Andre Garber writes:
With reference to the proposed Firearms Control Act amendment laws, the following needs to be said:
Since time began humans have been killing other humans, and in fact any other living thing. The means of choice has been guns, knives, sticks, stones and even bare hands or feet.
The entire contents of a cutlery drawer, tool box, workshop or garden shed provide wide ranging choice. The reasons are just as varied – jealousy, greed, anarchy and ‘legal’ reasons such as war, religious fervour or police action.
The simple fact of the matter is people kill, not inanimate objects such as guns, knives, sticks or stones.
The proposed microdotting, ballistic test firing of guns in legal ownership, by law abiding citizens, will cause these citizens huge financial and time burden. Furthermore, it will cause further financial and administrative burden to the state and by implication to the taxpayer.
It is dim-witted to believe that these actions would prevent guns from being stolen, curing people’s innate desire to kill or steal, or make any crime where an illegal gun is used easier to investigate or prosecute. An exercise in futility.
As an extension to this futility, is there intent to microdot, forensically test every knife, screwdriver, axe, garden tool, and knobkerrie?
There are quite sufficient, if not excessive, laws already governing legal gun ownership. It is telling that pre the current gun control act, pre 94, there was not rampant gun-related crime. Also, the serial number of a gun can often be recovered even if the surface metal is filed away and the number is not visible to the naked eye, by distortion to the underlying metal produced by the stamping of the serial number.
Legal guns become illegal guns, purely by the desire of people to steal them and the state’s inability and/or unwillingness to protect its citizens.
The ballistic information would merely point to the last legal owner, after the fact, after the crime has been committed with the illegal gun, if the gun is recovered. In the case of shotguns and .22 calibre, the ballistics of the pellets or bullets are of minimal or no use.
Furthermore it is the current government that was/is the largest purveyor of illegal guns. Where are all the illegally imported guns from the period pre ’94. It is the police who ‘lose’ on average two guns per day, as recently reported. Many recent domestic shootings were also committed by policemen. It is patently obvious that the current government is unable to manage the behaviour of people, themselves or projects of any magnitude, as evidenced by the current state of the CFR, Eskom, SAA and others.
This persecution of legal gun owners is unwarranted and misplaced. These resources could be better used elsewhere.
Solutions to our pervasively dishonest society lie elsewhere, starting from the top.
Editor’s note: Letter published unedited.
