Some readers of (or occasional visitors to) this Blog were rather upset when I wrote that I believed the state had both a duty and a right to place severe restrictions on the possession of firearms by private individuals.
“What about our right to life and property!” they shouted. “Without these killing machines we will not be able to shoot and kill the bastards who run around committing crime! How very dare you! The impertinence! Taking away our guns is like taking away our bibles, our boerewors and our rugby heroes!” [No mention of Joost snorting Cat while having sexual relations with THAT woman is allowed either.....]. “Really, next you would force us all to become vegetarians!”
Interestingly, the Institute of Security Studies (ISS) has published some statistics this week which would come in handy if the constitutionality of a law severely restricting the private possession of firearms, is ever challenged in court. As I have argued, although such a law may infringe on some of the rights in the Bill of Rights, the state would almost certainly be able to convince a court that the limitation is justifiable in terms of section 36 of the Constitution because it is reasonable in an open and democratic society based on human dignity, equality and freedom.
In justifying any limitation of rights, the state would be able to quote the following statistics collated by the ISS to bolster its case.
In recent research exploring the dynamics of house robberies and robbers, Dr. Rudolph Zinn of Unisa found that 97% of respondents used firearms in the commission of their crime. More than half of these perpetrators reported personally stealing licenced firearms. Although over the past nine years South Africans have seen a general decline in overall levels of crime, the categories of business robberies, house robberies, and car hijacking have all increased considerably.
Due to their violent and interpersonal nature, government views this “trio” of crimes as disproportionately responsible for citizen perceptions and fear of crime, and has thus prioritized them. It is not surprising that according to the SAPS, firearms were used in the commission of 87% of business robberies, 77% of house robberies and 57% of street robberies in the 2008/09 financial year. Firearms also play a significant role in murder in South Africa. Research into murder trends conducted by the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation in 2008 found 54% of 1149 murders were committed using firearms.
This trend mirrors data in the National Injury Mortality Surveillance System which show that 53% of murders between 2000-2004 were committed using firearms. It has previously been found that between 1994 and 2003, a staggering 208 090 firearms were lost by, or stolen from licensed gun owners.
The state would therefore be able to argue that because so many firearms have been stolen from licensed gun owners (almost 210 000 over ten years!) and because so many violent crimes were committed with these stolen (but licensed) firearms, it was entirely reasonable and hence constitutional to place a severe restriction on the possession of privately owned firearms. If fewer people were allowed to own firearms, there would be fewer firearms for the criminals to steal. Criminals would have less access to firearms and would therefore not be able to engage in as much firearm-related violent crime.
This seems to me – given the statistics mentioned above – a slam dunk constitutional law argument. Before the gun-lovers go wild with fury, let me just say that this argument is not dependent on showing that the few gun owners who manage to hold on to their licensed firearms, use these firearms responsibly (merely shooting the odd stray dog, say, killing one’s wife and children in self-defense or shooting a dangerous criminal wielding a bread knife).
To pass constitutional muster the state will only have to show that it is reasonable for the state to make a link between a severe restriction on private gun ownership on the one hand, and the need to keep firearms out of the hands of dangerous criminals on the other. These figures show there are at least 208 090 ways in which the state can prove this link.
End of story.
I don’t and won’t own a gun, and won’t have them brought onto my farm. However, I know a couple of my neighbours own pistols, and I’m very sure others do. One of my more distant neighbours is alarmingly famous for nighttime rifle-firing into the bush, crazy stuff.
None of these people are dangerous themselves, not even my local maniac, really. They and I believe it when they say they merely want to defend themselves. One neighbour, even, has been on expert handgun courses, so he might even be capable of self-defense…
Now it seems that one of the main goals of violent crime on farms is theft of guns. Farm attackers know that there are guns, so they come looking. These are not men who are inclined to worry overmuch about the risks involved in facing an armed farmer – if they were, given the prevalence of guns on farms, farm attacks would be much less common. No, they come anyway.
They view the gun in the farmer’s hands not as a threat but as a target. Owning a gun is effectively baiting your farm with something the criminals want.
Now, even though I don’t own a gun, the criminals won’t know that. I don’t own a gun, so I can’t defend myself. But from the point of view of the attackers, I ’should’ own a gun (I’m a farmer, after all), so they will attack anyway.
I’m exposed to a risk of attack both because I might own a gun, and because I don’t own a gun. This is what irritates me with the pro-gun lobby, because their views place law-abiding unarmed citizens in the firing line. It’s terribly inconsiderate.
So let’s get rid of the gun bait.
Grab the Coke and popcorn, and sit back for the sequel…
wonder how many of those lost weapons were taken off or lost by SAPS members?
“a staggering 208 090 firearms were lost by, or stolen from licensed gun owners”.
Losers!
spoiler says:
November 6, 2009 at 12:25 pm
wonder how many of those lost weapons were taken off or lost by SAPS members?
——————————————————————————————————-
“However, earlier in 2008, the then Ministry of Safety and Security revealed in parliament that 8 286 previously recovered firearms were lost by the SAPS in the past three years. Only 900 of these were recovered. Additionally, between April and March 2008 the SAPS had 329 state firearms stolen and lost another 183. Theft and loss of high caliber weapons such as the R-series rifles are of particular concern as these are increasingly used in unison with AK47s in brazen cash heists and business robberies. Ironically state weapons in the hands of criminals are increasingly responsible for the deaths of SAPS members to whom they are meant to be issued.”
http://www.polity.org.za/article/president-zuma-gun-ownership-and-what-the-crime-trends-tell-us-2009-11-04
“Some readers of (or occasional visitors to) this Blog were rather upset when I wrote that I believed the state had both a duty and a right to place severe restrictions on the possession of firearms by private individuals.”
Pierre, that is disingenuous.
Nobody has ever seriously argued – at least not that I have seen – that there should not be such restrictions. On the contrary, some of the pro-firearms people were saying that they are of the view that current tests applied to prospective firerarms applicants are insufficiently stringent.
The debate was much rather about the manner in which those restrictions are imposed and enforced and that I daresay you have never seriously dealt with either.
Pierre,
Are you really as stupid as you allow yourself to sound?
Your argument is infantile and as watertight as the Titanic.
You have based the entire piece on a portion of the research of Rudolf Zinn, as quoted by that ISS troll on Polity. Are you not capable of developing your own arguments? The Polity piece is, in its turn, a prototype for selective quoting and distorted conclusions.
Back to the books, Proffie, so far you’re failing this semester.
Wow DA Mal, let me see if I understand this right?
You refuse to take responsibility for your own safety (you don’t say just exactly who is going to protect you, but that’s another issue all together). Consequently, I therefore am inconsiderate for not particularly wanting to have my wfie & daughters raped or murdered & my property violated and stolen!
Have I got the gist of it?
Prof, as far as your infantile diatribe is concerned,
licenced firearm owners who, in your words:
“use these firearms responsibly (merely shooting the odd stray dog, say, killing one’s wife and children in self-defense or shooting a dangerous criminal wielding a bread knife).”
Go to jail. Simple.
And have their licences revoked.
And their weapons confiscated.
As you very well know, it is far easier and takes far less effort to act against a licenced gun-owner than an unknown criminal. And, as a bonus, you get to improve your “crime-fighting” statistics!
One wonders if you have even taken a moment of time to actually think your argument through? If you come to the conclusion that “guns that get stolen are used in crime, therefore no-one should be allowed to own a gun”, have you cinsidered the logical conclusion that the police & military should immediately have their weapons confiscated & destroyed? Or does the argument not count for them? Perhaps you should ask the question to the London bobbies that increasingly have to be armed to protect themselves from the gunwielding thugs that have blossomed since your brilliant ideas were implemented there!
Paul, thanks for the well-reasoned, coherent and logical reply. Maybe you would wish to expand a little on your brilliant argument – just for the sake of clarity. A few questions come immediately to mind: (i) Why is Zinn a “troll” and if he is one (a “troll” that is) how does that affect his research? Is a troll someone like a racist? Are you playing the troll card? (ii) What did Zinn quote selectively and do you perhaps have access to the original research from which he quotes with examples of the selective nature of the quoting? It would be facinating to see you develop your argument in this regard a bit more fully…. (iii) Why is Zinn’s conclusions distorted? (iv) Come to think of it, what are the conclusions that you speak of and are these the same constitutional law conclusions I make? (v) Would you perhaps wish – again merely for the sake of clarity – to elaborate on the reasoning behind your immensely helpful and well reasoned conclusion that I sound stupid – might it have anything to do with some personal experience regarding stupidity you might have? Have a great weekend!
Pierre,
Comprehension obviously is not one of your strengths. Now go read what I wrote again and you will see that I never referred to Zinn in a negative fashion at all, but I did refer to the ISS ‘researcher’ that selectively and partially quoted Zinn’s marketing material for his, as yet unpublished study, and arrived at some bizarre conclusions.
You have, in a breathtaking display of intellectual dishonesty, quoted this persons’ garbled work as if it is a reputable source. For shame.
Come, come, proffie your slip is showing!
Paul, care to answer the questions?
What question would that be, Pierre?
Pierre,
First, I’m not in the picture of your previous argument on the issue of gun laws in SA. Nonetheless, you argue that some rights may be infringed on some of the rights in the Bill of Rights (I assume “at the cost of others” of course). But whose rights are you talking about: the right of people to protect themselves in terms of those owning/possessing guns and/or are you talking about the right of gun owners to possess guns and/or are you talking about the right of a selected group of people wishing/dreaming of living in a gun-free society (if there is such a latter right anyway!)? It appears more of a question as to who dominates whom and who has the greater lobby rather thanit being a question of a basic human right to choose to have a gun or not which prevails? In this regard, you’ve not made out any substantive argument (at least not in this article!) whilst your argumentation is more than just subjective.
Second, I’m also not convinced the state would succeed in any case limiting the possession of guns for the reason/s mentioned by you i.e. the reliance on statistics instead of substantive argumentation on the constitutionality of a limitation on the possession of guns. I’d hope there’d be more substantive and constitutional reasons for such limitations than for your superficial reasons. The mere fact that the ISS published interesting statistics is by far no reason or basis to place any limitation on the use/possession of guns.
Third, your argument that placing a limitation on the use/ownership of guns would “reduce crime” (or at least lead to reducing gun-related crime). This argumentation is fallacious because your point of departure is erroneous. Limiting the use/ownership of guns will not lead to a reduction in gun-related crime anyway. It may even, given South Africa’s culture of violence, lead to it being driven into the “underground” in terms of which gun smuggling, dealing, stealing and the very “vices” you’re complaining about, may even increase. It lies in the nature of this type of ban: the moment you ban it, the stronger it will increase the “illegal and/or underground” proliferation of such act – we also know this from apartheid laws, actions and similar prohibitions.
It is sociologically probably sound to assert that the poorer a country, the more likely it is to run into problems of gun-related crime (e.g. SA). However, if you looked at Switzerland, a rich country and a country deeply rooted in a gun-culture, you’d see that Switzerland has about the lowest gun-related “statistics” in the world. The government even sells off surplus weaponry to the public. Switzerland therefore doesn’t run real statistics simply because gun-related incidents are so low that it is hardly worth mentioning respectively it is hardly worth the effort of running statistics on these incidences.
My point is: you’re looking at the symptom and not the cause when arguing in favour of a limitation on the use/ownership of guns since even a limitation on the use/ownership of guns will not reduce gun-related crime in SA and will not make SA gun-free or any safer. Your argumentaiton is therefore like Swiss cheese: full of holes.
Prof: I’m not sure why you have raised this issue a second time in a week, about guns et al. You know I love your posts, but it feels as though you are caught in emotion about this issue.
Its a fact, and there’s lots of hindsight in other countries to support my following comments; take away the guns from legal owners and only the citizen criminals have guns. Even if evil intentioned dudes can no longer steal them from the licensed owners (who no longer have them) or the police or military, or should I rather say purchase them from said bodies, these guns will be marketed into SA from other African countries. If you ban guns, who are the only people apart from military and police to possess them, one guess only.
I absolutely understand the desire for a gun free society. Hopefully, we will get there eventually, but it isn’t a viable reality today. When all this amnesty for guns started some years ago, one of my friends put it quite succinctly: ‘over my dead body’.
He still has his guns. Its not guns in the hands of legitimate owners, regardless of the occasional senseless murder of family or friends by legitimate users, that’s an aberration actually. In a balanced society, you simply cannot take away the survival imperative on the part of citizens to protect themselves and their loved ones. I know plenty of folk who feel living in SA is a matter of daily threat and survival.
In South Africa today, the only folk truly protected (apart from the super wealthy) are the corrupted elite with their well paid, tax paid bodyguards. So although I am somewhat liberal in most areas, in defence of gun ownership, I support it.
We can become too political correct, ya know.
Andy: great comment. We only need to look at any of the desired elements in society, once banned, then expanding exponentially, and always with the criminal element strenghtening their turf. Give a gift to criminals today. Ban something.
What would happen if tobacco was deemed illegal?
This is not the time, under Zuma and Julius, to be considering such things.
“fireararm”? “posession”?
What? Is UCT too cheap to spring for spellcheckers?
Now, Pukke, for instance? Where a culture of boerewors, rugby and Bibles is deeply entrenched? They develop spellcheckers which are used across the world!
Why does a nation insist on a mililtary and a police force? Why do we find it necessary to have such bodies? Surely we are all balanced enough and rational, not to need these rather obviously violent components within our society.
And yet we insist on them. Does anyone think they are unnecessary?
Why then, do we fail to see the need for similar protection within family and community bodies? Is a society not a sum total of its parts? Are the parts not a portion of the whole. Is the whole, as society, any different than the summation of all the parts within it?
Looking at this blog felt a bit like looking at the floor of my pigeon loft when I got home. Do I have to start scraping a third time today?
Actually, Sirjay, Pierre has entirely too much emotionally invested to give us a rational, dispassionate scholarly analysis. That is why we spanked him last time. An example being where he rushed to deny any SOURCED assertion I made. When I said that by engaging in the second stage of the inquiry he accepted that a prima facie case had been made out that gun owners’ fundamental rights were being infringed he exploded. Denied it. What does he blog here? “As I have argued, although such a law may infringe on some of the rights in the Bill of Rights, the state would almost certainly be able to convince a court that the limitation is justifiable…”
You see, Pierre is at war with the male stereotype of which he regards gun ownership as the quintessential manifestation. (Never mind that gun ownership benefits the weakest members of society most.) It clouds his judgement and his ability.
Blaming the victim. That is quite a leap.
The previous blog? Man, I have never giggled so much. This blog is going to be even more delightful because Pierre has unwittingly dragged in the persons responsible for cutting and pasting the Canadian Act which became our Billion-Rand black hole Firearms Control Act. For more information on how the $2-million Dollar Canadian Firearms Registry became what they call the 2 Billion-Dollar boondoggle you can see our website http://www.gunownerssa.org or access Canadian MP Gary Breitkreuz’ website.
Let the games begin!
I’m going to cheat. I’m tired of casting pearls before Maggs. What is the use of sourcing a fact and putting it before the Forum only to have it disappear in a cloud of emotional rhetoric and misinformed spoiler tactics?If you want to debate, answer these questions I put to the mindless ISS blogger first or sit down and shut up.
Did I imagine that the Western Cape High Court ruled that the conduct towards gun owners of the Minister of Police, his Department and the SAPS was unlawful and unconstitutional? Did I dream that the Court ordered the Minister and his Department to start rolling out compensation for surrendered firearms within three months? Has implementation of the Firearms Control Act ever been audited? Is it a figment of my imagination that this Act is going to end up costing South African taxpayers more than the Arms Deal? What percentage of gun owners took part in the licence renewal farce? What precedents are there for prosecuting the victims of crime rather than the perpetrators?How many crimes had Zinn’s respondents committed before they were caught? How many respondents were there, and what was done to ensure the interviewers appeared neutral given Zinn’s closeness to the gun prohibitionists? What is the rate at which gun owners commit a) intimate femicide b) violent property crimes with their licenced firearms? What is the rate at which members of the SAPS commit a) intimate femicide b) violent property crimes with their service firearms? What percentage of homicides in a) Italy b)Switzerland c)Germany d)Spain e) Sweden f) Finland are committed with firearms? What are the homicide rates in those respective countries?
Quite obvious that Prof De Vos is a little bit of his depth here, why else resort to such childish responses?
I’m really not trying to be obtuse, Pierre, but the questions you posed were based on a completely false assumption which renders them more or less pointless.
Quite honestly I have sympathy for the anti-firearm position you have chosen to adopt. It’s incredibly difficult to base any kind of argument on a complete lack of supporting facts such as pertains with the anti-gun position. You have to ignore reasoned debate and adopt a confrontational, blustering and bullying stance to prevent the absolute pausity of your logic shining through for all to see.
Good luck with the attempt though. It’s entertaining for us to watch you twisting in the breeze. Have a lekker weekend.
The crux of the previous debate can be found in the last paragraph: “In any case, even if one cannot prove that a ban on guns would bring down the crime rate, I would still support a ban on guns.” This time it is in the first paragraph: “…I believed the state had both a duty and a right to place severe restrictions on the possession of firearms by private individuals”. I see a huge difference between debating a ban on firearms, as in the first debate, and debating the constitutionality of restrictions of firearms, as is the case here. There the morality of the issue was under discussion, here it is the legal side of it.
I see people are getting very emotional, so I will do my best to give an objective view.
Firstly: Those who say that there should be a total ban on the private possession of firearms in the present day South Africa: I think you are out of touch with reality.
Secondly: Those who say there should no control over the possession of firearms: I think you are out of touch with reality.
A ban of fire arms are just not realistic, because many individuals need fire arms to protect themselves. Farmers working with domestic animals and game sometimes need to cull animals. When a rabit dog or meercat shows up on your farm you can’t run around, you must shoot the animal.
When it comes to control of possession: I don’t think any responsible firearm owner will say there should be no control at all. Just think what the result will be if all control measures are just scrapped today. I don’t think there are any country in the world where there are no measures controlling the possession of guns, perhaps with the exception of Somalia. The first thing: Next time Annanias Mathe escapes, he can just walk into Pick n Pay or Checkers and buy a 9mm pistol, or even a R5 rifle. Some will argue he can get hold of a fire arm anyway. Probably so, but at least the police has the power to arrest him for illegal possession, so that is not a valid argument. Gangs on the Cape Flats will be able to arm themselves to the teeth, and do it legally. They can come walking down the street armed to the teeth, and nobody will have the power to do anything to prevent it.
What every owner of a fire arm must realise, is that the possession of a firearm comes with a huge responsibility, and the government has not only the right, but also the duty to see to it that only those with the required sense of responsibily own firearms. If the owner of a fire arm goes on holiday and leaves his hunting rifle hanging from the wall in the sitting room, he is irresponsible and should not be allowed to own a gun. It is therefore not unreasonable to require that he has a proper safe to lock up his fire arms. Nobody can deny that many firearms get stolen. Nobody can deny that with house robberies the aim is often, if not in the majority of cases, to get fire arms. Victims of house robberies will tell you that most of the time the robbers make it clear that they are there to get fire arms.
The other day I was in Westgate Shopping Centre, when a shot went off. It was a lady who had a .38 revolver in her handbag, with the hamer cocked. Clearly she didn’t have the knowledge to carry the revolver with the neccesary safety. Years ago I witnessed a similar incident at a shooting range. A lady came there, and took a revolver out of her handbag with the hamer cocked. The instructor almost fainted when he saw it, and the lady said, well, my husband told me to keep it like this. My conclusion it that as in the case of a driver’s lisence, a person needs some sort of training in the handling of a fire arm before he can qualify for a lisence.
When it comes to the Arms and Ammunition Control Act of 2000, I have just one issue with the act: I think it is very unreasonable to cancel a valid lisence of a responsible owner who has done nothing improper, and I think that could be unconstitutional. The rest of the problems with the act lie in the incompetence of people entrusted with the administration of the act, and not the unconstitutionaly of the act itself.
Lastly, some people should have a right to own a fire arm. If such a person, though his own irresponsiblility, loses that right (such as Mr Mathe, who was declared unfit to possess a firearm with his last conviction) he has only himself to blame. He who’s right is taken away in an unreasonable way, can rightly complain. I also want to add, the constitution makes it clear that it is a right, that can be limited in tems of sec 30, and not a privilige granted by government. You therefore have a right to possess a firearm, and the government has a right to regulate that possession, and to limit it but only as far as it is reasonable and justifiable in an open and democratic society.
Just my own opinion, when you carry a gun, it tends to give you a false sense of security. We often fail to realise just how vulnerable we are, dispite the guns in our pockets or holsters.
Please, I don’t have a spell checker, so pardon me for the errors.
>End of story.
Much, much below your normal standards.
sirjay jonson says:
November 6, 2009 at 20:34 pm
There are different reasons why people want guns but the most dominant arguments here seem to be self defense.
The only issue that is of relevance is “although such a law may infringe on some of the rights in the Bill of Rights, the state would almost certainly be able to convince a court that the limitation is justifiable in terms of section 36 of the Constitution”.
Isn’t there a maxim something along the lines that if a law or regulation cannot be fairly enforced, it shouldn’t be made?
I’ve been thinking how we could get the guns out of society and every which way I see a fatal flaw. Pierre (or anyone else), how exactly do you see this proposed disarmament of the general populace rolling out?
Just heard that a friendly man, who could not even hurt a fly, was shot dead outside Johannesburg!
My previous take on the issue stands – If the cops (read state) cannot control illegal gun possession, what would they attain by prohibiting legal gun possession? They will just leave the targets gunless, but the crooks well armed. I think Hessiod is the one that said – “It is hard for a man to be righteous, if the unrighteous is to have the greater right.”
Under the previous thread, I was at great pains to show that guns cause less killings than other instruments (and poisons), which are not regulated at all (except nowadays at schools perhaps, where the carrying of a knife, or a blunt sword and a Slipknot mask, might be seen as a greater evil). And then, the vast majority of gun kills, are caused by illegal gun possessors. Now, taking away the legal firearms, might lessen the chances of the crooks getting more guns (during burglaries and/or robberies where they already use guns to commit them), but it will surely not lessen the number of crimes committed as the illegal guns remain in the possession of the crooks because the police force (and justice system) cannot properly control the illegal possesson of guns. Moreover, most of the illegal guns in circulation today, emanate from the police and the armed forces, not from private individuals. I mean, a money-in-transit robber isn’t going to use a hunting rifle to commit his crime (except, maybe an Elephant gun for its armour-piercing capabilities). He would be stupid to go without the fire power of a machine gun, which can in any way not be possessed by private persons. What would the answer be? Limit (or even prohibit) possession of guns by members of the police and armed services?
And then again, even though I don’t hunt, I am no vegetarian, and I love both tame and game meat (to cook and to eat). So, if guns are going to be taken away, my right to enjoy the gifts of nature will be affected – will we have to resort to snaring, dog-hunting or bow-hunting? Do you know that cross-bows pose a bigger threat than fire-arms, and they can be bought over the counter, like one can buy a machine gun in the US of A.
I think the solution is not to prohibit legal possession of firearms, but to regulate the private possession of firearms better (imposing more strinent requirements for obtaining licenses). Lift the penalties for those who fail to keep their licensed guns safe; and for those who after having been licensed appear to be gunslingers of the worst kind. Make it easier for the police and the courts to act against criminals that either illegally possess firearms or show that they are not to be trusted with the possession of guns. I do not believe that protagonists for a gun-free society will be able to show that there is real cause for the state to limit legal possession of firearms in the circumsances that currently reign.
I just found this rather interesting read! I think it has relevance to the topic.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/jeremy_clarkson/article5821586.ece
The good professor has to my mind lost the debate-after all the emotion has been stripped out of it- the first time around. However because he seemingly has invested a lot of emotional capital in the matter he thought he would have a second bite of the cherry. A pity that he did so in a somewhat petulant and disparaging way and seemingly lost his academic cool.
The nice thing however being a blogger of first instance is that you can opt out at any time when the going gets tough
Maggs, do you know the difference between an opinion and a fact? Assumption and proof?
@Khosi
;-{>} Indeed! Love Clarkson, Reductio Ad Absurdum is screechingly funny.
However… come visit my Community Policing Forum meeting tonight in nice, leafy Northcliff. I, personally, have had two (unsuccesful) home invasions this year. Our local patrol vehicle has two sets of bulletholes in it – some of them matching the bulletholes in the one patrol officer, as he pointed out to me last week.
@Paul,
I think what Clarkson is trying to say is that your experience is not entirely a unique South African experience.
One needs to remember that a high percentage of our murders happen between people who know each other in established social settings. I think that is how JHB got the ‘ murder capital of the world’ tag.
Of course there a much safer countries than ours, and we should yearn for that, but we are not exactly the 21 century wild wild west either.
@ Khosi
You say: “One needs to remember that a high percentage of our murders happen between people who know each other in established social settings.”
Where do you get these stats from?
Robber emasculates himself
Pretoria – An armed robber who attacked 12 people in a house in Queenswood, Pretoria, and threatened to shoot them “one by one”, shot his own penis off with his stolen firearm.
Another robber was shot dead on the scene.
The injured robber had hidden the firearm in the front of his trousers. When he removed the weapon, a shot went off by accident, hitting him in the groin.
According to an informed source at the scene, this robber’s injury was so severe that doctors would not have been able to re-attach his penis.
Collette Weilbach, police spokesperson, said the family’s domestic worker raised the alarm on Friday evening at 20:00 when she noticed two suspicious men in the yard.
The family wishes to remain anonymous.
According to Weilbach, the family had 12 guests at the time, which included adults and children. “The robbers ransacked the house, threatening to shoot the people one by one.” At that stage, she said, the family’s 35-year-old son arrived at the house along with security guards.
“The son fired two shots at a man who was aiming a firearm at his father. The robber was hit in the head and died at the scene.”
The other two robbers fled. Family members who were rushing to the scene from the Montana suburb managed to capture one of the robbers near the house and load him into a vehicle.
It was then that the robber shot himself as the firearm went off accidentally.
2009-11-08 22:57 – Virginia Keppler- Beeld
No-one in the mood to discuss very specific, attributed facts that I put before this Forum?
Anyone connected the Zinn dots yet?
He interviewed 100 convicted houserobbers who on average committed 100 crimes each before they got caught. His (very small) sample group told him that the single biggest deterrent to invading a house – i.e. the factor that made them move on to the neighbour – was a dog in the house.
COULD IT BE THAT THESE ROBBERS KNEW A DOG IN THE HOUSE GIVES THE HOMEOWNER TIME TO UNLOCK HIS FIREARM?
While we are on the topic of ‘The homeowner unlocking his firearm’.
Since you gun prohibitionists are loath to debate facts do you want to debate the morality of ‘The homeowner unlocking his firearm’? Going to the safe that the SAPS have terrorised him into installing – because he is basically a law-abiding citizen, Pierre who likes to blame the victim – and getting out the gun that might save his life? While the clock is running?
You see, Chris: Section 14 of the Constitution confers a general right to privacy that to us – not part of the counterculture – is just another paper right that is laughed off (along with our other rights) because it is US claiming their protection (never mind the fact that there are now more licenced black gunowners than white.)
I have mentioned Case, Mistry, Mahanjane in this regard – but you guys refuse to debate the principle. My basic premise is this: The state has no place prescribing how -or indeed, whether – people store their property in the privacy of their homes.
The SAPS have been bullying our old people into locking up their firearms in safes in contradiction to S14 and common sense and it has taken a terrible toll, now the gun prohibitionists say guns are ineffective in defence against home invasions?
What kind of dubious morality is that?
Let me give you a hint: This whole idea of locking up guns and punishing whites who do not comes from colonial Kenya, during the MauMau uprising.
Wait, I forget: The Dutch who first settled this country had similar laws to keep guns out of black hands.
Chris, in your very vivid picture of Cape Flats gangs armed to the teeth you ommit two very important facts: The basic assumption when you criminalise the carrying of concealed firearms in public is that you are going to do stop-and-searches in contravention of S14 of the Constitution and get away with it. 99% of firearms that are taken off criminals are a result of illegal searches which has terrible implications for our constitutional democracy.
The other important fact that you do not mention is who is having their rights limited and how? The innocent? Suspects in violent crimes? Convicted criminals? Through due process or unfair, unconstitutional laws which have been rejected by the vast majority of gun owners?
(Khosi)
>One needs to remember that a high percentage of our murders happen between people who know each other in established social settings.
No, a high percentage of SOLVED murders happen between people who know one another.
That’s how they solve the murders.
The other ones go unsolved.
So go check what percentage of murders are actually solved…
In his previous attack on firearm owners, Mr de Vos stated he would have no problem (or words to that effect) to put a gun free sign in front of his home. Talk is cheap, I for one do not think for a micro second, that he will have the courage of his convictions to put such a sign in front of his house and leave it there.
I wonder if Mr de Vos has armed response?
Anonymouse says:
November 8, 2009 at 12:38 pm
I can just say that I thing you are 100% on target with your last paragraph.
What disturbs me is the complete lack of intellectual depth on this issue coupled with a great deal of noise from Professor De Vos (and I may add, a number of others).
The professor tries to make much of his statement that the Constitutional Court will support restrictions imposed on private firearm ownership as though that is some novel statement and the real issue. But it is not and never has been the issue. Nobody has ever seriously contended there should be no restrictions on private firearm ownership.
The real issues being debated before the courts currently relate rather to the state’s incapacity of implementing the current legislation and the manner in which it is behaving in the context of that legislation – there is no debate at all around the principle of whether private firearm ownership should be restricted.
It appears to be clear that Professor De Vos has not got to grips with and understood the real issues which are currently being debated before the courts in the context of the firearms legislation.
Further, the Professor owes an apology to Prinsloo J for the unwarranted insult levelled at him on this blog – which I have drawn to the Professor’s attention but which it seems he does not wish to address.
I generally value the insights gained from Professor De Vos’ blog but I am afraid on this particular issue I have been deeply disappointed.
@Paul,
SAPS
Chris is right.
Gangs in the Cape flats are indeed armed to the teeth. (!)
But we should not ignore the link between this and a previous thread.
One reason that these good citizens have been driven to arm themselves to the teeth is that, like some other professionals, they have been excluded, rebuffed, dismissed, humiliated, marginalised and disrespekted by RACIST Cape Townians.
Some may call me naive. But I remain convinced that if white Cape Townians would break out of their racist cliques and, in the spirit of UBUNTU (that marks most human interactions in Gauteng), open their hearts, much of the gun violence would disappear.
All I can say to the Professor, since it is obvious that no FACTS will change his unreasoned and prejudiced positon, is that I vehemently maintain and believe with all my heart that the moon is made of cheese.
Unfortunately for my belief and ardent desire for this to be true, it simply ain’t so!
While many of us are not be members of the legal profession, even as laymen we know when we are being screwed. The act itself may not be unconstitutional as claimed by Mr DeVos, but the act was rammed through without proper consultation with interested parties. Parties that the ANC claimed were consulted, which as I stated before was a downright lie. I thought that alone was unconstitutional in itself, Is that constitutional?
While the act itself may not be unconstitutional, but the way it is being used by the CFR to deny licences wholesale is (I believe as a layman). I personally know of licence applicants waiting 4, 5 or even 6 years to get an answer from the CFR whether or not their licence is approved. Is that constitutional?
Applicants have to go through extensive and expensive training and testing, those who pass are competent to own a firearm are turned down on arbitrary grounds such as “Lack of Motivation” or “Not convinced of need.” The CFR are not looking for reasons to issue a firearm licence, but are looking at ways to refuse. Thats like saying, someone passing a driving test are then told “No you cant have a driving licence because we are not convinced you need one.” Is that constitutional?
My apologies if my layman post offends the legal profession.
@ Mikhail
What has racist Captonians got to do with cape flats gangs being armed to the teeth and why are (in your opinion) white Captionians racist?
@ Khosi
Ah… the SAPS figures taken from the ISS ‘research’. The same ISS who foisted the draconian, unconstitutional and unworkable Firearms Control Act (Act 60 of 2000) on us. Which, in turn, they borrowed from the Canadians… who have ditched THEIR act as it was ineffective and too expensive to implement. The ISS are pretty much ‘researchers for hire’ (in the whole ‘guns for hire’ genre). They have shown that they are quite happy to churn out statistics to suit their paymaster’s chequebook.
Nonetheless, those specific figures are based on solved murder cases (remember that only 6% of all serious crimes reported to the SAPS actually result in a conviction – I leave it to you to extrapolate from that figure to arrive at the number of murder cases the SAPS actually solve). It may not be accidental or coincidental that the SAPS are far more likely to solve a murder when the perpetrator is known to the victims and any eye-witnesses.
The problem with working with rotten stats is that whatever dish you prepare from them is rotten also.
In this case the paella stinks to high heaven.
You bad, Paul!
You forgot to remind everyone that the FCA – the ISS’ brain- child (LOL! As if cutting and pasting takes brains) – is ending up more expensive then the Arms Deal!
http://www.garrybreitkreuz.com/inthehouse/Speeches/2009/april21.htm
Pierre, I think its time you sat down and thought about this again.
Perhaps your motivations are more emotional than they are logical. Perhaps its time to admit the truth, that this is a violent country and that you are doing no good by targeting those people who are actually attempting to defend their families against an amazing onslaught of criminals.
Far more will be gained in terms of public safety by addressing the pathetic conviction rates in the courts and the corruption in the police & army.
No legal gun owners group that I have ever come across has advocated for unrestricted firearm ownership. Legal gun owners are already severely restricted, which had lead to closures of gun shops, and shooting clubs around the country.
As history tells us, firearm bans around world have not led to a decrease in violent crime, at all. Go ahead and do some research into that specific area.
Our right to life means nothing if we don’t have the means. That makes sense, does it not?
Don’t be surprised if people get heated around this subject. Gun owners have spent a lot of effort in to their sports, and the protection of their families. Last thing we need is another badly informed person.
I once read a very interesting article relating to carrying a side arm. There were three groups of people.
The sheep – who believe nothing bad can ever happen
The wolves – the people that perpetrate violent crimes against others
The sheep dogs – those that protect the sheep from the wolves.
With all the human rights floating around now we have lost touch with one very important fact. There are those who have no regard (as difficult as it is to believe) for human life, armed, unarmed, child, adult, man, woman, black or white. It just doesn’t matter to these people. Now, there are those of us that recognise and accept this fact. By doing this we realise that the day might come and we are called to defend our loved ones or even those we don’t know. Taking away any tools to effectively perform this job, in my opinion, you might as well put the sheep dogs down. I know that when poo hits the fan I am generally the first to respond and do my utmost to help those that are in need. Take away my ability to do that (in violent situations) and you have taken away someone that can help.
I know I might not be arguing the point of the article here but I just can’t believe that people are so blind to the facts. If someone doesn’t have a gun they will use something else. Do you think you stand a better chance against someone with a baseball bat or a knife? The point is that the individual holding the weapon has the ability to enact a violent action against the person. This is the difference between the wolves and the sheep dog. The sheep dog has empathy for his fellow human beings. Wolves don’t. They don’t care and personally I don’t want to be the one going “if I only I had my firearm on me I could have done something about it”.
That being said, I do believe that it is the responsibility of the firearm owner to do proficiency training and be skilled in the use of a firearm. The firearm is merely a tool (yes a tool designed to kill but your flat head screw driver makes a great stabbing tool so it is debatable as to the design of it). A firearm in the right hands is an effective weapon that might even resolve an issue without being fired. Taking away firearms will not solve the problem. This is a typical South African flaw, we are always reactive as opposed to proactive. Be proactive about your safety, train and be prepared for the worst. By God’s grace alone it will not happen but if one day it does, don’t be the one going “I wish I had been ready”.
Below is the link to the article I was refering to. It is not based on fact, it is merely a point of view and one I think is very true.
Lord bless
http://www.urbanwarfarecenter.com/2008/11/sheep-wolves-sheep-dogs.html
It is based on american numbers but the one thing I have noticed about the world is that no matter where you go there are people around
PvD:
Sorry just one other thing. I would recommend you do some research in to close quarter gun fighting and the odds of surviving a bread knife wielding criminal if you are carrying a gun. Odds are you won’t unless you are trained to deal with the situation. I am aware that you were trying to be funny with this comment (perhaps cynical or sarcastic is a better word) but someone weilding a knife is a real threat so it doesn’t do anything for your argument. Injuries sustained by knives are far more difficult to treat and usually end up being fatal (especially serated edges, such as your bread knife). People seem to think that people carrying guns are invincible, this is not the case. Also removing guns from society won’t remove violent crimes. If you want to remove violent crimes remove violent criminals and their rights (which is a whole other story I don’t even want to get started on)
Brett Nortje says:
November 8, 2009 at 19:36 pm
“Maggs, do you know the difference between an opinion and a fact? Assumption and proof?”
Probably not.
Enlighten me.
You have opinions I offer facts.
You make assumptions I seek proof.
Brett Nortje says:
November 9, 2009 at 19:10 pm
Ok – now I get it.
Thanks.
Brett Nortje says:
November 9, 2009 at 19:10 pm
On the basis of your rather profound insight, I will add the following.
Brett offers facts.
Brett seeks proof.
There are two facts indicative of the futility of more restrictive gun laws:
1) The owners of registered guns do not commit violent crime at the rate members of the SAPS do
2) Liberalising of the gun laws in the form of administrative reform (in effect, lifting the remnants of a de facto race bar in granting licences) to coincide with SA becoming a constitutional democracy led to a reduction in the homicide rate.
I have offered proof of this, only, everyone seems to prefer pseudo-intellectual masturbation.
Where has gun control anywhere in the world led to a reduction in violent crime?
That is right, Maggs. Engaged in a search for truth, building more knowledge from fact-blocks.
Do you play LEGO?
Brett Nortje says:
November 9, 2009 at 19:25 pm
I prefer this to LEGO.
I say that Brett is engaged in a search for truth, building more knowledge from fact-blocks.
Exactly. By contrast, the gun prohibitionists are role-playing mushrooms.
One thing I will say for Prof De Vos – in certain respects he is a true believer. Those cowards at the ISS I mean polity.org actively engage in censoring comments.
More than anyone they are responsible for foisting this unconstitutional, unimplementable Billion-Rand Black Hole gun law on us. I appeal to Peter Gastrow to at least give the money back they got for cut-and-pasting the FCA.
If ever you gun prohibitionists grow a pair lets debate the harm the ISS has done to effective policing in SA (and the lethal effect their meddling has had – to tens of thousands of our elderly….)
Lets draw up a list of the ‘new’ plans they have come up with to save the SAPS. Anyone remember ‘demilitarisation’ of the SAPS?
These trendy lefties are the bane of the SAPS. If you read the latest minutes from the Police Parliamentary Portfolio Committee you will see:
The Committee was briefed by the Secretary of Police, Jenny
Irish, deployed cadre, whose background in policing consists of
being a vocal gun prohibitionist.
Irish made it clear that no compensation would be paid for
weapons handed in during the amnesty. According to Irish the SAPS’s
target with this amnesty was law-abiding citizens who had missed
the cut-off dates for licence renewal.
Irish conceded that no suspects had handed weapons used in crime
in to the SAPS in the past.
When Rev Meshoe of the ACDP asked what measures the SAPS had in
place to ensure that firearms handed in did not go missing the
SAPS ducked the question.
There you have it. The ANC’s most blatant assault on the rule of
law and the authority of the Courts yet.
This amnesty is not aimed at criminals – every member of the
Portfolio Committee on Police knows that criminals do not hand in
firearms used in violent crimes during amnesties. The SAPS
admitted it.
This amnesty is aimed at terrorising a few more elderly white
South Africans to hand in their firearms in flagrant contempt of
a Judgement of the Western Cape High Court that compensation be
rolled out.
Irish should be charged with contempt of court – in the alternative, attempting to defeat the course of justice.
I have to say I agree with the fact that the SAPS has been functioning with their hands tied. After asking one police man what he would do if a suspect was fleeing the scene of a violent crime he said he would persue him as he wasn’t allowed to shoot him. I then proceeded to ask what he would do if the suspect he was persuing had five of his mates around the corner armed, to this he replied “pray”. How on earth do we expect our police to do their job when the current generation was brought up to disregard police authority? I mean think about it, the previous regime, all the oppressed where taught to disrespect and fight law enforcement. Unfortunately once you let that tiger out the cage there is no way to put it back…
Kenneth Clark, your Policeman obviously does not know what the law says.
@ Jack Pollard
What has racist Captonians got to do with cape flats gangs being armed to the teeth and why are (in your opinion) white Captionians racist?
**********
I can only refer you to the very impressive UCT study that Pierre quoted recently.
@ Prof DV
“Kenneth Clark, your Policeman obviously does not know what the law says.”
I spent a couple of hours last evening attending my precinct Community Policing Forum meeting. We were treated to a rather confusing interaction between a member of the community and the Station Commissioner of our local Police Station, and a Captain from Crime Intelligence, arguing about where, and under what circumstances one may use one’s weapon in self defence. The Captain and the Commissioner contradicted each other constantly and vehemently. After a quarter of an hour of heated discussion nobody seemed quite sure what the situation should be.
These are senior police members. How much confusion reigns at street-level can only be imagined.
Hi Pierre
You were called disingenuous in your previous post and to some degree I agree with that sentiment.
I personally do not understand the level of antipathy held by those who chose not to carry or own firearms towards those that do. Your average firearms owner is a responsible member of society, in terms of the current legislation he or she has been vetted and cleared, declared competent and is generally a solid member of society. Most of them care not a hoot if the person opposed to firearms ownership carries a firearm or not and they mainly would never dream of enforcing their views upon that segment of society. I believe that this antipathy is more representational of the liberal vs conservative viewpoint which is also unfortunate as firearms owners represent the entire spectrum of the political sphere! It is indeed incorrect to attempt to equate firearms ownership with some right wing perception conjuring up implied references to swasitika’s and fringe elements. The average firearms owner is your lawyer, accountant, bank manager or plumber.
To say that firearms owner’s are somehow a root cause of crime is simply incorrect and is simply a convenient ignoring of fact, privately owned firearms do not cause crime! We did this debate to death during your last thread but let me just interject this little correlation again, do vehicle owners cause vehicle hijackings? Do laptop owners cause laptop thefts? Armed home invasions will happen regardless of any ban on firearms.
I disagreed with you previously in terms of the legal sentiment when you stated that firearms ownership was not entrenched within the bill of rights, there is a universal right to self defence, there is an entrenched right to life and security within our bill of rights what value does that hold if it cannot be exercised?
I personally, and I believe this to be representational to a degree, have recognized that I can contribute towards the growth and development of South Africa, I have chosen to stay here and as such my family has stayed with me. Now being a retired police officer I recognize that the police have short comings and challenges, one of which is an inability to protect me or my family at all times, I have therefore taken the responsibility of my own and my families protection. I have therefore invested into the methodology and the skills development to facilitate my own protection. I also believe that this spirit of self reliance not to be in anyway opposed to government but supportive thereof, I have structured my own environment and lifestyle to allow for the fact that there might be an attempt to relieve me of that which I work hard for and I have put in place legal and responsible counter measures, I also own several fire extinguishers not because I hope and pray there will be a fire at my residence but because I believe it behooves myself to cater for the fact that it might well happen, the same logic set extends to my having vehicle insurance, a spare tire, jumper cables and a tow rope! I know that I cannot and indeed should not be reliant on state supplied structures to respond the very second I need them, I realistically anticipate that the fire department will take minutes when I need them in seconds, the same extends to the police.
I would also take some elements of Dr Zinn’s research to task, I teach avoidance and security awareness as part of my professional mandate. One of the cardinal rules of dynamic incident management is to minimize the control that an external factor can interject into any situation, to place yourself at a position where you are reliant on the goodwill of a criminal intruder, who has already proven violent intent by attempting a armed home invasion runs counter to the logic of both human nature as well as that of response protocols, the correct approach is to apply proven methods of zonal perimeter hardening to allow yourself and your family time to enter a safety zone which can be defended until such time as reinforcements arrive. When faced with an armed assault the correct and lawful use of a firearm is indeed one of the only practical methods of defence. The same logic set includes mobility incidents where you need to avoid transportation to a secondary crime scene, unfortunately the criminal dynamic in South Africa is primarily based upon gratuitous violence where criminal tactics are reliant upon neutralizing victims by applying force and often subjugating principles such as rape on woman etc! This is a dynamic which can also be endlessly debated but we all are required to live with it every day, again the hallowed halls of academia need to meet the street at some point!
The answer in multi faceted, I believe part of the answer is not to take away an individuals ability to protect him or herself, I believe it is by interjecting better training, by providing clear and supported usage legislation such as a clear definition within section 49 of the use of force not just a reference to proportional and reasonable (yes you need to retain that aspect but broaden it to provide a clear guideline of if X happens than Y is a correct response).
I also believe that even the most hardened anti firearms person and the most pro firearms person has some shared middle ground, we all want to live in a safe environment, we all want our children to be safe. We might disagree on the ownership, methodology and application of how that is achieved but we do all want the same end goal and it is time to realize that firearm owners and civilian firearms are not part of the problem.
Mikhail wrote
I can only refer you to the very impressive UCT study that Pierre quoted recently.
After reading Mr De Vos recent two garbage statements on firearm ownership I’d take anything he says with a huge pinch of salt.
To all of those who wish to limit other people’s choices
I ask the following
No 1 how does my privately owned firearm impact or affect anyone of you, how does my choice to decide to carry said firearm impact anyone of you? if there is no impact then why are you all so dead set against taking away my freedom to choose, my freedom to protect myself, my freedom to protect my children, my freedom to follow the sport of my choice?
No 2
If I go to the mall, I park my vehicle in a guarded parking lot with access control and cctv and my vehicle is then broken into, is that my fault or am I the victim of a crime?
Clearly , at least I hope!, you would have recognized that in that case I would be the victim! I am sure that this forum consists of people who are reasonable enough to note the clear correlations without me having to spell it out!
Cop allegedly shoots three-year-old
By Poloko Tau
A single gunshot through the window of a parked car, and a
three-year-old boy was dead. The shooter: a police constable.
Atlegang Phalane, 3, was hit by a bullet while seated in the backseat
of a white Hyundai with his uncle, Bongani Mchunu, around 6pm on Saturday.
The car was parked outside a relative’s house in Klipfontein View
Extension 2, north-east of Joburg.
‘They did not show any remorse afterwards’
Atlegang died instantly.
Now his family are asking whether he was killed because of a
shoot-to-kill instruction.
“We were waiting for the driver when suddenly I heard the sound of
tyres screeching as an unmarked VW Golf stopped next to us.
Continues Below ?
“Then a gunshot followed. The bullet shattered the window on my side
and hit Atlegang in the chest,” Mchunu said.
“One officer in private clothing jumped out of the car and ordered me
to the ground while the other removed Atlegang’s body and placed it on the
ground next to the car. They screamed at me, saying I was a suspect, but
they would not say what I did.”
‘My child was too young to die by the gun’
Mchunu said the officers did not ask a single question or fire a
warning shot.
“They fired even before they got out of the car. And then they did not
even seem to care that Atlegang was wounded as they cuffed me.
“Even if I was a criminal, were they supposed to just shoot at the car
when I posed no danger to them? They did not show any remorse afterwards.”
The child’s father, Vusi Mchunu, who arrived on the scene shortly
afterwards, was arrested as he tried to get to his son, who was lying on the
pavement. A third man, the owner of the car, was also arrested when he
arrived.
All three were taken to the Rabie Ridge police station.
“They kept us there, and I was released later. But they still could
not say what Atlegang’s father and the owner of the car had done,” Mchunu
said.
He said Vusi Mchunu was still being held at the Alexandra police
station and was yet to be charged with a crime.
It was not clear what had happened to the owner of the car.
Seated on a mattress at her home in Klipfontein View, near Midrand,
yesterday, Atlegang’s mother, Mapule Phalane, said she was also not allowed
to get close to her son’s body on Saturday, even though it took almost six
hours before a mortuary van arrived.
“I stood there watching the man who had just shot my son sucking a
lollipop as if nothing had happened.
“My child was too young to die by the gun. Why did they just shoot?
They then arrested his father, when all he wanted was to see his son’s body.
Is this what was meant by the shoot-to-kill statements?” she asked.
Police have refused to comment on the incident.
The Independent Complaints Directorate (ICD) said a Constable SS
Malaka of the Alexandra detective branch was arrested on Saturday. He
appeared in the Tembisa Magistrate’s Court yesterday and was denied bail.
ICD spokesman Moses Dlamini said police were tracing a suspect on
Saturday and had information that he was at a particular address.
“They arrived at the address and found a car outside the house. It is
alleged one member saw a pipe which looked like a firearm, and he then fired
in the direction of the pipe,” Dlamini said.
“A three-year-old boy was shot in the chest and died instantly. No
pipe or firearm was recovered from the car.”
Atlegang’s shooting comes less than a week after National Police
Commissioner Bheki Cele was quoted as saying at a police graduation ceremony that officers have a right to return fire when shot at, but must not be trigger happy. “Don’t be trigger happy, assess the situation properly. We
must avoid the Mabopane incident,” he said.
Cele was referring to an incident in Mabopane, North West, last month
when 28-year-old Olga Kekana was killed when police shot at the car she was travelling in as they believed it had been stolen.
In another incident, Atteridgeville police allegedly shot dead
21-year-old Kgothatso Ndobe at his home late last month.
Have your say at http://www.iol.co.za/opinion
a.. This article was originally published on page 1 of The Star on
November 10, 2009
I must say I find this “debate” disheartening. The Malemafication of our public discourse is alive and well among gun supporters, it seems. Insrtead of making logical arguments, there seems to be a tendency (a la Malema) to rather hurl insults and make wild claims instead of actually debating the legal issue. Personally I feel this reflects rather badly on some members of the gun lobby. If I was advising them I would suggest they spend more time engaging with the real issues and less time shouting abuse and insults. Schoolyard bullies (and Julius Malema) win arguments like that, but one does not win a constitutional or legal argument in that manner.
Bryan, to answer your question: Your analogy is obviously rather flawed. If your car is broken into and criminals steal your laptop or gym bag, they will find it rather difficult to kill anyone using said laptop or gym bag. If they steal your gun, we know from statistics (not disproven by anyone here – one only gets vitriol without any analysis or arguments about why the statistics might be wrong) that more than 200 000 guns have been stolen from (or were lost by) legal firearm owners and that such guns are often used in criminal activities. If one takes the emotion out of this (I know some find it rather difficult), it is clearly reasonable to conclude that if there were very few or no privately owned guns around, criminals would not be able to steal the guns used for crime. This would be one (but of course by no means the only) legitimate government strategy to try and combat crime. This obvious logic is not based on the idea that gun owners must be “punished” for having their guns stolen or losing guns. You are just as much a victim of crime if someone steals your gun but the difference is that the gun can be used to rob banks and kill people and the state therefore has a legitimate reason to try and eradicate private gun ownership. It is based on the logic that stolen firearms are used to commit crime (no one disputes this fact – or do they?) and that fewer privately owned guns would present fewer opportunities for guns to be lost or stolen and hence to be used in crime (no one disputes this fact – or do they and if so on what basis?). Maybe someone could help me understand why this is not a logical and reasonable argument. As I said, I am pretty confident the Constitutional Court will agree with me. But, hey, those judges are trained in reasoned deliberation and logical argumentation, so maybe that is where I go wrong.
Brett Nortje says:
November 10, 2009 at 9:44 am
“Cop allegedly shoots three-year-old”
It’s really awful.
And downright outrageous.
As is this http://www.sowetan.co.za/News/Article.aspx?id=1086690
What Pierre is glossing over is the act of deprivation of what is MINE – no less hurtful or degrading than if a knife was being held to my throat or a gun to my head.
Can we have other examples of movable corporeals that are confiscated to prevent them from being stolen? By criminals? From innocent, God-fearing, law-abiding owners?
Pierre
I would wish to point out these elements here
If I have been the victim of crime and my gym bag was stolen or my tennis racket or my firearm it is moot I have been unlawfully relieved of my possessions, I am therefore a victim of crime regardless of what has been stolen from me, I would also add that my having a firearm does not profile me higher on a criminals radar as a potential victim.
I will broach argument about the causal link between stolen civilian firearms and the further commissions of offences that have been conducted with those firearms.
The SAPS does not capture statistics with regards the origins of stolen firearms, those facts are made part of the docket but not compiled as a break down. I would also suggest that the grand total of those firearms stolen include state owned weapons! This being the 200 000 over TEN YEARS, a so currently we have a muddied picture with the blame being placed unfairly on the civilian firearms owner.
We can look at the last three years in which 19000 firearms were stolen of which 8500 were stolen from the SAPS with a possible further 3000 coming from other state sources!
The state would further us believe that the “trio” crimes are the perception drivers however most of the trio crimes appear to be committed by R5’s and other Automatic weapons which are clearly not from the pool of stolen civilian owned firearm’s. credence is further lent to this aspect when one considers the high recovery rate of civilian owned weapons as it is patently clear that uncle Boet’s 308 hunting rifle is unsuitable to serve as the primary weapon of Joe Armed Robber!
To justify the argument that civilian firearms owners are simply easy targets and will all have there firearms removed from them by armed attackers and therefore should not have them is also disengenious especially when it is being made by people who are not prepared to examine the training and counter measures available to prevent such aspects.
To cry out about the Malemafication of someone who purely disagree’s with you brings with it your wish to villify people who believe or have a different set of beliefs than you do, that is highly close minded.
I ask again how does my firearm impact you?
Brett Nortje says:
November 10, 2009 at 10:32 am
What Pierre is glossing over is the act of deprivation of what is MINE – no less hurtful or degrading than if a knife was being held to my throat or a gun to my head.
——————————————————————————————————
How does that make your case?
Just a quick add on Piere to answer one of your question, a stolen laptop, cellphone or vehicle is not used to perpetrate other offences u say?
You do know that the vehicles recovered from armed robberies are mainly stolen? the cellphones recovered as well? so its use as coordination of the crime or transport to and from is less felonious in your opinion? just asking!
@Prof dV
Obviously not, but then what does that mean? As far as I can tell in the assessments I was forced to do to renew my firearm license you MAY NOT shoot at a fleeing suspect UNLESS someone is dead. So if he has committed a crime and no one has died he can run for his life, no pun intended. The next thing is “shoot only when being shot at”. That first shot might be the only shot to go off in a gun fight.
Maggs, that poor little kid died because we have all taken our eye off the ball.
Please try to rise above your last post.
Who would give the cops shoot-to-kill orders knowing the internal realities of the SAPS? We know. The same people trying to disarm gun owners.
Is this Brazil?
Why are we even having this debate? Everyone knows you do not apply 80% of resources to 20% of the problem. Everyone knows if one can distinguish between right and wrong you do not punish the innocent because you cannot catch the evil?
You all know that we have to drag the state away from the precipice of being a failed state. For this we need good law and efficient administration. WHatever your feelings about guns – If anyone wishes to fiddle with the FCA the logical first step is a forensic audit of implementation of the FCA.
Storey jnr dragged us into this fight citing Pierre’s blog as some kind of rebuttal of two High Court decisions. Go read the editorial in today’s Business Day.
You guys have completely obfuscated the point I made that Jacob Zuma was about to fiddle with the FCA to thwart the judgement of the Cape High Court. Which means the ZANUfication of the ANC is almost complete which means famine for the poorest of the poor in the not to distant future.
The Constitutional Court made it clear that the only effective deterrent to crime was the knowledge that criminals are caught, tried convicted and locked away for a long time EFFICIENTLY. Not hanging the 1 in 12 murderers the cops actually catch.
The whole gun debate is a massive red herring to keep all of us from tackling the ANC’s disastrous ‘transformation’ of the criminal justice system with all the disgusting side-shows like packing the JSC to protect one of the more shameless ANC deployees like the NP packed the Senate to disenfranchise Coloured voters.
Personally, I hate functioning on this level. I hate rubbing anyone’s nose in it, even seeing anyone treated like that. But if that what it takes to be left alone to try get through this life as best I can, to stop those who lack the common courtesy of keeping their noses in their own business from trampling my rights I am ready if you are.
I do find it amusing that “stats” are used to justify the argument to prevenet people from owning guns. I have always maintained that statistics are unreliable due to the fact that they are gathered in a haphazard manner and are open to abuse. I am sure I heard on the news that three police officials had been fired for doing this and that one of the big cheeses from stats sa was also told to bugger off for doing this. As for people not being able to be killed by a gym bag, well gym bags generally have some form of straps that make pretty good strangling devices, note books have external power supplies that might be used to bludgion someone to death. Everything is a weapon. I say ban everything and lets go back to killing each other with branches.
Sir, You believe that the problem lies with an inanimate object. How do a set of car keys, a computer, rocks, bread-knife’s or a firearm’s commit crimes?
Yet you choose to focus the removal of legitimate & legal firearms, not the criminal use of such objects. Why?
All men are equipped & capable of being rapists. Are all men rapists?
All women are equipped & capable of being prostitutes. Are all women prostitutes?
How can you view a legal gun-owner simply as a criminal who has yet to commit a crime? Surely if anything this country has shown that to ban things is to make it worse. Prohibition in the USA proved convincingly of the unintended consequences of an idealistic law.
Advocating the removal of firearms from law abiding citizens cannot possibly solve the crime problem in this country.
I live in fear of gym bag weilding criminals the whole day long. . .
your fear must indeed be great as you are dodging the question’s you have accused all those opposed to you of Malemafying the debate and that their response are indeed unreasonable! yet when I have posed what I believe is a reasonable point of view you see fit to degenerate it by inaproppriate humour or is it again a method of obfusticating an question which you feel uncomfortable answering, again I ask how has my private firearms ownership impacted you in any way?
@PvD
But you live in fear of gun weilding legal firearm owners and the possibility that their weapon might be the one that kills/injures you.
Exactly my point. You don’t feel intimidate by that individual because it is something you feel you can fend off. In all honesty most of the time you could disarm an attacker with a firearm if you had the right training. Now I ask you, do you have the right training? Perhaps if you got to know firearms more intimitely you would understand that they are useless in the hands of someone who doesn’t know how to use them properly. Do you honestly think criminals know how to effectively use the weapons? They use them to intimidate a victim into submission.
As a man is it not your responsibility to protect and defend the weaker of a nation? How can you say “my safety is in the hands of someone else”. You are effectively passing off your responsibilities to someone else. We live in a world where evil is prevelant (and you don’t need stats to see that). We live in a country where the response time to a crime is generally very high. How can you not take responsibility for your own safety? This is not an emotional question but rather an adult question. Children might have the luxury of handing this off to their parents. Adults do not have this luxury. Take responsibility for the safety of your family and premises. If everyone does this the SAPS might have a fighting chance. I think I know why most people don’t though, if they don’t then they have someone else to blame if something goes wrong. “The police are incompetent” or “if only they had got here 2 minutes earlier”. We live in a world were NO ONE wants to accept responsibility for anything. This is not a debt as to the legitimacy of firearms in private possesion, it is a statement of inadequacy and an inability or denial of ones responsibility.
My next point might be completely wrong but South Africa has one of the highest HIV previlence rates in the world. Yet no one is complaining that an adoption of safe sex is an incorrect means to combat this. I am incline to believe that more people die from AIDS every year than firearm related deaths. To be fair on your assesment I would have to conclude that you are one of the few promoting abstenance to solve this problem as you are promoting the removal of firearms (as opposed to the safe use of firearms)
Seriously though, if you feel that intimidate by firearms might I recommend some courses in CQC and CQB? You might also then not live in fear of a firearm weilding criminal.
I think however that you are missing the point of what I am getting at. Everyone is capable of killing. There are well over 200 000 reasons every year to ban abortion, there are over 200 000 reasons every year to promote abstinence but we will focus on the subject that gets the most attention and has the most voices backing it. Get rid of those two problems and I will hand in my firearm. No, owning a firearm has nothing to do with the above mentioned statistics but having contained the above issues and resolved them I might actually believe that noise made to remove firearms from society is in my best interest as opposed to a mechanism to make ones voice heard and stir a preverbial pot.
@Chris
I couldn’t have put it any better myself!
Brett Nortje says:
November 10, 2009 at 11:06 am
“The Constitutional Court made it clear that the only effective deterrent to crime was the knowledge that criminals are caught, tried convicted and locked away for a long time EFFICIENTLY. Not hanging the 1 in 12 murderers the cops actually catch”.
Ten points for that.
The rest – Eish!
Brett Nortje says:
November 10, 2009 at 11:06 am
“The Constitutional Court made it clear that the only effective deterrent to crime was the knowledge that criminals are caught, tried convicted and locked away for a long time EFFICIENTLY. Not hanging the 1 in 12 murderers the cops actually catch.”
“The whole gun debate is a massive red herring to keep all of us from tackling the ANC’s disastrous ‘transformation’ of the criminal justice system with all the disgusting side-shows like packing the JSC to protect one of the more shameless ANC deployees like the NP packed the Senate to disenfranchise Coloured voters.”
I agree.
@Maggs
Now if only the courts would do that. I am not opposed to the death penalty. However, I do not believe that South Africa has a judicial system that can effectively try/judge and convict a criminal.
@Bryan
It is not what your firearm has done at this point that is the problem. It is what it might do should you loose it. That being said I recommend that everyone opposed to legal firearm owners should also be opposed to people driving vehicles as at any point they might also take your life if you are on the road.
I think the biggest issue is that people think firearm owners are a bunch of gun slinging cowboys. This is not the case at all. I dread the day I have to actually use mine. I pray that day never comes where I have to shoot anyone. That being said, should that day ever come I will (by God’s grace alone) be ready.
@PdV
I hope the day never comes when a “gun slinging cowboy” acts in a way to protect you from bodily harm/death using his “6 shooter from the hip”. Should that day ever come you are going to have to eat every last word you have said here. That statement actually applies to anyone anti firearms.
Kenneth Clark says:
November 10, 2009 at 12:06 pm
“However, I do not believe that South Africa has a judicial system that can effectively try/judge and convict a criminal”.
Indeed.
The entire criminal justice system is a terrible disaster!
@ Kenneth
I agree with you, I just find it logically inexplicable that someone would propose “punishing” me by denying me ownership of an item based upon the actions of others. Also when I have complied with the law 100 percent I should be regaled as a cause of crime when that is pure unproven speculation by the representative of an entity (the state) which is far more guilty than any other! When I maintain my own beliefs and do not attempt to deny anybody else the right to their own beliefs when that same courtesy is not extended to myself, we often ask ourselves what is tolerance it has been my experience that the anti gun “liberals” are far less affording of others rights or points of view when it is opposed to their’s giving lie to the so called pillars of tolerance and equality held forth within “liberal” thought!
Professor,
I don’t want to level personal insults but to accuse others of behaving like Julius Malema is not on.
You resort to making broad sweeping statements of a populist nature which have absolutely nothing to do with the real issues being addressed in the legal environment right now. You say that the Constitutional Court will agree with you that the right to private possession of firearms should be restricted as though that is some point of genuine contention.
You know, right now, in the context of this issue I *far* prefer Julius Malema to you. Unlike Julius you make a pretence of intellectual contribution to the debate whereas as in truth you are simply behaving like a bag of hot air going on and on about something which is not and never has been issue.
You are it seems, simply incapable of dealing with the real issues and the only reason for this it seems is because you simply do not know what they are.
Do yourself a favour: if you don’t have any clue what you are talking about and the real issues involved, sit down and shut up and because you are definitely painting yourself in the colours of a fool, although in fairness I should add that you are not the only one to have done so in this discussion.
Finally, I note that you have neither the integrity or courage to admit that you may have unfairly maligned a judge acting in good faith and in this instance also you are on a par with our friend Julius; nay, worse for he is not a trained lawyer whereas you ought to know a whole lot better.
I have to agree with Paul in his last post – the George Bernard Shaw quote comes to mind – “I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it.”
It is impossible and a waste of valuable time, to attempt to ‘debate’ an issue when facts are puit forward but denied and ignored at every turn by the antis and one continually has to deal with myths, misinterpretations, and minds warped by years of propaganda.
Clearly this blog is simply De Vos’s online rant where he can vent his spleen against all who incur his displeasure by not complying with his personal vision and desires for society – I would have expected a more measured approach of a legal man.
@Bryan
I couldn’t agree with you more. My comment was merely to point out the futility of trying to remove what is perceived to be dangerous in the wrong hands due to what might happen with it. So again, I am 100% behind legal gun ownership.
Barman shot outside sports club
2009-11-10 12:57
Durban – A Durban man, 37, was shot and killed by a gunman wielding an AK-47 about 07:00 on Tuesday.
Police spokesperson Captain Thulani Zwane told News24 that the man, who worked as a barman at the Woodlands Sports Club, was shot when he was approached by four men – one of whom was armed with an AK-47 – outside of the club.
“Nothing was taken, and the four suspects then fled on foot into the bushes,” Zwane said.
The motive for the shooting is unknown at this stage.
Zwane added that the man could not be named as his next-of-kin had yet to be contacted.
Netcare 911 spokesperson, Jeff Wicks, said the man was found in a pool of blood by a club administrator who had heard the gunshots.
“By the time paramedics arrived, the man had died,” he said.
Police have launched a manhunt for the suspects, who fled the scene on foot.
The Woodlands Sports Club refused to comment on the shooting when approached by News24, referring all queries to the police.
- News24
my point here is that the AK47 did not come from a licensed civilian firearms owner!
interesting you base your statements on the ISS who seem to love contradicting themselves
please note the passge which says armed robberies are perpetrated by robbers with AUTOMATIC weapons! hardly from the civilian firearm owners!
27 October 2006: Cash-in-Transit Heists in South Africa: A Human Rights Perspective
As the debates around the cash-in-transit heists in South Africa continue, the human rights component, especially in respect of the cash-in-transit guards themselves, is always overlooked. South Africa has one of the most progressive constitutions in the world, with a justiciable Bill of Rights, so the human rights lens in an important one. It must be recalled that in terms of section 7 (1) of the South African Constitution (Constitution) the Bill of Rights is a cornerstone of democracy in South Africa, as it enshrines the rights of all people in the country (including cash-in-transit guards) and affirms the democratic values of human dignity, equality and freedom. This article seeks to highlight some of the issues that should be taken into account during the ongoing debates around the cash-in-heists in South Africa.
Cash-in-transit guards are human beings and are therefore entitled to be treated with respect and dignity. It should be recalled that section 10 of the Constitution provides that ‘everyone has inherent dignity and the right to have their dignity respected and protected.’ This applies equally to cash-in-transit guards. Yet cash-in-transit guards have often claimed ill treatment at the hands of law enforcement argents, who are often quick to point a finger at them whenever there is a cash-in-transit heist. In a democracy, everyone is innocent until proven otherwise in a court of law. It is therefore unacceptable to assume that cash-in-transit heists are always ‘inside jobs’ as this constitutes an implicit threat to the human dignity of the individuals whose guilt is presumed.
As cash-in-transit guards are always targets during armed robbery, it is high time for the South African government to foster debates aimed at addressing this problem in terms of providing them physical and moral protection. It is incumbent upon the government to create opportunities for proper and quality security training and to allow the guards to use suitable equipment in order that they may deliver proper and quality services at all times during cash-in transit operations. The private security companies should be encouraged to nurture a healthy relationship with the governmental armed forces as their roles also revolve around security concerns. Any rift between the private security companies and the public security forces spells disaster for the promotion of proper security in South Africa.
There has been a call by the guards to be allowed to carry more powerful weapons to be able properly to fight off armed robbers. This call has also sparked a lot of debate and this issue should now be put to rest. The South African Firearms Control Act allows for the granting of a licence to possess firearms to be used in self-defense. The type of firearms permitted excludes fully automatic weapons, a limitation not observed by the robbers. This should be a cause for concern. Given the volatile situations that cash-in-transit guards are faced with on a daily basis, they should be granted licences to also possess automatic weapons to contain the cash-in-transit heists.
The question that always comes up, is whether there are any safeguards in preventing the guards from becoming ‘a forces unto themselves’. On this point, may be one may ask if the South African Police and Military Force, supposedly properly trained, are indeed ‘forces unto themselves’? It is my considered view that cash-in-transit guards must be armed adequately in order protects their clients’ cash and regulations should obviously be put in place in this regard. In this way, there will be no need for the military and police to assist them in transporting the cash. They will have the ability to do the work with diligence and without unnecessary inhibitions.
As the cash-in-transit guards are also employees, they must enjoy all employees’ rights. Given the nature of their work, the government should put in place mechanisms to ensure that they are proper insured and their families are taken care of in the event that an unfortunate incident in line of duty. The provision of security to everyone is the responsibility of the South African government and the private security companies should be seen as complementing the government’s responsibility. The same is true with cash-in-transit guards. It is for this reason that I call upon the South African government to consider setting up a special fund to take care of the families of the deceased cash-in-transit guards’ families in the event that they are killed during the course of their duty.
Unless and until cash-in-transit guards are treated as human beings with an inherent dignity and the right to respect and protection, cash-in-transit heists will continue in South Africa. The Constitution should be a guiding light. Of course this is not the only solution, but it does provide food for thought in the ongoing debate around the cash-in transit heists that afflict the South African economy.
Sabelo Gumedze, Defence Sector Programme, ISS Tshwane (Pretoria) Office
http://www.iss.co.za/index.php?link_id=4059&slink_id=3766&link_type=12&slink_type=12&tmpl_id=3
Kenneth Clark says:
November 10, 2009 at 12:06 pm
“Now if only the courts would do that. I am not opposed to the death penalty. However, I do not believe that South Africa has a judicial system that can effectively try/judge and convict a criminal.”
————————————————————————————————————
I changed my mind – we’re doing pretty good – relatively.
“A cannibal who killed and ate parts of his mother had his sentence reduced by a judge who said ‘he needed to eat’.”
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=3&art_id=iol1257875470623D525
and of course we shouldnt position ourselves to maintain our own protection when we can have such complete and utter trust in the state institutions mandated to “protect” us when we read reports like this!
Face it if you cannot provide your own solutions you are helpless!
Woman ‘ruined’ after police rape
2009-11-11 08:00
http://www.news24.com/Content/SouthAfrica/News/1059/5ac36a7344b841c4966be207513b393f/11-11-2009-08-00/Woman_ruined_after_police_rape
A young mother struggles to hold back the tears as she tells of allegedly being raped by a policeman while in custody. (Craig Nieuwenhuizen, Beeld)
Hilda Fourie
Pretoria – A 29-year-old woman says her life is ruined after she was allegedly raped by a policeman while being detained at Rustenburg police station.
‘I’m not human anymore. There is just nothing left of me,” said the woman, who prefers to remain anonymous.
“I don’t have a life anymore. I’ve lost everything. My life is ruined.”
The woman, who has an 18-month-old son, is the second reported case of an alleged rape by members of the police in the last two weeks.
Detained
She was arrested on September 29 after her former fiancé had apparently laid a charge of theft against her.
She had been detained in the holding cells. When she asked to go to the bathroom that night, she was escorted by a policeman. Once there, he allegedly struck her across the back with a thick rubber pipe and then raped her.
The next day, the charge of theft against her was withdrawn.
A few weeks later, on October 25, two uniformed police officers allegedly raped 29-year-old Martie Olivier, a mother of three young children, in Kempton Park.
Olivier’s nightmare began when her husband, Sarel, turned into the driveway of a house and then reversed to make a U-turn, according to the couple.
A marked police van stopped in front of the couple’s car. Mr Olivier was pulled from his car and thrown into the police van.
One policeman got into the driver’s seat of the couple’s vehicle, with Mrs Olivier still inside.
When they arrived at the Kempton Park police station, Mrs Olivier told her husband that she had been raped.
ICD investigating
Delia de Vries, of law firm De Meyer & De Vries in Johannesburg, is representing both women.
Moses Dlamini, national spokesperson for the Independent Complaints Directorate, said they find these two incidents extremely disturbing, and are conducting an investigation.
No arrest has been made in connection with Olivier’s case yet, while four policemen from the Rustenburg police station were arrested on Friday in connection with the rape of the other woman.
The four arrested policemen – an inspector, a constable and two student constables – have since been released and are to appear in court again soon. They have not been suspended.
One of them allegedly raped her while the others were aware of what was going on, but did nothing to help her.
An identification parade will take place on Wednesday.
“The police are supposed to protect people,” said Dlamini. “You don’t expect members of the police force to rape people in holding cells. No person should experience misfortune while in police custody.”
- Beeld
@ Bryan
Then we have:-
Gang of 5 attacks Bloem family
2009-11-11 09:33
Bloemfontein – A pensioner has told how he managed to remain calm when he and his family were attacked by a gang of five robbers, because he had seen death when he served as a soldier.
Ben Buys, 83, and his daughter, Louisa, 40, sustained several cuts and bruises and had to receive stitches after the attack.
Buys’s wife, also named Louisa, was not seriously injured.
The incident happened at their home in Keerom Street next to Irene shopping centre in Bloemspruit, Bloemfontein. The house is surrounded by dense reed bushes.
The mother and daughter walked home from the shopping centre just before 18:00 on Monday evening.
Five young men
They had barely reached their yard when the daughter saw a movement behind the reeds. When she went to investigate, she and her mother were attacked by five young men.
They were forced into the house.
“They started beating me terribly. I tried to yell to warn my father, who was still in the house, but I couldn’t. They sprayed pepper spray in my eyes and face and held my mouth shut.”
Meanwhile, her father heard a commotion outside, but thought his wife and daughter were struggling with the dogs. He walked to the front door.
“As I wanted to unlock the door, they broke through it and started beating me over the head with sticks and clubs. Pepper spray was also sprayed in my face and eyes.
“At one stage, one of them pushed a screwdriver against my neck. Then I grabbed at his balls and he stabbed me in the arm with the screwdriver.”
They demanded money and threatened to rape Buys’s daughter and lock her in one of the freezers.
“I prayed a lot,” said the daughter.
Shot at door
The family was then locked in the main bedroom and the daughter climbed out of the window to get help.
Buys took his .38 pistol and shot at the closed door to distract them.
“I couldn’t shoot too high as our parrot, Pollie, was in the corridor in front of the door.”
Meanwhile, his daughter had called emergency services. Only the ambulance reacted quickly.
The robbers tried to steal of their cars but didn’t succeed. They took about R3 000, cellphones, credit cards and a special chicken weighing 3.5kg.
“That was our rooster, which we kept especially to show how much a chicken could weigh,” said Buys.
He said Pollie had not yet spoken a word about the incident.
“Every day she greets us and asks us how we are. But she hasn’t said anything,” said the daughter.
- Volksblad
That old man is certainly made of the right stuff. Of course, in Pierre’s scheme of things he would have been disarmed as a mark of gratitude for his service to his country.
Remind me quickly – who usually carry pepper spray? Stuff should be banned!
@Brett
HAHHAHA I was going to say the same thing about the pepper spray!
I also like the fact that an 83 year old man had the state of mind in that situation to not shoot to high for fear of killing the parrot, so muuch for the comment on the legal gun owners being morons. Oh and the screw driver? I am sure I mentioned something about that as well.
All in all the response to the situation by this family was a co-ordinated counter attack. Time to stop being victims I say. It is horrible they went through this but WOW what a response!
I didn’t even see the part about serving as a soldier, which again puts pay to the fact that training is of vital importance
I have no doubt that now pepper spray has been used in a criminal attack, the oh so wise Prof De Vos will now get on his soapbox to get them banned as well.
Well done the man!
Taxi driver shot
08 November 2009 – 18:06
By SAPA
Police officer arrested after a taxi driver was shot
A police inspector was arrested on Sunday after he allegedly shot a minibus taxi driver in a fit of road rage in Dobsonville, Soweto police said.
Inspector Kay Makhubele said the off-duty Moroka police station officer was driving his own vehicle on the Doornkop/Dobsonville Road behind a minibus taxi around 7am.
“It’s not clear what sparked the quarrel, but the taxi driver is said to have stopped his vehicle, alighted, went to the officer and assaulted him with a knobkerrie.”
The officer allegedly retaliated by firing a shot which hit his 28-year-old attacker in the left thigh. He was taken to a nearby hospital where he was in a coma as he had lost a great deal of blood.
“The 51-year-old policeman was arrested on the scene.” He was expected to appear on attempted murder charges in the Roodepoort Magistrate’s Court on Monday
Why was he arrested? Unless of course a knobkerrie isn’t regarded as a lethal weapon. Next up, if the driver had known that the police office was armed would he have assaulted him? In the police officers defence he was being attacked by an armed civilian and therfore by definition is no longer a civlilian. Shot in the leg? I think the guy got off easy to be honest. That being said, a police officer is now in court, an individual charged with job of protecting society and he has no power to use his firearm in a situation like this. No wonder no one has any regard for the police. They are helpless. Oh, remind me how many policemen are killed a year and this guy acted inappropriately?
Hey, guys – I have just had a ‘Eureka!’ moment.
We are not helping but hindering the gun prohibitionists’ understanding of the issues by posting all the evidence – over a time-span of a few days – of SAPS members’ abuse of their service firearms. Information overload.
Remember the hysteria over that ANC cadre who shot at someone stealing his kid’s cell a year ago, hitting palisade fence, ricochet killing a toddler in a creche? The gun prohibitionists extrapolated that incident to every gun owner, every day. Used it as a pretext to call for a ban on guns. We get the facts. They get hysterical. It shapes their world views, like Pierre’s claim that guns injure and kill thousands daily. When I asked him for evidence of 365 000 shooting deaths every year what did he do?
You see the problem? They look for incidents to trigger an emotional reaction. That is the level they function on. Emotion vs reason. Unfotunately, an incident presents itself every two or three years and the gun prohibitionists have an orgasmic blame fest. Like the ANC cadre who killed the toddler – did you see one person amid all the calls for a gun ban point out that in no socialist state on earth do apparatchics not have access to firearms denied to the citizenry?
Kenneth, it is alleged by the SAPS the taxi driver had a knopkierie. Now, if you had shot a taxi-driver wielding a knopkierie….
@Brett
My apologies, I am not known to be politically correct
I would be in the same position as the 51 year old police officer and the taxi driver would have been unarmed
Plus I would have people protesting outside my house for shooting an innocent man. What a sad state of affairs
For the moment, let’s set aside who is wrong and who is right. Furthermore let’s forget about what is right and what is wrong. Here is an interesting observation that I have made after reading all of the comments.
One can clearly see a progression in the arguments and the intensity of the debate. Then by the end, it has calmed down a bit. Here in lies the interesting part. Quite a few people from different sides of the argument have by the end of the discussion conceded to agree with ’some’ of the other sides’ comments, conclusions and certain facts.
The only person shining in his absence is Her Royal Highness. Now that says a lot to me about the kind of person that is hiding behind this feigned intellectualism.
Pierre I might also add that in 1998 y their own admittance the department of safety and security reported a loss of 200 000 state owned firearms, I would suggest that this number is likely deflated as much as possible. I would also suggest that this leaves 8090 privately owned firearms to deduct from that figure of yours which as a percentage point of the 2,5 million lawfully licensed privately owned firearms is indeed paltry!
Brett Nortje says:
November 11, 2009 at 10:13 am
“Remind me quickly – who usually carry pepper spray? Stuff should be banned!”
Ok Brett – you can add lollipops to your list of “to be banned” items.
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=3&art_id=iol1257942531884D522
Maggs, if I were king there would be a whole list of things that would be banned. Only, I’m not – I bought into this whole idea of a Rechtstaat and a Bill of Rights and tolerance of things that disgust me because supposedly other people have rights too, and being free to swing my arms as long as I stop short of the other guy’s nose because he will do the same. Only, it has not quite worked out like that, now has it?
Maggs, will you not please give some serious thought to buying into the rights culture and the idea of a Rechtstaat too?
Editorial in today’s Citizen
Published: 11/10/2009 20:09:00
Stop shooting to kill
Three-year-old Atlegang Phalane didn’t have to die. Nor did
30-year-old Olga Kekana. Nor did many others who were shot by
police, by mistake.
Atlegang was sitting in a car with his uncle on Saturday night.
Kekana was on her way to a party in a car with friends, and so
on. Innocent people doing innocent things.
A recent report by the Independent Complaints Directorate showed
that the SAPS shot dead 556 people – including 32 innocent
bystanders – between April last year and March 2009, the highest
figure in a decade. And the tempo of these killings is picking
up.
We believe gung-ho statements by President Jacob Zuma, Police
Minister Nathi Mthethwa and Police Commissioner Bheki Cele have
contributed to the increase in the number of deaths.
Too many police have taken the utterances of their leaders as a
licence to kill. Gone is the caution that they may only fire when
life is in danger.
Firm policing is an absolute must in this violent society. But
that is no excuse for this wave of fatal recklessness by those
whose duty is to protect.
Brett Nortje says:
November 11, 2009 at 22:56 pm
Hey Brett,
The nice thing about the rights culture is that I can express my wish for a gun free society.
And campaign.
And debate.
And make a lot of noise around it.
May the best gun win!
@ Maggs:
As with it being best not to pitch up for a gunfight armed with a knife, so it is best to come to a debate armed not only with empty rhetoric!
;-{>}
Paul says:
November 12, 2009 at 7:11 am
@ Maggs:
As with it being best not to pitch up for a gunfight armed with a knife, so it is best to come to a debate armed not only with empty rhetoric!
;-{>}
——————————————————————————————————–
Why?
Call me naïve. But I still look forward to a post-tranformed society in which every sharp, cutting and stinging objects and words are banned. I see a world of cotton wool, candy floss and soft lambs’ leather. Few strong words will be spoken. Miscreants, racists and their ilk will not be shot or even tortured. Instead, they will be gently admonished in dulcet tones of pure Ubuntu!
Mikhail – “I see a world of cotton wool, candy floss and soft lambs’ leather.”
…
Who (and with what) is going to kill the lambs?!
And, who (and with what) is going to cut the sugar cane to make the candy floss?!
Well, all right, cotton is picked (some places still by hand), but one has to use gloves – many murderers (e.g. OJ Simpson) wear gloves, don’t they?
So much for your dream of a non-violent society.
Obviously, the possession of licensed gloves ought to be regulated more strictly.
There is a massive problem with stolen gloves. Perhaps we may need to regulate the possession of hands?
@ Anonymouse
As Woody Allen once quoted Holy Scripture:
“The Lions shall lie down with the Lambs.
But the Lambs won’t get much sleep.”
Brett, with respek, I think your demand for Shar’ia criminal penalities goes one step too far.
Brett Nortje says:
November 12, 2009 at 10:23 am
“Perhaps we may need to regulate the possession of hands?”
Eish!
The self love protagonists are gonna hate you.
Especially the F-O-M executive chairperson aka Dwork.
Mikhail – Woody Allen is a great comedian – but I agree, in current circumstances, the lambs (law-abiding society) do not get much sleep because the lions (crooks) are lying amongst them, “prowling like a lion to see who they can devour”.
Prof. de Vos,
This is a great forum for stimulating debate.
Please give me one verified example of where gun control execrised against licenced civilians has reduced the levels of crime.
Thank you.
Professor de Vos ……….. are you listening?
Professor Pierre de Vos’ recent article on his blog entitled “Guns kill people” should be read by all people interested in the pro-anti gun debate. This type of writing from a constitutional expert under the guise of intellectual debate typifies the anti-gun debate based on emotion, but short on fact and understanding of the fundamentals of the debate.
Firstly, let me make it clear that all pro-gun organizations respect the right of choice, ie you can choose not to have a firearm and that choice will be respected by us. Not so the anti-gunners who feel that they have a right to dictate what rights their fellow citizens may have.
De Vos does not see or understand the inherent contradiction in his recognition for the support of the police’s right to shoot to kill and his antigun stance. The rights contained in Section 49 of the Criminal Procedure Act are rights that all citizens have, not just the police. That is the first fundamental mistake that de Vos and others like him continually make. We must not forget that Section 49 was amended by our current government to take into account the advent of our new constitution and to acknowledge the right to life and the presumption of innocence. Section 49 in essence has two basic elements to it. The first is that any person who is under direct threat of serious physical harm may use force, including lethal force to protect themselves and anyone else whom they have a legal interest or obligation to protect. This part of Section 49 is to some extent a reflection of our common law right to private defence. The second part of Section 49 is the problematic part, because it gives the police and citizens the right to use lethal force in trying to effect an arrest, but subject to certain strict conditions. (In my view it is the job of the police to arrest criminals and private citizens should not use legal force to effect arrests).
De Vos’ contradiction is to give the police more powers whilst removing the right to self-defence from private citizens. What de Vos has perhaps overlooked is that there has been a massive growth in the private security industry, because of the police’s inability to protect private citizens. In the event that guns are removed from private citizens and allowing police to shoot and kill ( a right that they already have) everybody’s level of protection will be substantially reduced and it is not going to deal with the crime problems in this country and is a simplistic solution that cannot work in current social circumstances.
This illustrates another flaw in De Vos’ article. He and many others are quick to say “take all guns out of society and crime will be reduced”, but they have no idea how to reduce crime and specifically how the removal of firearms will reduce crime. This in turn illustrates another factual shortcoming by De Vos and his ilk. There is no evidence anywhere in the world that removing guns from licenced firearm owners reduces crime. To take the latest example (and there are many) according to an article in the weekly Telegraph of the United Kingdom, United Kingdom gun crime has doubled in a decade. For those who know something about firearm history the United Kingdom progressively banned different types of firearms until, as of 1997 only shotguns and rifles are available for sporting use in the United Kingdom. Notwithstanding the bans on pistols, revolvers and self-loading rifles, crime with firearms has doubled, particularly with those types of firearms that have been banned. The statistics can be seen at http://www.telegraph.co.uk. Coincidentally the United Kingdom has more firearms per capita than South Africa.
The next argument, which is an emotional one (and as an academic De Vos should know not to argue emotionally, but factually) is that he would rather face a criminal with a knife than a gun who is intent is on doing him harm. We all would rather face a criminal with a knife than a gun (unless you have a gun of course), but this argument does not tell us how to take guns or knives out of the hands of criminals, which is a consistent shortcoming of the arguments of the anti-gunners. Many anti-gunners argue that by banning guns, guns will be taken out of the hands of criminals. This presumes that criminals are prepared to surrender the tool of their trade. If you ask any career criminal he will say he would prefer to have unarmed and unprotected victims, because it will make his/her job easier to rape, rob and murder.
Professor De Vos is correct in stating that the South African Bill of Rights does not contain any reference to a right to own firearms. What Professor De Vos ignores or does not know is that when our constitution was drafted and the Government received submissions on what should be contained in the Bill of Rights, pro-gun groups made the second largest number of submissions to Parliament requesting the embodiment of a right to own firearms in the Bill of Rights. Only the Prolife Lobby made larger submissions. This is a typical example of Government ignoring the wishes of its citizens.
In a recent News 24 poll, which asked its readers whether gun laws should be re-examined, 30% of the voters said yes and 70% said no. These poll percentages have been relatively consistent since they have been taken after 1996 by a variety of media organizations. This merely illustrates that as much as we would like to believe that the Bill of Rights embodies the rights of the citizens of South Africa, what the Bill of Rights effectively does is embody the wishes of the politicians who drafted the Bill of Rights, which politicians effectively ignored many of the substantial submissions made to them by a variety of interest groups when the Constitution was in the process of being drafted, because they did not agree with them. So much for democratic choice.
We all have a right to property and life. Unfortunately for Professor de Vos there are two recent High Court decisions where in both instances parts of the Firearms Control Act have been successfully challenged on a constitutional basis. The Justice Alliance case in Cape Town resulted in the Minister of Police being ordered to provide guidelines for the payment of compensation for firearm owners who have surrendered firearms. It is of great concern to me and many other practicing lawyers that notwithstanding what the Constitution says, senior Government officials have stated that when persons are forced to give up firearms, there will be no compensation payable. Where is their respect for property rights in this attitude? In the Pretoria High Court case of the South African Hunters & Game Conservation Association Judge Bill Prinsloo indicated that there is prima facie evidence that many provisions of the Firearms Control Act are unconstitutional.
There have been other pronouncements, both reported and unreported on the competence of the South African Police Services to effectively implement the Firearms Control Act in a manner that is reasonable, fair and consistent with the Constitution. Lazarides v the Chairman of the Appeal Board is one reported example and the matter of Black v The Chairman of the Appeal Board, which is unreported, is another example. I will gladly provide Professor de Vos with a copy of the Black judgment, because it shows how far our Government and its organs have slipped in understanding its own legislation and applying it effectively.
The next argument that de Vos perpetrates is straight from the pages of the “Gun free – How to argue” manual is that many people are actually killed by the guns that are owned by them. I am not sure where de Vos obtains his facts from, but I am aware of one study by Gun Free South Africa of dockets done in certain jurisdictions relating to this issue, which “proved” that guns do not protect people. The difficulty I have with this is quite simply that I cannot trust any research done by an organization that is biased in favour of a particular viewpoint. It is for this reason that organizations such as the South African Gun Owners Association do not conduct their own research, but rely on independent research, which can be trusted and if necessary factually verified. I have to disregard any research by any organization that has as a vested interest, the need or desire to prove a particular viewpoint, because the integrity of the researchers employed or retained by such organizations cannot be trusted and nor can the research.
It is quite clear however that independent research, such as that done by John Lott or Gary Mauser clearly illustrates that with a greater prevalence of guns there is less crime. This viewpoint is supported by virtue of the fact that as the United Kingdom example illustrates; banning firearms does not lead to a reduction in gun crime, but leads to an increase in gun crime. The anti-gunners have no answer to this factually correct argument, because these facts are independent of any particular subjective viewpoint or dogma.
De Vos’ final argument that banning guns would protect ordinary South African citizens from violent crime again repeats the flaw that this argument cannot explain how by banning legal guns criminals will stop using their illegal guns. Criminals operate outside of the law by definition and there is more than enough legislation that makes the carrying of an unlicenced firearm illegal with severe penalties (I bet De Vos does not know that possession of a fully automatic firearm carries a harsher sentence than if one were convicted of murder). He probably does not and the fact that the Firearms Control Act contains such a harsh penalty still does not mean that criminals have rushed to hand in their firearms, because of their fear of being convicted. The United States has an extremely strict penal system where for example if you are sentenced to life imprisonment it means that you will die in prison and not be released after 15 years as is the case in South Africa. Since the mid 1970’s, crime, particularly gun crime has consistently been declining in America, notwithstanding a massive increase in civilian possession of firearms.
Brazil recently conducted a referendum on whether private ownership of firearms should be permissible and much to the anti-gunners chagrin, 60% voted in favour of retaining private ownership of firearms. The international anti-gun movements pumped massive resources and campaign funds into Brazil, but failed to convince normal ordinary Brazilians that their arguments were covincing enough to vote no to private ownership of guns.
I trust therefore that De Vos will do as we do, i.e respect the wishes and rights of his fellow citizens, particularly if your arguments cannot be factually supported and are based on flawed emotive assumptions. We respect yours Professor De Vos. Please do us the courtesy of respecting ours..
It amazes me that GFSA frequently cite British gun laws as being effective.
http://callejonextrano.blogspot.com/2009/03/few-words-about-british-gun-laws.html
A FEW WORDS ABOUT BRITISH GUN LAWS
Since the pro crime activist anti-gun nuts like to boast about “Gun free, crime free England’s low crime rate” I thought I would drop a synopsis of one of my gun control folders in here.
Right now, as of March, 2009, England’s total ban on sporting arms has been in place for almost eleven years. Officially, the murder rate has tripled and the number of gun related crimes has soared in that time.
Unofficially, but probably more accurately, the press reports more than ten times as many gun related violent deaths and more than twenty times as many gun related crimes. And these are just the crimes that make the major papers. A cursory search of the smaller British newspapers web sites reveals many gun related crimes that do not make the Times or Guardian.
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime says Britons are four times more likely to be assaulted, six times more likely to be murdered, and fifteen times as likely to be robbed as residents the reputedly “high crime” Balkan states. It is significant that the UN says one in five heads of households in the Balkan states of Albania, Macedonia, and Slovenia legally own at least one firearm, while Britain has outlawed private possession of firearms.
Looking over my notes, I see that as as of May 2008, the number of gun related crimes in England has more than doubled since Labour took power.
On May 30, 2008, London, England’s hospitals reported that one Emergency Room patient in three is a victim of a knifing. A private conversation leads me to believe the percentage has increased in ten months.
For those who would like more information on the history of gun controls in England, there is no better source than Chief Inspector Colin Greenwood’s seminal paper, “A Study of Armed Crime and Firearms Control in England and Wales.”
While I have an original in my files, the paper is available on the web at Google Books. Those interested would do well to buy an extra ream of paper, put a fresh ink cartridge in the printer, and let it run overnight. And by all means Google “Chief Inspector Colin Greenwood” and read as many of the 8,000 hits as your time will allow.
I do disagree with Greenwood on one critical point. Greenwood has said several times over the past four decades “At first glance, it may seem odd or even perverse to suggest that statutory controls on the private ownership of firearms are irrelevant to the problem of armed crime: yet that is precisely what the evidence shows.”
My own investigations show the major inhibiting factor in low crime areas is the fear of instant retribution from an intended victim. Without exception, every “gun control” scheme has had much the same effect on violent crime as tossing gasoline on a campfire.
Then there is Memorandum by Mr Colin Greenwood an ex Chief Inspector of the Yorkshire Police which shoots down the GFSA claim that British gun control works
http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/cm199900/cmselect/cmhaff/95/95ap25.htm
@ Martin Hood
Very glad to see you here. Well done on your input.
Further:
http://www.torontosun.com/news/columnists/peter_worthington/2009/11/14/11743116-sun.html
Good riddance to long gun registry
By PETER WORTHINGTON
Now that MPs have voted 164-137 to repeal the registry of long guns and shotguns, several realities stand out in the whole emotional question of the gun registry.
For starters, gun registration has cut down on neither crime nor gun violence — and forget the support given the program by the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police. Try asking individual cops, and you get a different, non-political answer.
The idea that police rely on the registry in the detection of crime, makes no sense. When you get down to it, no one has an accurate idea of how many guns there are in Canada, or who owns them.
Officially, three million Canadians own seven million guns. (The Toronto Star’s editorial board thinks two million are gun owners). Two or three million gun owners in a population of 33 million? Who is kidding whom?
In the mid-1970s, when gun registration was barely hinted at and Canada’s population was under 25 million, it was estimated that seven million Canadians owned 21 million firearms. How come such a discrepancy, when our population has grown by 25% from those days?
The answer is that there are literally millions of unregistered hunting rifles and shotguns out there that Canadians haven’t registered and aren’t declaring — and aren’t using to commit crimes.
If you accept this — and how can you not, if you check the record — the gun registry is little but an expensive, unnecessary, largely useless waste of time. Bureaucratic boondoggle aptly describes the program.
NO REASON TO KEEP IT
The Toronto Star editorially supports gun registration, arguing the Conservatives “have no valid reason to kill off Canada’s rifle and shotgun registry . . . .” On the contrary, there is no valid reason to keep it — especially when many Canadians are probably ignoring the law. Besides, as a Private Members Bill — C-139, courtesy of Tory MP Candice Hoeppner
(Portage-Lisgar) — it became easier for party leaders to okay a free vote.
Something of a mercy killing of the gun registry.
Repealing the registry has no effect on hand gun registration and control, which has been in effect since 1934. Hand guns are still the weapon of choice for crime and murder.
ALL UNNECESSARY
The repeal applies only to shotguns and rifles — bolt action or semi-automatic. It does not apply to assault weapons, machine guns, grenades and fully automatic rifles — all unnecessary and for the most part illegal.
We are not the U.S., where 50% of the population own an estimated 270 million firearms — 90 guns for every 100 people.
In the trivia department, there are roughly 210 million cars in the U.S., and every year some 46,000 people die in traffic accidents, while 30,000 are killed annually by guns — homicides, suicides, accidental shootings combined.
Although the U.S. has more firearms than any other country, Switzerland (population 7.5 million) has more firepower per citizen that any country on earth. Yet it is one of the safest, most law-abiding of countries. By law, every male must own a weapon — a well-armed population is the country’s main line of defence.
To assume that firearms lead to crime and violence is wrong. Not in Switzerland, not in Canada. Eliminating the long gun registry in Canada will be trimming bureaucracy and freeing up money to be wasted in some other way.
Would love to hear Professor de Vos’s reply to Martin Hood.
Seems things have gone silent, wonder why?
We would appreciate an honest reply Professor.
I think with the amount of evidence pointing to the futility of the claims made in the initial statement there is nothing left to say. When you are right you are right, it can’t be argued.
How about a reply to the factual points raised by Martin Hood, please Prof?
I would be genuinely interested to read your reply and hope you will oblige.
I have always enjoyed the well-reasoned debates on your blog but this time (for the first time) you seem to have lost the plot and followed emotion over fact?
Ok, I’ll make some time to reply to Martin Hood:
(1) There is no contradiction as I do NOT support the right of the police to “shoot to kill”. Martin Hood misunderstood me. I do recognise that our law at present allows an individual to act in self-defense and that if one acts in self-defense in limited circumstances one would not be guilty of murder if one kills an attacker. However, there is no right in the Constitution for a private individual to possess a firearm and to use that to kill people. The Constitution recognises fundamentally different rights and obligations for representatives of the state and for private individuals. For example, a criminal can be locked up by the state and if convicted by a court can be imprisoned by the state for life if necessary. A private individual has no right to imprison an individual who has harmed him or her. Similarly, police officers may carry firearms and may kill suspects in very limited circumstances exactly because they are officials representing the state whose main task it is to keep us safe. It does not logically or constitutionally flow that private citizens are or should be entitled to do the same. Otherwise we would all be allowed to do things usually only the state is allowed to do: raise taxes; regulate the sale of drugs; police the roads; allow individuals across our borders; etc.
(2) We clearly have a problem with violent crime in SA. There are different ideological, philosophical and practical approaches to deal with this – all of them permissible but none of them required by the Constitution. We elect a government to make those choices (and if we do not like the choices we can elect another). Hood confuses the two issues: what is permissable and what is constitutionally required. My interpretation of the Constitution that while it is Constitutionally permissable for the state to allow private individuals to hold guns, it is not constitutionally required as the state has a right and duty to decide how best to deal with crime and as long as it acts in a way that is reasonable and justifiable in an open and democratic society based on human dignity, equality and freedom, it will be constitutionally legitimate. Reasonable (and not so reasonable) people differ on what is the best approach but my view is that one approach would be to ban guns as part of a broader drive to take guns uot of the hands of criminals. As most criminals acquire guns by stealing them from private owners (a fact not disputed by anyone) it is very reasonable for the state to stop the flow of guns at the source and to ban private gun ownership. It is like banning drug dealers from acquiring drugs to try and stop ordinary people from using dangerous drugs.
(3) I am not saying that removing guns will reduce crime. I have not seen the research on this so do not make that claim. I am saying that taking away the source from which criminals acquire guns will reduce the amount of guns in the hands of criminals. Fewer guns in the hands of criminals will reduce gun-related crime (but maybe not overall crime.) I am in favour of reducing gun-related crime so support the removal of guns out of the hands opf the source of all the illegal guns: private gun owners.
(4) It will take some time to reduce the amount of illegal guns floating around. Of course criminals will not hand this over. Introducing very stiff sentences for anyone in possession of a gun will of course help. A person found with a gun will be easily found guilty of a crime and locked up for several years. A relatively uncomplicated case to prove in court and a way of taking criminals off the streets and reduce guns at the same time.
(5) Hood must not be familiar with the Makwanyane judgment where the court said public opinion is not a mechanism to be used by courts to interpret the rights in the Bill of Rights. Also our courts do not look at the original intent of the drafters. All the statistics about support for guns as a matter of Constitutional law is therefore utterly irrelevant.
(6) The Constitutional invalidity of provisions in any law can only take effect if confirmed by the Constitutional Court. Whenever any provision of an act is declared unconstitutional it AUTOMATICALLY goes to the CC for confirmation. No such case has been brought to CC so I respectfully do not believe Hood that any High Court has found any provisions in the gun law unconstitutional. I suspect the High Court found that the police had acted in problematic ways in implementing the law (whose constitutionality was not at issue). If Mr Hood sent me the relevant cases I am quite confident that I would be proven correct – unless the confirmation hearing is still to come (but it is not on the CC role, so I doubt that is the case).
(7) If there are problems with the implementation of the law, these must be corrected. It has NO bearing, hwoever, on the Constitutionality of the Act itself. To confuse the two is to make a fundamental error of constitutional law.
(8) Quite frankly seeing that this is such an emotional issue and seeing that facts are disputed on all sides, I do not think that anyone doing research on this can be said to be independent. Either side has a view which it “confirms” with its research, and by using analogies from other societies. SA is of course not the UK or the USA, so this kind of thing does not prove or disprove anything. At best I would concede that the evidence on either side is inconclusive. This is obviously an emotive issue and depending on one’s normative commitments one will read the “evidence” to suit you. Personally I would prefer to live in a country in which private gun ownership is outlawed. My argument is in essence that this position is completely in line with the normatice commitments of the Constitution and that if the state were to go that rout nothing in the Constitution prevents it from doing so. I have yet to hear a rational and cogent constitutional law argument to demonstrate that I am wrong on this score.
Pierre, if people were to be deprived of their property in the way that you advocate is it your opinion that the state is compelled to pay compensation for that property?
Which measure is more reasonable and justifiable in an open and democratic society based on human dignity, equality and freedom?
Blame the innocent and deprive them of their property because we cannot catch the guilty?
Or apprehending those stealing guns and locking them away for a very long time?
Where is the law aimed specifically at dealing with anyone stealing a gun to commit a crime or stealing and selling a gun to someone who wants to use it to commit crime?
Pierre said: “It is like banning drug dealers from acquiring drugs to try and stop ordinary people from using dangerous drugs.”
I beg to differ: It is like punishing people using disprins to try and prevent drug dealers from selling dangerous drugs.
Pierre said: “(4) It will take some time to reduce the amount of illegal guns floating around. Of course criminals will not hand this over. Introducing very stiff sentences for anyone in possession of a gun will of course help. A person found with a gun will be easily found guilty of a crime and locked up for several years. A relatively uncomplicated case to prove in court and a way of taking criminals off the streets and reduce guns at the same time.”
There goes S14 of the Constitution. We all know what Pierre means. This is a time-honoured tradition in South Africa. Illegal stop-and-searches.
Tres old South Africa, Pierre!
Not so fast, Mac!
Letters, Sunday Times
Published:Aug 09, 2009
What really happened to all those struggle guns?
The inimitable Mac Maharaj, “Up in arms, yes, but never bored”
(August 2), has clearly lost none of his natural wit and craft, but
his finessing has obviously gone down a bit.
- Maritz Spaarwater,
former chief director of operations, National Intelligence Service,
and the National Intelligence Agency,
Hermanus
He seems to assume (wrongly) that no one would notice his red
herring in switching the main issue to that of the so- called Black
Gun Owners’ Association and not responding to the core question of the
reporter from Landbouweekblad, namely, what has happened to the
armaments smuggled into the country by the ANC and Umkhonto weSizwe?
Having been instrumental in arranging infiltrations during the
armed struggle and especially as the main man in Operation Vula,
established for specifically this purpose, no one should be better
able to answer this question than him.
In the early stages of the negotiations, I was a member of a
joint ANC and government working group charged with arranging
practicalities of the suspension of the armed struggle and related
matters, such as the return of the exiles, their concentration in
demobilisation centres and the identification and lifting of arms
caches.
Nothing came of these seemingly simple objectives except
procrastinating filibustering by the ANC and MK. No arms caches
emerged, no demobilisation centres were established and MK cadres were
not formally demobilised.
I have no doubt that Operation Vula would have required that MK
battle readiness not be compromised.
I was “confidentially” told by a senior ANC negotiator at the
time that they, in fact, no longer knew where their arms were stashed,
an age-old trick to divert questioning .
Another Maharaj red herring is that the ANC has access to modern
weapons and doesn’t need 20-year-old firearms.
This entirely misses the point: that large numbers of
unregistered and unlicensed, and therefore untraceable, firearms are
floating around the country, with, for example, confirmed reports that
an AK-47 assault rifle still is the preferred weapon of gangsters,
insurgents and oppressive governments on the continent – and can be
bought in South Africa for as little as R150. Scores of farmers have
been killed with these and other weapons.
With rampant internal divisions in the ANC reflected right
through the civil service, armed forces and police, there is reason
for serious concern.
The MK Veterans’ Association indeed threatened war had Jacob
Zuma been prosecuted and not become president. This is not fanciful.
Shootings and stabbings have been occurring among warring ANC
factions.
Perhaps Maharaj would like to respond more rationally than by
trying to put one over an apparently naive agricultural reporter.
In Mistry v Interim Medical and Dental Council of South Africa and others 1998
(4) SA 1127 (CC) Sachs J referred to the celebrated elucidation by Judge Louis
Brandeis quoted In Tribe’s American Constitutional law:
“Justice Louis Brandeis defined the constitutional right of privacy as “the right to be let alone – the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilised men”.
Sachs J also referred wth approval to the classic words of Jackson J in Brinegar v US: “Among deprivations of rights, none is so effective in cowing a
population, crushing the spirit of the individual and putting terror in every
heart. Uncontrolled search and seizure is one of the first and most effective
weapons in the arsenal of every arbitrary government.”
Private gun owners are not allowed to own assault rifles. Where is the influx of assault rifles coming from and how would removing legal firearms stop this?
That by the way is my last comment as I feel the “I will make time for Martin Hood” implies a complete lack of respect for other comments posted here that are valid. Prof de Vos I wish you a happy violent free life …
Kenneth, I wish De Vos, “May he live in intersting times.”
Pierre,
Since when it it accepted fact that most firearms are stolen from private citizens ? Where do you have the proof of that? Did the state not admit that they recovered 116% of lost civilian firearms in the last year, while not being able to recover almost any of the guns lost by the police and military? Do you think those R5 rifles used in those mall robberies etc come form civilians? Stating ‘facts’ without proof is the job of Gun Free SA, have they started some kind of legacy?
Also, how can you be so insensitive to history? I am not talking about the history of gun control, which only a complete idiot would claim has been of any success anywhere in the world.. (your dreams aside). I am talking about the history of genocide on this planet, which still goes on today. Do you think it coincidence that almost each and every time that this has happened on earth that it was preceded by gun bans? Does it not make sense that a population is at the complete mercy of the state when they are defenseless?
How can you ignore the cases of Turkey, Germany, China, Soviet Union, Guatemala, Uganda, Cambodia etc? ALL had their guns banned before being completely decimated by their own governments. Should we not learn a thing or two there? Is it not part of a civilians duty to keep his own government in check?
Its a pity people would rather live in fantasy world that will never happen. People will always want to hurt each other. Taking away a persons ability to defend himself is effectively taking away his right to self preservation.
We are not the UK, no.. but the fact that their crime rate has gone through the roof since gun bans, and the fact that those guns are certainly not coming from civilians, doesn’t raise an eyebrow with you? Are you really that willing to fool yourself?
The message from the rest of the world is clear. If you ban guns you only remove them from the hands of the average law abiding man, not from the criminal watching you arrive at home.
Prof, I have to tell you that I am more than a little disappointed by your ‘answers’ to the points raised in Martin Hood’s post. In the past, I’ve always enjoyed reading your take on things but this time you have failed to impress.
What a pity.
Jim, in the absence of reasoned, logical arguments in which you take issue with my Constitutional Law analysis, we cannot really take this matter further. It is difficult to debate constitutional law issues with people who has no clue of the structure of the Constitution and the Constitutional Courts jurisprudence interpreting the Bill of Rights.
Preparatory Workshop on Department of Police Annual Report
Police
Date of Meeting:
13 Oct 2009
Chairperson:
Ms S Chikunga (ANC)
Documents handed out:
Programme: Detective Services
Portfolio Committee workshop on Department of Police’s 2008/09 Annual Report
Independent Complaints Directorate Presentation [Part 2]
Independent Complaints Directorate Presentation [Part 1]
SAPS Annual Report Presentation
SAPS 2009 Annual Report [available at http://www.saps.gov.za
Audio recording of the meeting:
Preparatory Workshop on Department of Police Annual Report
Summary:
The Police Portfolio Committee research team gave a workshop on the Annual Report due to be presented by the South African Police Service (SAPS). The workshop focused on each SAPS programme and the work done in the 2008/09 financial year. The main programmes singled out were Administration, Visible Policing, Detective Services and the expenditure analysis and findings of the Auditor-General. It was reported, that the Administration programme had done well in achieving some of its set targets. A total of 182 754 posts were filled out of a total 183 180 created posts. Even though a huge number of personnel had terminated their service (3 310), over 14 611 police officers, a bulk of them being entry level appointments, had been recruited. A lot of resources was reported to being channelled towards the visible policing programme. It was through this programme that over 13 675 firearms had been recovered, most of those being R5 and R4 rifles which are mainly in the custody of the SAPS and the South African National Defence Force (SANDF). Detective services showed significant improvements, which worryingly for the Committee was not matched by high conviction rates…..
Minutes:
The purpose of the meeting was to allow an opportunity for Portfolio Committee members to interact with the parliamentary research unit, to be able to share information and raise issues about the South African Police Service (SAPS) Annual Report 2008/09. Mr Mpumelelo Mpisi, from the research unit led the presentation, focussing mainly on Administration, Visible Policing, Detective Services and the findings of the Auditor-General. He reminded the members that the two pieces of legislation governing the work of the SAPS categorically state that the mission of the department was to prevent, combat and investigate crime. To maintain public order, to protect and secure inhabitants of the Republic and their property and to ensure everyone upheld the rule of law…..
Programme: Visible Policing
The programme had recorded a total of 1 223 505 arrests compared to 1 274 602 in the previous financial year. It also saw the recovery of 13 675 firearms, up from 12 765 firearms recovered in the 2007/08 financial year. Mr Mpisi said that most of the firearms recovered were R4 and R5 rifles and it was common knowledge that in the majority of robbery cases, R5 rifles were mostly used. It raised a critical question which was how criminals were getting hold of those weapons since the SAPS was the main custodian of R5 rifles. He said it would be interesting to know how many of the recovered firearms belonged to SAPS and how many were linked to crime scenes.
Prof, I don’t have a problem with your reasoned, logical arguments or your Constitutional Law analysis of the FCA (it’s why I visit your blog). I am happy to leave that debate to legal-beagles to take up with you. Who am I to argue the toss with a Professor of Constitutional Law!
No, the problem I have (and the disappointment) is how you suddenly hurl all that reasoned, logical argument out the window and stray from the debate on constitutional law to write wildly irrational things like: “As most criminals acquire guns by stealing them from private owners (a fact not disputed by anyone)” ……….. when there are a whole bunch of us out here disputing that and asking you for evidence to support the claim? or evidence that disarming citizens has EVER reduced crime, anywhere or anytime?
If you are going to stray from arguing the law and start arguing gun-control then, using reasoned, logical arguments, you need to answer some of the question being raised?
Like what about all those cash-in-transit/mall robbery AK47s and R5s? Stolen from private owners? You really think so?
Sorry Prof, regurgitating unproven ‘Gun Free South Africa’ propaganda clap-trap should be beneath you, Sir.
My own personal opinion regarding the R4 and R5 rifles used in all these robberies is that these are members of the SANDF moonlighting. Just a gut feel: No facts to support it. Perception shaped by the home invasion of a friend who has now migrated from Pretoria to the Platteland. They were attacked by a dozen men all executing different parts of the overall operation very precisely. One member did not even look at them or the others – just slipped under the double cab she was standing next to in the driveway to check it for a tracking device.
The assailants were armed with Star Mod B’s. We all know who has Star Mod B’s in any number.
Tell us about ‘transformation’ and ‘reintegration’ of the SANDF, Snee?
Was a database kept of everyone trained by Umkhonto?
Proffie said:
“However, there is no right in the Constitution for a private individual to possess a firearm and to use that to kill people.”
The Constitution is similarly silent on the right of private individuals to possess hairdryers, or knives, or cars.
Glaring omissions?
“My interpretation of the Constitution that while it is Constitutionally permissable for the state to allow private individuals to hold guns, it is not constitutionally required as the state has a right and duty to decide how best to deal with crime and as long as it acts in a way that is reasonable and justifiable in an open and democratic society based on human dignity, equality and freedom, it will be constitutionally legitimate.”
Are you not here in contradiction to your first point? So the Constitution (more exactly the Bill of Rights) permits the State to allow ownership of goods. How noble of them! Here I always thought we, the citizens, allowed the State certain latitude to govern us.
Proffie I think you are mistaking a Constitutional Democracy for an Autocracy where a supremem power rules by fiat and makes concessions to a servile people.
” As most criminals acquire guns by stealing them from private owners (a fact not disputed by anyone)”
Really?!
Please provide your sources for this. Not even the SA Government dares to make this statement! They couch their similar pronouncements in qualifiers and cop outs such as: “All illegal firearms [whatever on earth and illegal firearm might be] were once legal”
The facts of the matter are that many/most fireams in unlicensed (and sometimes) illegal ownership, probably came from legal owners – by far the largest proportional percentage from the State (about 20 times) more than from ‘individuals’. Does the proffie suggest we disarm the State?
“I am in favour of reducing gun-related crime so support the removal of guns out of the hands opf the source of all the illegal guns: private gun owners.”
Or, more correctly from the hands of the State! Makes sense to me, proffie! You have my support.
“A person found with a gun will be easily found guilty of a crime and locked up for several years. A relatively uncomplicated case to prove in court and a way of taking criminals off the streets and reduce guns at the same time.”
At our current conviction rate of 6% it may take a while longer that you might wish to think…
“The Constitutional invalidity of provisions in any law can only take effect if confirmed by the Constitutional Court. Whenever any provision of an act is declared unconstitutional it AUTOMATICALLY goes to the CC for confirmation.”
And this takes a while. It is in process, don’t crow too soon.
“No such case has been brought to CC so I respectfully do not believe Hood that any High Court has found any provisions in the gun law unconstitutional.”
Are you confusing CC rulings with High Court rulings here? It certainly seems so. Please explain?
“I suspect the High Court found that the police had acted in problematic ways in implementing the law.”
Indeed. Not just the police though, also the Minister of Public Safety.
“(7) If there are problems with the implementation of the law, these must be corrected. It has NO bearing, hwoever, on the Constitutionality of the Act itself. To confuse the two is to make a fundamental error of constitutional law.”
On your own evidence (above) it would seem you are making exactly this error.
“Personally I would prefer to live in a country in which private gun ownership is outlawed.”
Might I suggest you then hurry to do so. I believe North Korea is quite nice this time of year.
“My argument is in essence that this position is completely in line with the normatice [sic] commitments of the Constitution and that if the state were to go that rout nothing in the Constitution prevents it from doing so. I have yet to hear a rational and cogent constitutional law argument to demonstrate that I am wrong on this score.”
It seems there are none so blind as those who will not see. That’s OK, we understand how difficult it is to glimpse the truth through a heavy fog of emotion. We are used to having to share the world with the ideologically obsessed.
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom.
It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
William Pitt, 1783
De Vos laments that some commentary may have deviated to personal attacks on him. This may be true, but seeing that the quality of of his legal reasoning is so poor and has been so easily refuted and demolished, there is not much left for one to do except maybe to take a few cheap shots. My main concern is that he is a law professor and, as such, is expected to be imbued with a minimum standard of reason and objectivity. Clearly his arguments indicate that this is not so. This therefore brings one to the next question: is this the best that one has to offer in legal academia and how did he crack this job? Some may find it offensive and a travesty that the public purse is paying his salary.
When De Vos took a stance against Hlophe, I thought he showed principle and courage. Unfortunately my assessment seems to have been somewhat premature; moral recidivism appears to have manifested itself.
The only plausible explanation I can offer to explain his specious and seriously flawed argument is a long-standing tradition with some members in his community to suck up to the new ruling order in order to ingratiate themselves and hopefully be tossed a few crumbs from from the ANC table of patronage. Why do names like Sampie Terreblanche, Jaco Bothma, Pik Botha, Roelf Meyer, Marthinus Van Schalkwyk, Andries Nel and Johnny De Lange suddenly spring to mind?
Come on Pierre. Show some gonadal fortitude and some independence of thought. I would hate to think that some people might conclude that you have sold out legal principle for popularity with our fascist rulers.
“I have principles, and if you don’t like them, I have others!”
I believe intellectually Pierre De Vos is on the side of gun owners – what true believer would not be? Anyone who pays even lipservice to the idea of a Rechtstaat is aghast at our treatment, the way the Constitution has been turned into low-grade toilet paper at the hands of the Minister and the SAPS – the compensation guidelines published two weeks ago being the latest example.
Pierre has a lot invested in being part of the gun prohibitionist camp. To an extent we as gun owners have drawn the battle lines and made it difficult for people like him to cross them.
We might play hard but that is because we are gatvol, having been pushed around for ten years. No Stockholm Syndrome here!
For ten years though, gun owners have occupied the moral high ground – telling all comers this fight is about constitutionalism not guns.
My money is on Pierre De Vos doing the right thing when push comes to shove. In every other fight, so far, he has been on the side of the people fighting for the preservation of the Constitution – why should this fight be different? Just because the people fighting for the Constitution own guns with which they never victimise anyone?