behind bars.
The government should seriously look at its dismal record in protecting the people that voted it into power. It should be concerned with the instruments that will remove criminals and fund these rather than waste hundreds of million Rand on measures that have a proven 100% failure rate. The control of legal firearms will not and can not control criminal firearms and will increase violent crime in a proven 100% of all cases. There is no successful case anywhere in the world of gun control legislation diminishing the supply of guns to criminals.
Radical fringe lunatic organisations indulging in an orgy of emotional factoids in a carefully orchestrated propaganda program not unlike that of Adolf Hitler are promoting the control of licensed firearms owners. In a single-minded effort to remove guns from society at the expense of the known results, increased crime. What is not stated by these propaganda organisations is that their evidence is so weak that they have to generate it themselves and present it couched in emotional terms to convince by indoctrination their false ideology. Even so-called serious studies by these organisations are tainted by ideology. The McKenzie Report is a good example of myopic choice of evidence and flawed reasoning. The whole report is written in the ideological terms of gun control. Botswana is the only country that fits McKenzie's flawed and false results and ignores all that would disprove the preconceived conclusions.
The department of Safety and Security has joined in the fray of dispensing emotional factoids. This is evidenced by their presentation to Parliament of the gun control policy. A series of slides and a talk couched in propagandistic terms designed to indoctrinate cabinet ministers who are expected to support the Firearms Control Bill. It should be noted that the policy document remains secret. It is being redrafted for presentation to the public. The department has also edited a book "Firearm use and distribution in South Africa" to aid this propaganda campaign.
Edited by Crime Free SA