Arms and the Manne

I’ve been sitting here staring at my gun safe: a grey metal thing bolted to the floor and wall. It contains the essentials for survival in Africa – my trusty rifle and a bottle or two of brandy. Some locals go a bit further and also keep some biltong and a copy of the Bible in there but I’m not over fond of dried, hard meat, I’m an atheist and also a minimalist……the bare necessities jy weet.

The choice of alcohol may change from region to region and from white tribe to other white tribe. It used to be Kommando Brandy but Klipdrift – Klippies – has become the connoisseurs choice – and so it should be as it’s railed all the way from the Cape and is thus guaranteed to be at least one day old. Nothing then like an evening with your mates and a dop ‘n dam or three and a discussion on how cheeky the natives have become since they let Mandela out. Not like the old days but at least we can still wave our guns about and talk about the army and the Border and how some Major-General arrived for a morning to inspect our camp and got so pissed he had to stay for three days. No doubt Klippies again – you could keep it in the mortars on the tanks.

But I have digressed and given those ignorant overseas people the wrong idea about white South Africans.

The reason I was staring at my armoury is that I have to run the gauntlet of the new Firearms Act (or whatever it’s called). All licensed gun-owners have, over the next four years, to attempt to re-licence their firearms. This is a complex procedure involving proving the need to own a gun, convincing the authorities of its safe storage and undertaking and passing a proficiency test and a few other bits and pieces. The ultimate aim is to make it very difficult to (legally) possess a firearm.

Firstly I agree that there are too many guns in South African. I also agree that too many people own weapons they cannot handle or even know when they can legally use them. I have also accepted that I will not get my two guns re-licensed and will have to dispose of them. All well and good.

I believe however that once again the authorities and law-makers have not thought the matter through. There must be approximately four million or so licensed firearms out there. To implement the provisions of the Act a million applications will have to be considered each year during the re-licensing period. Given that there are approximately 220 working days a year it requires a processing rate of 4545 per day – for four years! Some wags have said in the press that based on the past rate of application processing it will take 50 years to complete the task.

Chaos and a growing backlog will force a re-think. I believe that eventually a combination of making it almost impossible to obtain a new licence, a staged re-licensing process over a longer period and natural attrition amongst gun-owners will achieve the result needed – less guns. My guess is 10 to 15 years being more realistic.

But then what about all those unlicensed firearms? We need far more than amnesties reliant on the goodwill of criminals…….