As far as legislation goes, the Firearms Control Act (FCA) has a truly bizarre and probably unconstitutional track record as far as drafting goes. This starts with the final amendment to the Arms and Ammunition Act (AAA) in 1999, and continues to present day. In this article, Jonathan would like to walk the reader through this nefarious journey of progression to show just how much the government has lost control, and how shut out firearm owners are in the context of the 2025 FCA amendment.
The origins of the FCA are murky at best and abound with all kind of legend and myth. Unraveling it was tricky and it proved to be a fairly disjointed mess to try and piece it together. The now confirmed existence of the NEDLAC-related 2025 FCA amendment underscores the importance of understanding how these amendments get drafted.
It is important to start off by understanding the social context of South Africa in the 1990s: utter chaos. Rates of violence were extremely bad, and had been getting exponentially worse since the 1980s. Firearms were a tangible manifestation of the violence due to their prolific use, especially the AK47. The NP (and later ANC) government could not deal with the social problems causing the violence, and they defaulted to obsessing on the only thing they could see: firearms. It fed the hubristic notion that if they could control firearms, then they could control crime. While the NP fussed and fiddled with checkchairs on a sinking ship between 1990 and 1993 by passing five amendments to the AAA in three years (to no effect), the ANC would quickly join the ridiculous circus.
It really began in 1996 when the ANC government created a draft amendment to the AAA to delete the section 8(1) ability to lend a firearm to someone. For whatever reason, cabinet withdrew the amendment proposal just as the Portfolio Committee for Safety and Security started to review it. The same amendment proposal was back in 1999, minus some details, to exclusively focus on the lending provision of section 8(1). The amendment was approved by cabinet on 4 March 1999, the Committee was briefed by the police and others on 8 March 1999, debated in Parliament on 17 March 1999, and signed into law by 23 April 1999. This is probably the fastest Parliament has ever passed any law, and the only response by the government to alleviate the outrage was to say ‘just wait for the FCA, and you can comment then’.
Throughout the very short process, opposition parties complained bitterly about the problems and deeply suspicious reasoning for deleting the lending provision. The police in particular said that gangsters were using ‘clean’ associated to apply for licences to then lend to them, and the lending letters made the gangsters immune to arrest and prosecution for possession of a firearm. This could only be complete rubbish because if the gangster truly was such, he would have probably been unfit to possess a firearm by virtue of a prior conviction. The lender would also be guilty of giving a firearm to an unfit person.
This was despite an ANC government that said very friendly things about firearm ownership during the AAA’s 1995 amendment debates. The police were however very animated in demanding that the section 8(1) lending provision be deleted. It would seem that the demise of the AAA was deliberately engineered, although I have my doubts about the ANC’s animus in it (motivated intent). The police and the secretariat were very auspicious.
It would go on into the FCA when the police promised, with great enthusiasm and vigour, that they were ready for the new law. This was right after they swore and argued in court that they did not have the ability to properly administer something as simple as a background check for the AAA. CFR was already backlogged in 2000 and unable to cope with licence applications, yet the police promised they were ready for the absolute deluge of additional applications that the FCA would bring. They were also subject to allegations of corruption, all white the police’s senior officers (Bothma and Andrew Lesch) wrote articles and gave comments for the police in the newspapers, and were the FCA’s biggest cheerleaders. It gives the impression that the police gave the ANC government a reason to be agitated, and the ANC gave a blank cheque to the bureaucracy (supported by GFSA et al).
The role of GFSA and similar organisations also need to be mentioned. GFSA created an umbrella organisation called the Gun Control Alliance (GCA) to help lobby and push the FCA through Parliament prior to 2000, and it lasted until around 2004 when it seems to have been dissolved. The police were all to happy to receive their demands. Despite the best efforts of pro-choice organisations under the umbrella of the National Firearm Forum, the police allegedly criticised them as somewhat incoherent and disjointed in their opposition. Not that it mattered: the FCA was going to become law come hell or high water.
GFSA’s involvement began back in 1996 already when they were invited together with several other organisations to draft a new firearm policy framework for the government. This work was completed by 1999, which is when the AAA’s 1999 amendments got forced through Parliament under the pretext of urgency. Another GFSA aligned entity, SaferAfrica, had one of its officials (Ric de Caris) chair an investigation into the CFR. This became part of the reason to repeal the AAA in its entirety.
By 1999, CFR’s records were horrendously inaccurate. For all intents and purposes, South Africa did not have a CFR. Personal records of individual owners were as little as 30% accurate (or less), and only 84% of firearm owners had the correct firearms in their possession upon random inspection. The re-incorporation of the former homeland states meant consolidating their registers, which were also very inaccurate. Namibia had also broken away from South Africa and presented its own accuracy problems with the new borders. Total relicensing was therefore necessary if CFR was to continue to exist, hence further justification for the FCA which would now make it a criminal offence to not update a change in personal status or circumstances.
The FCA was already collapsing under its own weight by 2006, arguably proving that the police had grossly misrepresented their abilities in 2000. Come 2009, rampant corruption was revealed in what was a factually collapsed CFR which would then go onto have an untold number of turnaround strategies to get up to date. Despite the totally inaccurate CFR records and the barely relevant FCA (which still has not reached full implementation), the violent crime rate had been dropping since 1995. Make of that what you will.
The 2015 amendment proposal was so ludicrous and wishlist thinking that it spawned the 2015 Firearm Forum to find out as much as possible about how to proceed with the FCA and draft a new amendment with common support. The ANC of the time (specifically Maggie Sotyu) was remarkably sympathetic to the submissions by pro-choice groups and even suggested lowering the age limit to 18.
When the new amendments were finally drafted, they came in the form of the leaked 2018 amendment proposal which was head and shoulders worse than the original 2015 amendment proposal. The government had effectively ignored everything from the Firearms Forum and was really trying to repeal the FCA by stealth. This effort backfired on the government who just played the silence game and waited for the noise to die down before trying again with the same document in 2021 (that we all remember). It also elicited a storm of reactions and was allowed to quietly fade into irrelevance. I need not mention how GFSA acquired the ‘confidential’ WSG Report that completely undermined the CSP, who then tried to hide and save themselves the embarrassment of knowing that we know who they are.
It is now 2025 and we are back to playing the games of cloak and dagger as we hear that NEDLAC played a substantial role in drafting the new amendment proposal, which is top secret for now. All for no apparent reason, because NEDLAC stands for ‘National Economic Development and Labour Council. What on earth do these people have to do with public safety broadly speaking, let alone firearm regulation? If the track record is anything to go by, the 2025 FCA amendment proposal is going to be just as bad as the three previous ones.
What does this tell us about the state of government bona fides? For one, I have become ever more convinced that the ANC is not deliberately antagonistic towards firearm ownership, but its organs of state absolutely are. The ANC has a terrible track record of actually managing its bureaucracies, and largely lets them run on autopilot. Even Martin Hood commented on his Facebook page (either in 2018 or 2021) that he was of the opinion that the ANC had simply abdicated its responsibility of managing the SAPS and CSP because of how terrified they were of the topic.
If Martin and I can agree on this and both independently came to this conclusion, then it is probably true: the bureaucracies have simply gone rogue, and the ANC cabinet has simply rubber stamped everything handed to them. My personal belief is that Cele and other political officials were simply given a script and placed in front of the microphone like a wind-up toy to champion the deeply compromised SAPS and CSP. These two organisations in particular have a consistent track record of bad faith and are not to be trusted. This is a pity because the rank-and-file police officer can be hardworking and decent, tainted by their association to such a compromised organisation.
This is not ‘new’ to the post-1994 dispensation either. The South African Police were quite involved when the Arms and Ammunition Act of 1937 was created, and they specifically insisted on the restriction to only possess ammunition for a licensed calibre. This 1937 Act was deliberately written and broadly motivated by the desire to make black firearm ownership impossible, of which the 1969 Act was much the same.
I have strong feelings about the coming 2025 FCA amendment, and this is what I have on my mind (although I am unsure whether this should be an official position):
“When the 2025 FCA amendment finally sees the light of day, all firearm owners and associated bodies and organisations have a moral and constitutional duty to reject the amendments out of hand. Even if there may be some ‘good provisions’, they must by necessity also be rejected. To tolerate any part of the amendment proposals would be to say that we explicitly condone this sort of undemocratic behaviour, as long as we get thrown a bone like dogs. If amendments are to have our support, we need to involved from start to finish.”
I will instead try to be cautious and say ‘let us see what surprises are in store for us this time’. Ian Cameron is a firearm owner and chair of the Police Portfolio Committee, and he will not be manipulated by GFSA and the bureaucracy. The nature and progress of my doctorate has also armed the FPC with a particular amount of context and knowledge about the history of firearm regulation (final drafting stages now). Perhaps it can be one of the swords we need to ward off this amendment proposal.