BRIEFING 1 of 2025: Gun-related femicide in SA over 25 years – A call to action
To mark International Women’s Day on 8 March we focus on the most extreme form of violence against women – their murder.
With 15 women killed every day, new research and police crime statistics show the extent to which SA’s femicide crisis is driven by gun violence:
- Guns are the leading weapon used to murder women, with the proportion of women […]
BRIEFING 1 of 2024: Record-keeping is a crime fighting tool
As gun crime in SA reaches levels not seen since the nineties, some police records show a significant spike – of between 130% and 180% – in the number of state guns since 2016.
- If accurate, what measures have been put in place to prevent loss, theft and misuse of state guns which have almost trebled in number in the […]
BRIEFING 2 of 2023: Functional Central Firearms Registry key to dealing with illegal guns in SA
South Africa’s Central Firearms Registry (CFR) has the potential to be a powerful crime-fighting tool: If effectively managed – in line with SA’s legal and political obligations – it would help stop legal guns leaking into criminal hands.
However, SAPS sees the CFR as an administrative function, and has repeatedly squandered opportunities to address historic, systemic and persistent dysfunction.
Should the CFR […]
BRIEFING 1 of 2023: Class action aims for police accountability in firearms management
In February 2023 GFSA gave official notice that class action proceedings were to be instituted on behalf of affected families to hold the police accountable for deaths and injuries resulting from failed police-controlled firearms management systems.
This Briefing provides additional information on the class action, the ineffectuality of institutions to hold the police accountable, and the implications of this for firearms […]
BRIEFING 3 of 2022: Using the principle of limits to stop SA’s gun violence epidemic
The latest quarterly crime statistics confirm the gun violence epidemic in South Africa: 30 people were murdered with a gun every day between 1 April and 30 June 2022, up from 23 a day in 2019/20. Briefing 3 summarises the latest statistics on gun violence in South Africa, as well as studies that offer solutions to our gun violence epidemic.
BRIEFING 2 of 2022: Gun control, self-defence and public safety
Crime statistics for January to March 2022 confirm that violent crime in South Africa continues to rise.
In this context of high levels of crime, a weak criminal justice system, proposed amendments to tighten gun controls (including banning guns for self-defence), as well as forceful marketing by the firearms industry that guns are effective for self-defence, we can expect gun sales […]
