Proliferation of illegal guns threatens state security

The increase in illicit and stolen guns – including large calibre firepower stolen and robbed from law enforcement agencies – are not only fuelling violent crime, but experts have warned that they could also be used during protests against the state.

“What is going to happen at the end of the day is that when there is more illegal firearms or state-owned firearms then you are going to have a situation where it leads to internal rioting against the state. There are lots of possibilities,” Attorney and gun law expert Heinrich Gonzales warned on Tuesday.

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This comes against the backdrop of police top brass admitting that they lacked the capacity to effectively respond to the July riots that left more than 300 people dead and resulted unprecedented destruction of property.

Besides costing both private and state bodies billions in damages and loss of property, the protests also resulted in many communities taking the law into their own hands, after police proved impotent in containing the violence.

Lawmakers targeting the wrong gun owners

Gonzales said the worrying trend was that instead of targeting illegal guns, the state continued targeting legal gun owners to shift the attention off police firearm management failures, and that this gave power to the criminal elements who are capable of anything.

Gonzales said illegal firearm owners and criminals will never be disarmed by stricter gun laws. Instead, the result of a clampdown on them will inevitably lead to the further destabilisation of South Africa and shift all the power to the illegal firearms owners and criminals.

The guns that get stolen from SAPS and SANDF, eventually find their way to armed robbers, murderers, cash-in-transit syndicates, farm attackers, and looters, causing the deaths of innocent people.

“The looming catastrophe is when the illegal firearm community becomes better armed and organised than the legal gun owner, SA Police Service, and SA National Defence Force together. This is a recipe for a complete disaster as the state will be incapable of protecting the citizens of SA should this lead to an internal war driven by the illegal gun owners,” he said.

Gonzales also pointed to the inability of SAPS to protect citizens recently exposed in the KZN riots and looting as an example of this.

State Capture pushback

Gonzales’ sentiments were echoed by political analyst and social commentator Solly Masilela, who said it should be noted that the June riots were orchestrated by those against the arrest of former President Jacob Zuma.

He said there were warnings of plans to render the country ungovernable ahead of Zuma’s arrest and the threat was carried out without much opposition.

“Remember this has its roots in ANC’s internal divisions and we have very senior leaders of the party implicated in state capture. [ANC NEC Member] Joel Netshitenzhe did warn that those facing jail time for state capture will not take this lying down and will fight back,” Masilela said.

“Also we are seeing this happening, for example with the sabotage on Eskom.”

He said there were well trained elements that would do anything for money, and that it was worrying that law enforcement agencies have seemingly not learned from the June riots, as evidenced by the continued lax security at police station armouries.

“President Cyril Ramaphosa was correct to say it was an insurrection and this was orchestrated by those taken out of power, facing jail time and nothing will stop them from employing a counter strategy. Rioting against the state using the very guns stolen from the state is not farfetched, it is as real threat,” he said.

How did we get here?

According to Christiaan Bezuidenhout, Professor in the University of Pretoria’s Department of Social Work and Criminology, mismanagement, a lack of good leadership, no trust in or respect for the police by the community, corruption, and political chess games got SA to this dangerous point.

She said in addition to the inability of politicians to see how the country was slipping into anarchy, they were allowing thugs to rule the streets.

“Unfortunately the focus of the legislator, politicians, and the police is on the regulation of firearms of the legitimate citizen (hand in weapons and very strict control) with firearm licences, but I believe a large portion of our problem lies with poor firearms control in government agencies,” Bezuidenhout lamented.

She said other than guns stolen from the police, many illegal weapons were smuggled in from neighbouring countries previously engaged in armed struggles, resulting in many weapons being available on the black-market for cheap.

What needs to be done?

Bezuidenhout said police do not have the “bite” they need in a notoriously violent country, saying that if they were professionally trained, police members would not need all these checks and balances thrown at the current police cohort.

“Ensure compulsory in-service training and change policing to a professional career choice. Sporadic fitness and drug tests as well as the provision of sound mental health support is important. In the interim, police stations need to beef up security like CCTV monitoring, guard police stations and enforce access control,” she said.

• siphom@citizen.co.za