Gunformation Forum

[GOSA]

Press Release
2009-03-31

Gun Owners of South Africa (GOSA) note with dismay the chaos and dysfunction in the SAPS as it goes through the dishonourable motions of trying to cover up the failed implementation of the Firearms Control Act 60 of 2000.

The auditor general has never audited that implementation.

Time frames for completion of the gun license renewal process bear no resemblance to the requirements for just administrative action contained in the Promotion of Administrative Justice Act of 2000.

The pretext for the Act is ostensibly to curb crime. The logic escapes us.

Property rights are protected in Section 25 of the Constitution. Hundreds of thousands of law abiding, tax paying citizens are being deprived of property they bought and paid for and legally licensed, by means of fraud and intimidation. These citizens, largely the old, frail and less privileged are left defenceless in the face of the most sustained criminal onslaught in this country’s history. Billions have been wasted in pursuit of the disarmament of legal firearm owners while criminals ply their trade with impunity - operating in what must to them be Utopia, apparently government sanctioned.

Gun Owners of South Africa demand that the licence renewal process be suspended until the police service is in a position to
complete the gun license renewal applications they have received in order of year received and
roll out the compensation owed to those who were due to renew, who surrendered guns licensed under the Arms and Ammunition Act, who are entitled to compensation under S137 of the FCA. 600 000 gun owners have been bullied, intimidated, coerced and defrauded into surrendering their firearms the past three years.
In other words, an embargo on receipt of licensed firearms for destruction until the renewal process has been audited and is objectively up to date. Accepting subsequent years’ renewal applications when no compensation applications have been paid out and only 7000 2005 renewal applications have been finalised is, quite simply, mind-boggling.

Not informing those people surrendering their firearms that they are entitled to claim compensation constitutes fraud, and, once the firearm has been handed over, theft by false pretences.

We stand aghast at the aggressive attitude, the threats, the blatant intimidation by the supposed servants of the public. GOSA condemns the laissez faire attitude displayed by these arrogant errant civil servants toward the Constitution, the rule of law, the Promotion of Administrative Justice Act.

Those attempting late registration are treated with contempt and threatened with prosecution. The taxpayer pays SAPS salaries. A service ethic and the principles of Batho Pele seem anathema to these SAPS members turned bureaucrat.

GOSA honour the street cops, the SAPS members on the beat, those brave and dedicated ‘civil’ servants who risk their lives to make a difference in their communities. Resources are diverted from them, those chasing criminals, to harass legal gun owners.

The Courts are clogged, the state being the defendant in a great many civil cases. The Central Firearms Register has been the defendant in civil cases far too many times itself. The Courts have roundly condemned the CFR several times. Yet, there is not a hint of the CFR being held to account by the Department for Safety and Security or its incompetent, intransigent Ministers.

This firearm re-licensing fiasco is beyond saving. Canada pulled the plug on its gun law when its implementation was in far less dire straits.

We urge gun owners to show their resentment of the way their constitutional rights and liberties have been trampled upon, on Election Day. Ask hard questions of your political party of choice. What are they doing to alleviate your plight? Far more importantly, what have they done to protect the supremacy of the Constitution and rule of law against the onslaught of the political commissars of the SAPS?

A legally armed person is a citizen. Unarmed we are but subjects.

Gun Owners of South Africa

http://www.gunownerssa.org/
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