Jonathan Deal - The ANC’s “agenda” to disarm vulnerable citizens…

The Firearms Control Amendment Bill is likely to be presented to Parliament next month. In his latest interview with Chris Steyn, Jonathan Deal, the Founder of Safe Citizen, warns: “…they have …created a set of well-crafted steps that make it literally impossible for the average person to actually get a self-defense license were this Bill to become law…it simply focuses on law-abiding firearm owners who are the very people that actually play a positive role in our societies, which was ably demonstrated in July 2021 in KwaZulu-Natal. And quite frankly, who are the only people that can respond to a violent public incident if necessary, and not only looking after themselves, but other people in the public.” Giving an update on the pushback from civil society, Deal says: “And I think quite simply, until the ANC is unseated and until the influence they have within and over the police of South Africa is interrupted and halted, they will continue to be able to float legislation like this.”.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 at 5:30am 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 (00:02.468)The Firearms Control Amendment Bill is likely to be presented to Parliament next month, March. I speak to Jonathan Deal, the Founder of Safe Citizen. Welcome, Jonathan.Jonathan (00:14.926)Thank you, Chris. Nice to be with you.Chris Steyn (00:18.372)Why is the African National Congress proceeding with this Bill in the face of strong opposition?Jonathan (00:26.414)Well, I think that that is a question that many people are asking. I have seldom seen such volume of opposition to the notion of an amendment Bill as this. And I have seldom seen actually such a facile and poorly drafted piece of legislation, something that is, that if it were to come to pass is basically unenforceable and will have an enormous effect on negative effects on the population of South Africa. The only conclusion, and this is not my conclusion alone, it is now becoming a de facto theme running through social media and legislative circles, is that the ANC is simply pursuing an ideological agenda. It is probably based on their antique ideology, but it is a...very serious piece of legislation were it come to pass. And quite clearly, reasons that they have put forward for this Bill in inverted commas to enhance public safety will do have exactly the opposite effect. Any person with any brains or rationality would be able to see that from a mile away. The Bill...simply focuses on law-abiding firearm owners who are the very people that actually play a positive role in our societies, which was ably demonstrated in July 2021 in KwaZulu-Natal. And quite frankly, who are the only people that can respond to a violent public incident if necessary, and not only looking after themselves, but other people in the public. So, It's ideologically inspired. It has got absolutely nothing to do with public safety.Chris Steyn (02:25.978)Do you think this bill will pass though?Jonathan (02:30.954)The general perceptions out there is one based on confidence that given the level of opposition, the many flaws in the Bill, the lack of adequate and appropriate stakeholder engagement, the flawed discussion, let's call it the discussion process around Nedlac last year, when a group of 73 people eventually out of a 336 invited actually attended a meeting, maybe a bit more if we count the people that were there in person. All of that aside and also taken into account, the general consensus is that they're not going to have an easy time getting it through. But of course, hindsight being an exact science, one would have speculated that they wouldn't have been able to push through NHI or Expropriation Without Compensation or the Employment Equity Act, all of which happened from within the Government of National Unity to almost great surprise from the parties that used to be in opposition to the ANC. So I wouldn't bet on it. I don't think that we can count our chickens before they hatch.Chris Steyn (03:54.352)Now how difficult would it be to become a legal firearm owner or stay a legal firearm owner if that Bill became law?Jonathan (04:05.774)I think that the most disturbing element of the whole Bill, and there are many, but the most disturbing element of the whole Bill for the man in the street, Joe Public, which is where Safe Citizens Focus lies primarily, is the six or seven subjective tests that ought to be applied by a designated firearms officer at a police station when one is applying for a license for a self-defense firearm, or indeed even seeking to renew a license for a self-defense firearm. And they have set a set, produced or created a set of well-crafted steps that make it literally impossible for the average person to actually get a self-defense license with this Bill to become law. And I would anticipate that because those licenses last for five years, so somebody who receives a license today or the 1st of March, 2026 will have that license for five years because I don't see necessarily the governments telling people that are already in possession of firearms to come and hand them in. But what will happen, I believe, is that were it to become law that when a person applies to renew a licence… after five years, they will simply make that renewal fail. They'll say your renewal has not been granted. Now, kindly, you have got 30 days, 60 days, 24 hours, whatever it is to come and hand your firearm, all of your ammunition and your license card in at the police station. And that is a very, very serious issue indeed for the man in the streets. A lawfully owned firearm is one of the only things, Chris, that can balance the disparity between a woman of five foot six or five foot eight inches and a male attacker. It is the only thing that can level the playing field. So if we are talking about gender based violence, about violence on women and children,Jonathan (06:29.92)…a lawfully owned firearm is one of the tools that a woman may use to defend herself properly. It is also the only tool that the average man, not being Chuck Norris or Bruce Lee, could use to protect himself and his family if he had a breakdown with his motor vehicle in the middle of the night on a deserted road and was approached or confronted by three or four armed or unarmed persons who were he not in possession of a firearm would go about beating him to death and doing what they like with his family. So it's a very, I don't have to belabour that point anymore, but it is a very, very serious issue for the average person in the street.Chris Steyn (07:16.74)Why do you think the ANC is still able to float legislation that so many people deem counterproductive or illogical or irrational?Jonathan (07:27.884)I think simply because they have really had no material opposition in legislative terms. And if you look at the way that they are managing our country, the travesties of justice that occur in many fields and endeavours around South Africa, many government areas, it is just not a surprise that they are able to do this. So literally one could say certainly from my point of view, and I'm not a legal or political expert, but if I was asked, I think I would say that the African National Congress owns the South African Police. The South African Police takes instructions from, and they report to the ANC. So out of the National Executive Council of the ANC, would probably come an instruction to the Minister of Police. You will bring back the 2021 Firearms Control Amendment Bill, which was roundly and soundly rejected by the public in 2021, and you will reintroduce it. And that instruction gets passed to the Civilian Secretariat for Police Services, who are...tasked with amongst other things, looking after developing legislation in the Safety and Security cluster, who then in their wisdom decided to involve a trade organisation called NEDLAC, who involved another trade organisation called BUSA, two trade organisations that deal with issues and matters of commerce and industry, and briefed them on behalf of this nation and its citizens to discuss the Firearms Control Amendment Bill. And I think quite simply, until the ANC is unseated and until they have the influence within and over the police of South Africa interrupted and halted, they will continue to be able to float legislation like this.Chris Steyn (09:36.592)Can you give us an update on the pushback from civil society?Jonathan (09:42.895)Well, I think that there are two primary directions. The most obvious one, of course, is that the formal firearms fraternity is going to stand up and vociferously oppose the bill. Now, within that formal firearms fraternity, one gets all of the shooting associations, some of them with upwards of 70,000 members in one association, all of those shooting and gun owning associations of which the majority of their members comprise hunters who don't really do too much harm to the general public and sport shooters who are also a very responsible set of firearm owners. Also within that group, I would place almost civil society groups like AfriForum and others who have a vested interest in community safety and security, and who have some funding, some not insubstantial funding at their disposal. And that is the group of people that have got the financial wherewithal to mount the necessary court challenges to stand up to this legislation in court. So the other side of the coin is...organisations like Safe Citizen who do not have that type of funding, but who are developing a greater awareness and following amongst the public. And that's where the nexus of Safe Citizen's focus lies. In terms of actually engaging and mobilising the general public, because if one looks at the number of formal sports shooters and citizens represented by membership in the formal firearms fraternity, it would maybe, maybe reach three or 4% of the population of South Africa. We need a lot more than that to get the attention of the government for people out of their voter base, their traditional voter base to be saying, we do not support this type of legislation. We do not support you stripping…Jonathan (12:02.434)…the commercial security industry of their ability to look after us, because that's another ideological push of the government is to disarm the commercial security industry, that itself being more than four times the size of SAPS. And it doesn't make the government very comfortable. So that's really the civil route and the formal route that one would expect in opposition.Chris Steyn (12:29.486)What is the most effective way for civil society to fight these abuses of state authority?Jonathan (12:37.944)Well, I think that the best vehicle to achieve that is the vehicle that brought the ANC into power in the first place, and that is the voting public. And for a long time, for many years in the start-up of Safe Citizen, which is now six years old, we were very much allied to the formal firearms fraternity. And we still are in terms of the intrinsic role that firearms play in a civilized society. But what has become very clear to me is that we need to mobilise the public in South Africa. The face of Safe Citizen has to change. Quite simply put, anybody looking at me on this broadcast of yours can't help but notice that I'm white, old, wrinkled with gray hair. And that is not the demographic that is representative of the majority of South Africans. And it is not the demographic that captures the imagination and the attention of governments. And I'm absolutely delighted to say that in the development of a very comprehensive and competent team of volunteers of late, we have had join us some well-connected and high-powered persons, black persons who are well connected in the black business and social media community. And these people, as this starts getting started, I could put it simply to say that they are going to give the government chest pains because the government has worked for a very long time to separate the formal firearms fraternity from the average black gun owner in South Africa. And we are now together and that alliance is growing and the news will start spreading. And we have social media on our side. We have alternative media on our side, like BizNews, like publications, like Newsday, people who are not scared or reticent to actually break the mould of mainstream media and report news as it is and not necessarily the narrative that they are authorised to report.Chris Steyn (15:01.424)So with this move to restrict legal gun ownership, what efforts have you seen from government to deal with illegal gun ownership?Jonathan (15:13.007)Very little…Safe Citizen submitted a comprehensive document to Government at the beginning of January. In fact, I launched it on the BizNews interview of that day. Do you know that we have had one informal response from the government departments to whom that was delivered electronically and by hand. And that informal response came from my counterpart at the Civilian Secretariat for Police Services simply because of the dialogue that I enjoy with that person fairly regularly. Not a word from the President's office, not a word from the Minister of Police. So they have completely ignored it. And I think that many people reading that, certainly people that are following this debate are probably looking at it and reading it and saying, is Safe Citizens smoking their socks? Do they think that this document is going to make the ANC have a change of heart? No. Actually, I'm not naive enough to believe that that will happen. But what we have done is presented them with a well-researched document with some plausible proposals and suggestions that may not simply be ignored or dismissed out of hand. And if and when it is necessary for the formal firearms fraternity or anyone else, to take this matter to the courts, it will be an opportune moment if Safe Citizen particularly can get in as a friend of the court, which is our objective, otherwise to hand it to the formal Firearms Fraternity to put in front of the court so that the court can ask the government, this was presented to you in January. What have you done about it? What have you done about altering the communications of Safe Citizen and other members of civil society that you have ignored subsequent to that. And that's when it becomes problematic for the government.Chris Steyn (17:12.794)Would you say that this Bill doesn't go any way towards addressing violence, but actually make people more vulnerable to violence?Jonathan (17:22.765)There is absolutely no doubt whatsoever. I would bet anything near and dear to me, I would put any odds on it that the only effect that this bill could have were it to come to pass will be to expose the already exposed citizens of this country to more violent crime…And it makes me incredulous that there can be organisations like GunFree South Africa in 2026 that are still pushing that same hackneyed agenda, that illogical agenda. I was thinking to myself this morning in anticipation of this interview that if one were cynical, I would almost hope that GunFree South Africa and the Government could get it right to pass that Bill and bring it into law so that in three or four or five years' time, when people are dying in greater numbers, innocent people, that one could have the satisfaction of turning around and pointing at them and saying, look what you have done. Do you now understand the ramifications of what you were asking for?It is absolutely illogical. It's just, it begs belief.Chris Steyn (18:57.968)Thank you. That was Jonathan Deal, the Founder of Safe Citizen, speaking to me, Chris Steyn, at BizNews. Thank you, Jonathan.Jonathan (19:07.673)Thank you, Chris.

Jonathan Deal - The ANC’s “agenda” to disarm vulnerable citizens…

Related Stories

Historic win for DA in ANC stronghold township - Electoral Roadshow with Wayne Sussman

How solidarity plans to force out BEE by 2030: Connie Mulder | The NdB Sunday Show

BN Daybreak - Thu 7 May 2026: US-Iran peace progress; SA ports miss refuel gain; Firearm reform fears

Nikkie Pretorius - Proposed new firearms training system could turn law-abiding citizens into criminals…