{"id":843532,"date":"2025-11-18T10:30:00","date_gmt":"2025-11-18T08:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=843532"},"modified":"2025-11-18T10:23:28","modified_gmt":"2025-11-18T08:23:28","slug":"new-laws-can-prevent-south-africans-from-protecting-themselves-against-criminals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/843532\/new-laws-can-prevent-south-africans-from-protecting-themselves-against-criminals\/","title":{"rendered":"New laws can prevent South Africans from protecting themselves against criminals"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Ian Cameron, a DA MP and Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Police, warned that the new Firearms Control Act Amendment Bill is a dangerous power grab that will cost lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Firearms Control Act Amendment Bill (2025) will amend the Firearms Control Act, 2000 (Act No. 60 of 2000).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The new Firearms Control Act Amendment Bill has numerous objectives, including:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Providing for the verification by accredited associations of applications to possess a firearm.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Providing for the period of validity of all competency certificates to be five years.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Providing for conditions under which a firearm license for occasional hunting or sports shooting may be issued.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Providing for the limitation on the number of firearm licenses that an occasional hunter or sports shooter may hold.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Although these objectives may seem reasonable, Cameron warned that the bill\u2019s ultimate aim is to disarm citizens and the private sector.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThis Bill represents one of the most dangerous assaults yet on South Africans\u2019 right to safety and self-defence,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He said it hands the Minister of Police the power to decide arbitrarily who may live safely and who may not, by controlling who may be lawfully armed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThat is unconstitutional, reckless, and incompatible with any democratic system that respects the rule of law,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Cameron argued that disarming law-abiding South Africans and the private sector will not stop violent crime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIt will only make our communities more vulnerable while leaving the real culprits, corrupt officials and criminal syndicates, untouched,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He said the state, due to the collapsing police service, fails to protect its citizens from violent crime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cAny attempt to disarm law-abiding South Africans is, in fact, taking away their lifeline in the wake of the crime epidemic that continues to plague our country,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI want to see them (try) disarm lawfully armed and law abiding citizens in this country, because they are going to fail dismally. That is a fight they should not pick.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The biggest problem linked to guns in South Africa<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a  data-lightbox=\"post-image\" href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Ian-Cameron-1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" src=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Ian-Cameron-1-1024x576.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-843536\" srcset=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Ian-Cameron-1-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Ian-Cameron-1-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Ian-Cameron-1-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Ian-Cameron-1.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Ian Cameron, MP and the DA\u2019s deputy spokesperson on Police<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>The 2015 Civilian Secretariat for Police Service and Wits School of Governance Firearms Review findings back up Cameron\u2019s claims.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The study found that the problem lies with the South African Police Service and the total collapse of the Central Firearms Register (CFR).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That report described the CFR as \u201ctechnically collapsed, institutionally incoherent, and incapable of maintaining accurate records.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It warned that more bureaucracy before fixing SAPS capacity would \u201cdestabilise the entire regulatory regime.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It concluded that violent crime trends correlate not with gun ownership, but with effective, intelligence-led policing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Cameron cited the example of former SAPS Colonel Christiaan Prinsloo, who stole and sold 2,000 state-issued firearms to gangsters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>These police guns, stolen from state armouries, were linked to over 1,000 murders and 1,400 attempted murders in the Western Cape between 2010 and 2016.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>South Africa\u2019s Acting Minister of Police, Firoz Cachalia, revealed that 4,124 SAPS-owned firearms were reported as lost or stolen from 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Last year, Groundup reported that an estimated 1,800 state-owned firearms are being lost or stolen every year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>These guns enter the illicit market and find their way into the hands of criminals, which is fueling the crime wave.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It highlighted that 502 state institutions own 2.2 million firearms. The SA Police and Defence Force own less than 30% of them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The only state institution to partially report how many firearms they lose per year, is the South African Police Service.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime researcher Jenni Irish-Qhobosheane said the situation was shocking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The SANDF and other state entities were supposed to report their firearm losses and thefts to the Central Firearms Registry. However, they do not do so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>She stated that an analysis by the Civilian Secretariat for Police concluded that the total loss of firearms over ten years was 18,000.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ian Cameron warns that the new Firearms Control Amendment Bill is aimed at disarming private citizens, which will leave them vulnerable to crime.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":843534,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[24147,24146,24148,20678,24093],"class_list":["post-843532","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-firearms-control-act","tag-firearms-control-act-amendment-bill","tag-firoz-cachalia","tag-ian-cameron","tag-sa-police"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/843532","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=843532"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/843532\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":843575,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/843532\/revisions\/843575"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/843534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=843532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=843532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=843532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}