Ian Cameron: Why disarming law-abiding South Africans won’t stop gun violence

Key topics:Gun violence driven by policing failures, not lawful firearm ownershipEvidence shows restricting self-defence won’t reduce crime or illegal gunsConstitutional, safety risks in removing self-defence amid weak policing.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..By Ian Cameron.I was recently asked by a journalist to respond to claims that South Africa’s high murder rate is driven by civilian firearm ownership, and that removing self-defence as a legitimate reason for firearm ownership would somehow make the country safer.It is a question that deserves a serious, evidence-based answer. Not because the debate is new, but because the consequences of getting it wrong are severe. Firearms policy sits at the intersection of public safety, constitutional rights and lived reality. In South Africa, those realities are shaped by violent crime, weak policing outcomes and deep inequality in who receives protection and who does not.What the public needs to understand is this: the dominant narrative that lawful, licensed firearm owners are the primary drivers of gun violence is not supported by evidence. It is politically convenient to some, but it is empirically false..What the evidence actually shows.One of the most comprehensive studies ever conducted on firearms and crime in South Africa was commissioned by the Civilian Secretariat for Police and undertaken by the Wits School of Governance. The study analysed detailed SAPS crime data over more than a decade, spanning periods before and after the introduction of the Firearms Control Act.Its central finding is unambiguous:“The Firearms Control Act is not sufficient to reduce firearm-related crime in the absence of strong policing.”This matters because it dismantles a core assumption behind repeated calls for tighter civilian firearm restrictions. Where violent crime declined in South Africa, it did so during periods of focused, intelligence-led, resource-intensive policing, most notably around the 2008–2011 FIFA World Cup period. When those strategies were withdrawn, violent crime rose again, even though the law remained unchanged.Legislation did not drive sustained safety. Policing did.The same research found that the Firearms Control Act is relevant to less than 5% of all crimes reported to SAPS. Even within violent crime, firearms are not the dominant weapon. In murders, for example, firearms are used in roughly a third of cases. Knives, blunt objects and other means account for the majority.Violent crime is not synonymous with firearms. Treating it as such is analytically incorrect and leads to policy choices that target symptoms rather than causes..Lawful owners are not the source of criminal guns.Another persistent claim is that licensed civilian firearm owners are a major source of guns used in crime. Again, the evidence contradicts this.The Wits research shows that the profile of firearms used in crime mirrors the profile of lost and stolen firearms, particularly those originating from state sources, rather than the profile of licensed civilian ownership. This is reinforced by recent parliamentary replies and SAPS annual performance data, which confirm that hundreds of SAPS-issued firearms are lost or stolen every year, with recovery rates stabilising at around 20%.The study notes:“Most lost or stolen firearms are never recovered, effectively becoming a permanent part of the illegal firearms pool.”That is not a failure of civilian compliance. It is a failure of state control, accountability and consequence management.When police-issued firearms are lost, stolen or diverted through corruption, they do not disappear. They circulate for years in criminal networks, resurfacing in armed robberies, gang violence and murders. Restricting lawful civilian ownership does nothing to disrupt that supply chain..Gang violence is a policing failure, not a licensing failure.Nowhere is this clearer than in the Western Cape, where gang violence has become entrenched. Research by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime shows that gang violence is highly localised, concentrated in specific neighbourhoods, and sustained by organised criminal economies involving drugs, extortion and illegal firearms.The GI-TOC describes these areas as “clusters of violence” and notes that gangs thrive where policing is weak, compromised or corrupt. Firearms used by gangs are sourced through illicit markets, theft from state stockpiles, corrupt officials and the recirculation of seized weapons.Law-abiding civilians are not arming gangs. Criminal networks are.The same research points to promising results from hotspot policing and intelligence-led interventions, precisely the kind of policing South Africa once implemented with success, and then abandoned..Self-defence in a low-trust policing environment.Against this backdrop, proposals to remove self-defence as a legitimate reason for firearm ownership must be examined honestly.South Africa has some of the lowest detection and conviction rates for serious violent crime in the world. Response times in many communities are measured in hours, not minutes. For large parts of the country, especially rural areas and gang-affected urban neighbourhoods, the state is not a reliable first responder.The Wits research is explicit that effective firearm control depends on a functioning criminal justice system. Where that system is weak, removing lawful means of self-defence does not create safety, it creates vulnerability.Expecting citizens to surrender their last line of defence while the state fails to meet its constitutional obligation to protect them is neither reasonable nor ethical..The role of civil society and responsible ownership.It is also important to acknowledge the constructive role played by civil society organisations such as the South African Gunowners’ Association (SAGA), Natshoot and others. These organisations represent thousands of responsible firearm owners who comply with the law, undergo competency training, adhere to strict safe-storage requirements and engage meaningfully in policy processes.Their submissions consistently call for evidence-based policymaking, improved policing, stronger control over state firearms, and a clear distinction between lawful ownership and criminal misuse. They support regulation. What they oppose is regulation that is disconnected from evidence and blind to criminal reality.This position is reinforced by analysis from Firearms Guardian, which has played a critical role in unpacking the real implications of recent firearm policy proposals..What the Firearms Control Amendment Bill actually does.According to Firearms Guardian’s analysis of the revived Firearms Control Amendment Bill, the proposed changes are not minor technical adjustments. They represent a fundamental shift in the purpose of lawful firearm ownership.The Bill removes self-defence as a recognised justification, expands discretionary power within the Central Firearms Register, and narrows legal certainty for compliant owners, while doing little to address illegal firearm supply.Firearms Guardian warns:“The proposed amendments do not target criminal firearm possession. They instead target lawful ownership by design, making compliance more difficult while doing little to disrupt illegal supply.”This aligns directly with the findings of the Wits research. If firearm-dependent crimes are driven by organised criminal supply chains, corruption and state leakage, then legislation aimed at compliant owners is misdirected from the outset..Responsible ownership saves lives.In a companion analysis, Firearms Guardian directly challenges the assumption that lawful firearm ownership increases harm. Instead, it highlights the stabilising effect of responsible, trained and legally protected ownership, particularly in environments where state protection is delayed, inconsistent or absent.Licensed firearm owners are among the most regulated civilians in the country. They are vetted, trained, periodically reassessed and subject to severe penalties for non-compliance.Firearms Guardian notes:“Responsible, trained and legally protected firearm ownership saves lives, particularly in environments where state protection is delayed, inconsistent or absent.”This reflects lived reality. Defensive firearm use does not always appear in crime statistics, because deterrence, escape and prevention often involve no shots fired. But for victims who survive because they could defend themselves, those outcomes are profoundly real..Constitutional risk and erosion of trust.Firearms Guardian also raises a point that deserves serious public attention: the constitutional risk embedded in these proposals.Removing self-defence as a lawful purpose while the state demonstrably fails to provide effective protection raises questions about the rights to life, dignity, bodily integrity and security of the person. These are not abstract legal debates. They are practical realities in a high-crime society.When citizens are told they may not reasonably protect themselves, while being unable to rely on the state to do so, the social contract erodes. Trust declines. Compliance weakens. Legitimacy is lost.That is not a path to safety. It is a path to alienation..When policy becomes ideology.At some point, limiting lawful self-defence ceases to be a public-safety intervention and becomes a policy failure.The Wits School of Governance warned more than a decade ago against what it called a “misplaced, unconditional faith” in firearm control legislation. That warning has proven prescient. Disarming the compliant while illegal markets flourish does not reduce violence. It merely redistributes risk.South Africa’s gun violence crisis is real. But its causes are systemic: weak policing, poor accountability, organised crime, corruption and state firearm leakage. Lawful civilian firearm owners are not the drivers of this crisis..The Democratic Alliance’s position.The Democratic Alliance will oppose any attempt to remove self-defence as a legitimate reason for firearm ownership.We will fight these proposals in Parliament. We will challenge them in public. And if necessary, we will take them to court.This is not ideological posturing. It is a commitment to evidence, constitutional rights and the safety of ordinary South Africans. Policy must be grounded in facts, not slogans. It must address the real drivers of violence, not create the illusion of action by targeting those who comply with the law.If government is serious about reducing gun violence, it should start where the evidence tells us to start: secure state firearms, root out corruption, dismantle criminal supply chains, strengthen intelligence-led policing, and improve detection and conviction rates.Until then, removing lawful self-defence will not make South Africa safer. It will simply make an already dangerous country more unequal in who gets to protect themselves.This is a conversation the public deserves to have honestly, with all the evidence on the table.

Ian Cameron: Why disarming law-abiding South Africans won’t stop gun violence

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