Illegal weapons to blame for SA beating even America when it comes to gun violence

With the world reeling from news of America’s latest school shooting where at least 19 primary school children were killed, SA still has higher gun deaths than the US with its lax gun laws.

The US has the 32nd-highest rate of deaths from gun violence in the world: 3.96 deaths per 100 000 people in 2019, more than eight times higher as the rate in Canada, which had 0.47 deaths per 100 000 people – and nearly 100 times higher than the United Kingdom’s 0.04 deaths per 100 000, npr.org reported on Wednesday.

The US has had 19 school attacks with 28 deaths this year alone, with SA experiencing five school shootings since 1994, resulting in eight deaths.

But SA has earned the dubious honour of outgunning the US with 5.28 deaths per 100 000 people in 2019, according to research.

Will stricter firearm controls help bring down the murder rate in SA?

Director of community safety at Action Society Ian Cameron said SA has remarkably high gun violence – but also remarkably high violence in general.

“A lot of guns which are used for gang violence or murders usually come from the SA Police Sevice. We very often see that Z88s are used, which is an old police service pistol,” he claimed.

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“In cash-in-transit heists, the R5s used are also police-issued. Often weapons handed in by the public or stored at police evidence safes are found at crime scenes,” Cameron said.

Between 2005 and 2017, 26 025 firearms which were issued to police officers were stolen or could simply not be accounted for.

And Cameron said between 2005 and 2015, a police officer flooded the Cape Flats with more than 9 000 firearms.

“It’s not the guns that are a problem, but that they are so easily available to criminals in this violent country. Violence in SA is out of control and many of us have accepted it as a norm.

“Police Minister Bheki Cele has been focusing on legal gun owners. But legal gun owners lose less guns than the Saps,” Cameron said.

Criminologist Dr Guy Lamb said a University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation study showed SA has a huge problem with the loss and theft of firearms, with many diverted into the illegal sector, making them easily available for criminals.

“So most gun crimes like murders were committed with illegal guns – but those guns started off as legal and registered,” he said.

“It is the combination of the availability of illegal guns and a large population of individuals who want to use those guns for crime.”

Lamb said over the past few years, a lot of those guns landed in the hands of gangs and had been used in murders in Cape Town and Gqeberha.

“But if we were to do a city by city comparison, it would be very different, because we have cities like Detroit and quite more others in the US, which have much higher levels of gun violence than our cities.

It is very important to bear that in mind,” he added.

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“The US has a very large population and looking at data from certain cities within the US, it shows they have much higher levels of gun violence than South African cities do.

“So because it’s for the entire country, it means their levels of gun violence are much lower than, for example, South Africa that traditionally has much higher levels of gun violence because of the population relative to gun crime.”

Lamb said while the country could have stricter gun control measures in practice, with stricter legislation, if it’s not properly implemented, it would not make a difference.