On Target Africa Magazine Get familiar with the current goings on with regards to firearms and CFR. Let's stand together and stop being divided due to ignorance and ego!
On Target Africa publishes this article in the July/August edition print and online version but here it is now, 10th July 2019. What can you do? Read on.
SAAADA News
By Jonathan Fouché, Chairman of SAAADA
The South African Arms and Ammunition Dealers’ Association (SAAADA) represents the interests of the South African firearm trade, including gun dealers, manufacturers, importers, and gunsmiths.
I’m writing this in mid-winter. Nice and cold in Gauteng, but the heat is on. The heat is on for the Central Firearms Registry (CFR), which must soon please explain in court. As 5 August draws ever nearer, the CFR grows increasingly dysfunctional. We trust that things will change after our day in court.
Due to its ongoing contempt of Court, perhaps some senior staff members will be enjoying the cosy confines of secure accommodation somewhere in Pretoria Central. But I digress, so let’s review just what’s going on and what’s not.
SAP 350 Fiasco
Prospective firearm owners are familiar with the SAP 350 Fiasco, the inability of the CFR to process dealer stock returns and correctly reflect each firearm on the selling dealer’s stock code (on the CFR computer system). Until the firearm reflects correctly on the CFR computer system, applicants are prevented from submitting firearm licence applications. Ongoing since late 2017, the SAP 350 Fiasco remains, well, a fiasco that lies squarely with CFR and not your dealer.
When buying a new firearm from a SAAADA member, please remember that you and the dealer are in the same boat. You both want a successful licence application. You both want years of enjoyment from that purchase. So, please be patient and don’t blame the dealer for the firearm not yet being on its stock.
The Firearms Control Act (FCA) requires that a dealer must physically possess the firearm before he (or she) may complete the licence application forms for you. If they have it, the dealer may sell it to you. Keeping the paper trail up to date is the job of the SAPS and CFR, and they have failed miserably. What makes the SAP 350 Fiasco worse is the CFR’s ongoing denial that it even exists!
So, join your dealer on this journey, be patient – while ensuring you still get the service you deserve – as you and the dealer fight the good fight together to get your application submitted. It is just a matter of time.
SAAADA Court Challenge
As reported previously, after wasting countless hours trying to talk to the CFR – we were simply ignored – SAAADA was forced to institute legal proceedings to, among other things, compel the CFR to process SAP 350 Dealer Stock Return forms properly, and to implement the electronic connectivity (Dealer to CFR) required by the FCA. The complex, wide-reaching SAAADA case is aimed at increasing your chances of successfully applying for a firearm licence, and at improving the efficiency of this cumbersome process.
Following a meeting in February, facilitated by the Deputy Judge President of the Pretoria High Court, the Honourable Judge AP Ledwaba, the opposing attorneys proposed a two-part solution regarding electronic connectivity. Sadly, it was mere lip service – again – and never progressed beyond the initial proposal.
As 5 August draws ever nearer, the CFR grows increasingly dysfunctional. We trust that things will change after our day in court.
Barrels – another challenge
The CFR created another challenge in May when it unilaterally decided that it is no longer allowed to change the barrel on a firearm. Not by gunsmiths – not by anyone. Not just worn-out barrels, not just when changing calibre, but not even when your barrel breaks due to an accident or other malfunction.
The premise of legislation is that unless something is specifically prohibited by law, it is permitted. The CFR has a different approach; it will not allow a barrel change since the FCA does not specifically state that a barrel may be changed. What’s more, one of the defined goals of the FCA is to limit the proliferation of firearms. By failing to allow a barrel change, thus keeping the same firearm going, the CFR is increasing the proliferation of firearms – again contravening the FCA – since worn-out firearms will need to be replaced with more firearms, rather than being repaired. You can’t make this stuff up!
SAAADA is challenging this irrational decision in court, too, and initiated an urgent case in early June. The legal urgency is to prevent gunsmiths from losing their businesses. I’m extremely appreciative that many associations and businesses have already contributed financially to this endeavour!
IPID (Independent Police Investigative Directorate)
Since the route through the courts is slow, to try and accelerate some relief in the SAP 350 Fiasco, SAAADA also laid a complaint with the Independent Police Investigative Directorate (IPID). With an abundance of evidence to support SAAADA’s case, we were excited that this route may receive urgent attention. Then Minister of Police Bheki Cele did not renew Robert McBride’s contract as head of the IPID. Unsurprisingly, nothing further has happened.
Civilian Secretary of Police
Various members of the United Firearms Forum (UFF), including SAAADA, met with the Civilian Secretary of Police (CSoP), and his team, on 22 March. Various issues were discussed, including how changes in legislation take place. SAAADA used the opportunity to clearly highlight all of our various issues with the CFR, from the lack of dialogue and the CFR simply paying us lip service, to the SAP 350 Fiasco, irrational licence refusals, import and export problems, and more.
Unsurprisingly, the minutes drafted by the CSoP missed most of our complaints. Thankfully the UFF team was prepared, and produced a more comprehensive set of minutes, but I doubt that the CSoP passed that information up the chain of command.
Since the March meeting, we have attempted to correspond further, to no avail. We have seen no tangible action from the CSoP – he effectively ignored all the complaints and issues we raised.
Import and Export Permits
A SAAADA member has a court order that the CFR shall decide on import and export permits within 21 days. Guess what? This just does not happen. Even following the delays due to the SAP 350 Fiasco, export permits generally take months to be decided, not weeks. Import permits are sometimes quicker, but are frequently hampered by irrational, ultra vires requirements like supplying a Rand value of a foreign currency invoice. What hour of what day on the Forex roller coaster would you use to select a rate?
I specifically include this here to illustrate how the CFR continues to operate with impunity. Despite our team recording the win in court, the CFR just does what it likes, in contempt of a court order. There does not (yet) appear to be any way to give teeth to such a court order.
Gunsmoke; a breath of fresh air
On 26 June, two importers and distributors of nitro-cellulose propellant notified its dealers that SAPS Explosives had instructed that the distributors may not supply dealers with propellant unless they were also registered/licenced with SAPS Explosives.
This instruction was clearly in contravention of the still-valid Regulations to the Explosives Act of 1956, as amended, which allows that a dealer’s licence is deemed to be an explosives licence for the purposes of nitro-cellulose propellant (such as Somchem, Vihtavuori, Hodgdon or Norma).
While it is a relatively simple process to register with SAPS Explosives, the situation was unacceptable, coming without warning las it did. After SAAADA took up this issue with SAPS Explosives the next day, it conceded that its communications had, perhaps, been too vigorous and a tad hasty. It got ahead of the game in anticipation of the amended Explosives Act coming into effect, which has been on the table for a decade to date.
The propellant distributors were contacted immediately, and advised that dealers should be encouraged to register with SAPS Explosives ahead of the new Explosives Act, but that distributors could continue supplying dealers with licences under the FCA (without the dealer also holding an explosives licence).
It was such a pleasure to deal with a competent part of the SAPS, and to be able to remedy an error with a simple phonecall. Well done, SAPS Explosives!
Incompetence or Political Plan?
It appears increasingly clear that the vast array of problems that we are experiencing in all aspects of firearms are not due to incompetence. Simply put, incompetence cannot be that bad nor that consistent.
All the higher powers that we have appealed to for help have just ignored our pleas. The National Commissioner ignored us (no response), the Minister of Police ignored us (no response), the then Chairman of the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Police Francois Beukman (subsequently replaced by Ms Tina Joemat-Petterssen, acknowledged receipt of our communication, only then to ignore us.
We met face-to-face with the CSoP and his team. Despite clearly presenting all the ultra vires activities at the CFR, the CSoP has done nothing, and remains derelict in his legislated duties of oversight.
Facing this, I can only conclude that the highest policy-making body in the land is driving an agenda to make legal firearm ownership as difficult as possible. That body is the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the ruling party. Looking back, things truly fell apart from January 2018, just a few weeks after the ruling party elected a new leader. Coincidence? You decide …
What can you do?
There are a few ways that each individual firearm owner can contribute to this fight, and the greater fight for firearm ownership.
Firstly, join an association that is fighting for firearm rights. Find one that that resonates with you, be it a collecting, hunting or sports-shooting association, or a lobby group like SAGA or GOSA. Professionals could be members of their associations, whether they are dealers, gunsmiths, trainers, professional hunters, or are active in the private security industry. Representation matters, and each association is stronger when it represents more members. Feel free to join more than one!
Each association also requires funds to operate, and funds to support legal challenges and other initiatives. While not every association initiates its own legal challenge, SAAADA appreciates the many financial supporters of our cases. So, donate whatever you can to your association, and encourage it to support those fights already underway.
Be heard
Take the time to contact your local Councillor and explain in a rational way why they should actively support firearm rights. Do the same when you contribute via social media, or the formal media. Be friendly and polite, avoid racial or gender-based issues, and avoid being a gung-ho Rambo filled with bravado, ready to shoot everything. Just make the case that various studies around the world have shown that guns save lives more than they take innocent lives.
Formal and informal studies have shown that guns are used to protect victims anywhere from three times to ten times more often than they are used to take the lives of innocent victims. In many of these cases no one is hurt, so the event goes unreported – thus explaining the wide range (three to ten) of the benefits.
Of those killed by guns in South Africa, some will be innocent victims, some will be not-so-innocent victims (e.g. gang-on-gang violence), and some will be the end-result of a successful defence. Whatever the number of those killed by guns, many, many others are alive today because they had a gun when they needed one.
It's better to have a gun and not need it, than to need a gun and not have one!
Jonathan Fouché is Chairman of SAAADA. Tel. (011) 680-7223 or email saada@mweb.co.za for further information. ... See more
