Ian Cameron - When citizens are disarmed, State tyranny follows…

In this latest interview with Chris Steyn, Democratic Alliance MP Ian Cameron speaks about the possible agenda behind plans to amend firearm legislation. “Why are you really wanting to disarm the law-abiding people in the country? The only logical answer to me is that they foresee some kind of government or State tyranny. The only reason why you would disarm law abiding populace is to do terrible things to them…either that is the direct intention or they know that they would then push certain types of legislation through and that there would be no kind of potential resistance from good people if government were to force anything onto them.” Cameron describes it as the “biggest threat to any kind of freedom that you are meant to have in South Africa”. Cameron also comments on the police and political capture inquiries at the Madlanga Commission and Parliament’s Ad Hoc Committee; dissects the latest crime statistics; and plans to deploy the SANDF to help the police fight crime. .Sign up for your early morning brew of the BizNews Insider to keep you up to speed with the content that matters. The newsletter will land in your inbox every morning on weekdays. Register here.Support South Africa’s bastion of independent journalism, offering balanced insights on investments, business, and the political economy, by joining BizNews Premium. Register here.If you prefer WhatsApp for updates, sign up to the BizNews channel here..Watch here.Listen here.Edited transcript of the interview.Chris Steyn (00:01.814)The Democratic Alliance is coming out guns blazing to stop any attempt to disarm law-abiding citizens. Leading the charge is MP Ian Cameron. He's with me now to tell us about their battle plan. Welcome Ian.Ian (00:20.546)Thank you, good morning Chris. It's I think one of the most serious attacks on freedom in South Africa that we could potentially ever face.Chris Steyn (00:35.988)Ian, why is legislation like this even being considered? I mean, how many crimes out of 10 would get committed with a legal firearm as opposed to an illegal firearm. Should the focus not be on fighting possession of illegal firearms instead?Ian (00:53.976)Well, this is exactly it. You know, last week during my response speech to the President's State of the Nation address, I asked him that, you know, I said to him, but what is the real reason you're doing this? Why are you really wanting to disarm the law-abiding people in the country? You know, the only logical answer to me is that they foresee some kind of government or State tyranny. The only reason why you would disarm law-abiding, law abiding populace is to do terrible things to them.It's either that is the direct intention or they know that they would then push certain types of legislation through and that there would be no kind of potential resistance from good people if government were to force anything onto them. And I noticed some, you know, I might sound a bit conspiracy theory-ish, but if we look into history and we look at countries like Venezuela, go to Nazi Germany, Russia at many different stages in its history, we can go through scores of countries where the law-abiding people were disarmed. It never stopped the criminals from continuing with their illegal practices. So I am done trying to debate whether disarming lawfully armed citizens could decrease crime because history shows us that it won't. The debate needs to shift to what the real reason is that certain players in state circles would want to disarm the good people in society.Chris Steyn (02:44.704)So you have a battle plan. What does it entail? How are you going to fight it?Ian (02:50.606)Well, I think firstly, it's important to give context as to where we are in the fight at the moment and the reason why, from a DA point of view, we've come up with a statement that we have over the past weekend. Firstly, it's important to say that the particular amendment bill was referred to NEDLAC.… I know you have reported on it before. You've done interviews with Jonathan Deal and others regarding this NEDLAC process. In my opinion, NEDLAC is not the right platform for this discussion to be had at all. But that being said, it does give an opportunity to the firearm fraternity, let's say the legal firearm fraternity, to state their case very, very clearly and to make it even clearer that there will be no compromise. This is not a matter that we're going to give an inch; there will be no compromise. It's already one of the heaviest regulated spaces in the country. It's one that comes with significant frustration due to the State's inability to make sure that they allow for those regulations to run smoothly. And it goes along with a whole lot of cost and delays. Nevertheless, law abiding citizens continue to stick to it and to abide by the rules that the State has put in place. So with regards to the NEDLAC process, it must now go back, the amendment bill must go back with the feedback from NEDLAC to the Civilian Secretariat of Police. Who exactly in the Secretariat is driving this thing so hard? I do not know. I'll come back to that again now. But from there, it must essentially go to Cabinet. And if, for some strange reason, it passes through Cabinet, it must come to the Portfolio Committee on Police. And then I must put on another hat and then we must go through a process of looking at this piece of legislation. But just back to Cabinet first, from a DA point of view, we've made it very clear that we will counter it in Cabinet. It will be fought there.Ian (05:08.174)And if, for some other strange reason, it comes through to a Parliamentary level, it will be fought there too. And if need be, we will consider legal remedies as well. So this isn't an overnight battle that will be resolved in a short space of time. I also don't think it's the last one. This is a typical ANC move. And if you read the National Democratic Revolution, and everything that motivates it. It is a typical move of testing the balance of forces. And if the resistance is high enough to it, they will collapse and they will try again and test the water again later. And if there isn't enough resistance, they will push it through as they've done with many other things. So those are probably the three main remedies from our side.But obviously, I can't stress it enough that civil society is the biggest stakeholder in this, and we will do what we can to support them. I do what I can to make sure that their voices are heard on any platform that I have access to, but we will not take this lying down. This is in essence the biggest threat to your right to own property in South Africa, the biggest threat to any kind of freedom that you are meant to have in South Africa, because once this is done, once only the State has access to firearms, it usually leads to tyranny.Chris Steyn (06:44.182)Do you think it's one more attempt by the African National Congress as it is losing support - and it must be very concerned about that - to stay in control one way or another?Ian (06:59.854)Yeah, I think it goes both ways in the sense that it's not only about civilian disarmament, but also that of the private security industry. Make no mistake, the private security industry has become as powerful as it is in South Africa because of the State being incapable of doing what they're meant to do in terms of protecting citizens, properties, business, et cetera. And therefore the private security industry grew the way that it did. And are there bad stakeholders or role players in that industry? Of course they are, but they are in the minority. You can't punish all of them and start disarming them too because of a minority. And it's very similar to law-abiding gun owners. Are there some of them that have made mistakes? Of course they are. But it is by far a very, very, very small minority.So I think it's a typical attempt to try and disarm. It's a typical attempt to centralise as much power as possible. And they know that when they lose power, and it's not if, it's when they lose power, they would like to now try and have as much control of the different law enforcement bodies in the country as they possibly can. Now, not only do they, I think, South Africa, all South Africans, but they also underestimate the good people in the South African Police Service. They underestimate the amount of good people that still wear that uniform. And I'm afraid a lot of those people will not sell their souls as they've stuck through the major corruption allowed by that very party. And they're not gonna sell their souls now suddenly for the sake of one more election that the ANC will perform even more poorly at.Chris Steyn (08:55.51)Do you think they could also be paranoid about a possible coup and that they are thinking that it would come from legal gun owners?Ian (09:06.19)I think maybe there are some of them. They would like to run with that narrative as well, but they would like to villainise the lawfull- armed citizens. But law-abiding citizens in South Africa, law abiding armed people in South Africa have never been the ones that are the problem. We've proved this time and time again. They are in most cases, in the large majority of cases, they are the first and usually the last line of defense for the good people in the country.They are usually on scene first. Very often when the police don't have capacity, it is those brave people that are there first and stick through it. We saw with the July 2021 riots; make no mistake, that those riots were not stabilised because of State action. They were stabilised because of communities that were not only armed, but that were well organised and had the capacity to properly mobilise themselves. If you ever, ever allow the State to have any form of monopoly on your safety, then the issues that follow are on you. So I think that they would like a narrative where they want to villainise law-abiding gun owners, but that would be a major mistake because not only is it not true, they will lose that communication battle as well. If there's one thing that the firearm fraternity has learned to do very, very well over the past five to 10 years because of the consistent attacks on being lawfully armed, it is the art of communicating and out-communicating a State which has lost contact with what reality is on the ground. So it might be frowned upon by some because they could argue from State machinery that I'm now part of that because I'm a Member of Parliament and that I serve as a Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee, but I won't sell my soul. And this to me is a watershed type of piece of legislation that we will fight tooth and nailChris Steyn (11:17.35)And let's go to the latest crime statistics.Ian (11:22.242)Yo, Chris, I'm gonna start with something that wasn't released, that I received this morning, just the latest numbers, gang-related murder numbers from the Cape Flats. And I'm going to tell you why is that it gives us a more accurate description or feeling of what the reality on the ground is. And if we look just for the week of between the 16th of February and the 22nd of February of 2026, just gang-related murders during those, what is it, six days, six, almost seven days was 42 murders and 23 attempted murders. Those are only the gang-related ones. So I want to say that the bloodshed clearly hasn't decreased. There are some areas where hotspot policing models and initiatives run by the city of Cape Town, provincial government in the Western Cape, as well as the South African Police Service, have made some inroads, but it's still too small. And we're not seeing that policing is being, policing powers are being expanded to local and provincial government. And this goes actually as a follow-up to the President regarding his State of the Nation address and regarding his comments on firearms. So I would like to ask him the same thing with the expansion of policing powers. Why wouldn't you want to expand policing powers? You we need to ask the question, is this doubt or, you know, deliberate ignorance? Is it to, you know, is it about politics or is it about the people? Because if it were about the people,Ian (13:15.276)…they would very, very easily have expanded policing powers. If it were really about putting gangsters behind bars, Acting Minister Cachalia would have already announced an integrated plan along with the Minister of Justice as to how they would fast track conviction and prosecution leading to conviction of gang kingpins. SARS would have been appointed as...Task Team from SARS would have been appointed by the President. He would have announced it in his State of the Nation address as to what role SARS can play in stopping the flow of income to many of these gang bosses. You know, there are scores of things. There are more drastic measures in terms of whether it's a provincial state of disaster, et cetera. There are many debates regarding exactly what you call it, but...there are specific things that could have been done to, for example, cordon off and almost quarantine certain spaces for short amounts of time. And I'm not talking weeks or months, I'm talking 24 hours when an entire operation is done to clean up an entire block where arms caches are seized and scores of gangsters are arrested and they are held behind bars until the relevant legal proceedings take place.But that hasn't been done. And to me, again, this isn't a matter of just not having capacity or something like that. They don't have the political will to really act. And there two reasons for that. The one is that somehow, somewhere, someone in the system is gaining some kind of financial…you know, benefit, it's the only thing I can think of. And secondly, some way, somehow someone is not doing what they're meant to do because they might be found out for some kind of corrupt dealings in the past. Those are the only two things that I could see as a potential excuse right now.Ian (15:26.318)The more that I'm surrounded by State machinery and I work in this space, the more I see that political will is the biggest crisis. It's nothing else.It's as though you get comfortable when you're in a certain position. And then, you know, it's the kind of comment that we see from the Lesufi a while ago of Mary Antoinette of Let them eat cake, you know, had to go, poor me, had to go shower at a hotel. That's the type of approach you start seeing. So, I blame it on political will. In terms of the general statistics that we saw released last week between the 1st of October and the 31st of December of 2025, a total of 6,351 South Africans were murdered. That accounts to about 71 murders per day, and that's three per hour. The rest are obviously very bad, but I think that murder statistic of three people per hour really puts it into context for you. …just imagine, I always say to people, imagine you've got three funerals per hour, which is down the road from you. What the traffic would look like, the amount of people that were mourning, that were seeing this horrific, traumatic event, keep replaying in their minds if they had survived and possibly witnessed it. It really is a bloodbath and it's something that is not declining. We're not winning the fight.Ian (16:57.726)I honestly think that we need to get to a point where we just decline a budget for the police if we don't see certain budget amendments being allowed. If they don't allow us to have not 5,000 more cops, but 25,000 more cops, then we should simply just say, no, we don't accept it.It should become similar to firearm legislation. It should become as serious as the increase in VAT. That is the type of drastic movement that we need.And we need to make sure that we've got the right oversight mechanisms in place to ensure that if those resources are granted, we wouldn't see the abuse of those resources. And I'm actually, to be honest, not too worried about that. I know for a fact that if we really fight to have additional resources in SAPS, especially with regards to manpower, a lot of the good people that still wear the uniform would ensure that that actually does happen.Chris Steyn (17:54.55)Ian, while I have you here, after extensive hearings before the Ad Hoc committee into police and political capture, what is your take?Ian (18:09.198)So Chris, first of all, think no one is surprised about what we're experiencing or seeing through the Madlanga Commission and the Ad Hoc Committee. Maybe I can comment on the Ad Hoc Committee first. I think the Ad Hoc Committee has mostly served its purpose. I personally didn't agree with the extension of the Ad Hoc Committee. I think we could have managed time far better than what we did. And to many, in all honesty, it feels to me like it's become a bit of a soap opera. If I watch the…the replays of a day's questioning, it feels to me like some members - and they can be angry with me for saying so - but they chase TikTok likes and not, you know, they're not, not looking for the merit of it. So I'm disappointed in that. I think it could be far more disciplined and far more valuable than just doing frivolous questioning. I must also wonder whether some of the witnesses that will still be called actually will add value to the process. But nevertheless, that is beyond me and it's not my decision to make. It's something that the committee must make. Those are just my thoughts.You know, in terms of the commission, I think it's been managed in the long run far more effectively. The fact that there are already teams in place, arrests, warning statements, and so on is somewhat promising to me. So I'm carefully optimistic about it. I'm concerned that possibly some of the people on those very teams haven't been vetted or audited properly. The reason I say that is just because, you know, year on year, we hear every single police minister, even the new acting minister speaking about lifestyle audits every year with a SAPS annual plan and the report, we hear about lifestyle audits.Ian (20:02.538)Yet, if those lifestyle audits were done, the large majority of senior officers that we're now seeing being implicated in all of this corruption would likely not have been in the positions that they were in. So it goes to show that they never did the audits that they were meant to do. So yeah, it's...It makes one feel a little bit depressed that it just keeps going. You know, it's this can of worms that was open that just seems infinite. But but that being said, we have to start somewhere. So I'm carefully optimistic about the Madlanga Commission. I am optimistic about the report that could come out of the Ad Hoc Committee. It's going to be interesting to see what comes out of there. What's positive about it is that a lot of it will be referred to the portfolio, relevant portfolio committees to follow up. So I'm excited for what gets referred to the Police Committee and for the work that we can possibly get done on that.Chris Steyn (20:57.812)Meanwhile, how do you feel about plans to deploy the SANDF to fight crime?Ian (21:04.642)So Chris, I don't blame people. First of all, I think it's necessary for short-term stabilisation. There's no doubt that we cannot go on at the rate we are. The bloodshed is just terrific. SAPS has already failed. So it's not a matter of SAPS still being able to stop this, whether it's political will or otherwise, they are not winning the fight. So in terms of short-term stabilisation, I get it and I welcome it.Long term, even medium term, it's not sustainable. It's not the model that we should be pursuing. Soldiers aren't meant to do policing. It sets a very dangerous precedent. Soldiers kill people. That's what they're trained to do. They're to do military operations. So if they simply work with the right command-and-control structure under the command of the police during their deployment, if done right, I think it could be a huge force multiplier for the police to really get things done. Will the police really use the opportunity to clean up? I'm not so sure.So we'll have to see. The long and the short is that the army, the SANDF, they are not there to build racketeering dockets or to ensure conviction rates improve or to even perform arrests. There are lists of things that they are not meant to be involved with.So yeah, I hope it's successful. I hope SAPS utilises the opportunity to clean up. They really could do the cordoning off example that I said to you. They could really do that and make a massive impact, especially if they rotate some of the cops that work there to ensure that they don't tip off or warn people beforehand. Because unfortunately, I think corruption plays a leading role as to these gangs knowing…Ian (23:04.033)…what’s happening. Some of the most prominent gangs, you go look at, for example, in and around Mitchell's Plain, they almost always know when SAPS is on their way. And that's because in SAPS' own ranks, they tipped them off. And then lastly, I think it could be an opportunity to also expose some of the leadership errors. I know that and we'll probably release something on it soon. But for example, the Provincial Commissioner in the Western Cape often has lunch at one of the prominent security companies in Mitchell's Plain and the dealings there and the discussions that follow, one must wonder, but why that specific one? Why specifically Mitchell's Plain could be completely innocent, but the precedent again that is set with us creates an environment for organised crime to flourish. I hope this is an opportunity that they will use to actually clean up, whether it's on the ground or even on a more senior level.Chris Steyn (24:09.078)And lastly, what pressing matters are before the portfolio, your portfolio committee that you can share with us.Ian (24:18.242)So at the moment, because of the Ad Hoc Committee, the Portfolio Committee hasn't sat yet for 2026.This is extremely frustrating. It's one of the reasons I was opposed to the extension of the Ad Hoc Committee. We are actually sitting for the first time this week for administrative purposes just to speak on what the way forward is due to the delays caused by the Ad Hoc Committee because many of the Police Portfolio Committee members serve on the Ad Hoc Committee. So I think probably one of the most prominent things that we have ahead of us is the Gang Inquiry, the Parliamentary Gang inquiry that was meant to have already started. That will likely only start in May of 2026. And then we will kick off with an inquiry process of which we still need to determine the terms of reference. Obviously I'll share all of that with you as we go.And that inquiry, I think, will be quite valuable. It's something that's led by the Portfolio Committee on Police. I think it's very, very handy tool for us to really get to the bottom of certain things. A lot of the things that we need to investigate, we likely already know the answer to, but we must formalise the process and then we can drive certain initiatives to ensure a better outcome.Chris Steyn (25:44.512)Thank you. That was Ian Cameron, Democratic Alliance MP. Speaking to BizNews, I'm Chris Steyn. Thank you, Ian.Ian (25:53.336)Thanks, Chris.

Ian Cameron - When citizens are disarmed, State tyranny follows…

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