Ban on gun ownership for self-defence in new Bill

Gun owners are angry about the Firearms Control Amendment Bill, published on Friday, that aims to prohibit gun ownership for self-defence purposes, according to Rapport. The Bill also severely limits the issuing of licences for hunting and sports purposes. Rapport points out the Bill was published in the same week as the police’s budget speech in Parliament showing VIP protection will get R2bn more while the budget to protect ordinary citizens was being cut by R4bn. ‘The naked hypocrisy is astounding,’ Paul Oxley of Gun Owners SA, is quoted as saying. Martin Wood, a lawyer specialising in firearm matters, described the proposals as ‘totally irrational’. He says the full Bill, which was not readily available by the weekend, goes even further than the summary published in the Government Gazette on Friday. Hood estimates that half of all current firearm licences are issued for self-defence purposes and the Bill would cause ‘mass protests’ if passed. The Bill proposes that such owners be allowed to keep their firearms only until the expiry of their current licences. Police Minister Bheki Cele said the Bill aimed to reduce the number of legal firearms ‘as most of them are converted to unlicensed firearms’ when stolen. The backlog in the processing of firearm licence applications currently stand at 250 000, adds the report.