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 […]
BRIEFING 1 of 2022: Femicide in South Africa over 18 years
Femicide – the murder of women and girls – is the most extreme form of violence, and shows a country’s magnitude of violence against women.
South Africa’s third national femicide study looks at how femicide has changed over an 18 year period, comparing data from 1999, 2009 and 2017.
The findings of the Medical Research Council’s 2017 femicide study include that:
- While SA’s […]
BRIEFING 4 of 2021: A snapshot of injury-related death in SA in 2017
Briefing 4 summarises South Africa’s 2nd injury mortality survey which analyses 2017 mortuary data. The survey gives a snapshot of who, how, where and when people died including detailed information on the weapon used in murder or suicide.
The main findings of the 2017 injury mortality survey include that:
‒ More people were murdered than died […]
BRIEFING 3 of 2021: The illegal firearms trade in South Africa
In May 2021 the Civilian Secretariat for Police Service published a draft Firearms Control Amendment Bill. With almost 100 proposed amendments, a key focus of the Bill is to control legal firearms and ammunition more effectively. This Briefing explores whether that approach will have an impact on the illegal firearms trade in South Africa, and is based on a recently […]
BRIEFING 2 of 2021: SA’s Central Firearms Register – The collapsing cornerstone of gun control
On 14 and 15 May the Portfolio Committee on Police is conducting an oversight visit in Gauteng, where members will visit the Central Firearms Registry (CFR) in Pretoria. Briefing 2 has been developed in preparation for this oversight visit to highlight that problems in the functioning of the CFR identified in 2010 have still not been dealt with eleven years […]
BRIEFING 1 of 2021: The firearms amnesty has ended, does SAPS know where the guns are?
Three days before the 2020-21 national firearms amnesty ended, the SAPS reported that just 40,729 firearms had been handed in, either for destruction or by gun owners with expired licences applying for new licences. Assuming that all the firearms handed in had expired licences, this is only 9% of the 450,000+ firearms which the Supreme Court of Appeal estimated were […]
