A document alleging to be a draft of the now long-rumoured 2025 FCA amendment draft has started circulating. While the ‘official’ nature of this document is unproven, their contents make it very clear that is an actual draft. Who else would casually sit down to write 61 pages of text in landscape orientation? It is strengthened by the fact that the contents are no different in spirit to the previous 2021 draft amendments. This article is meant to help firearm owners understand what is in here, and the dangers it presents.
I will write a separate article explaining the South African firearm community’s blind spot, and it is a big one (and invites these sorts of amendments). Fortunately, it is not impossible to fix, and I am sure that they will be grateful to give it some attention. Another fortunate point is that the South African government is so incompetent that it makes resistance easy. These amendments are no different.
Jonathan Deal from the SafeCitizen Alliance called the amendments ‘lipstick on a pig’ in a recent BizNews interview. He is of course correct, but it unfortunately misses an even bigger problem that not many people noticed even with the 2021 amendments (except maybe the Institute of Race Relations who were more vocal about it in their messaging). This bigger problem is that these are not amendments. It is a repeal and replacement of the FCA by stealth.
The substance of the FCA is completely rewritten. Yes, it is in line with the original vision of the FCA’s drafters between 1996 and 2000, but it is still a new evolution of that vision (no matter how logical it is in evolutionary terms). The ‘amendment’ is over 60 pages long, and features over 85 changes or additions. I repeat: this is a new and different law to what was passed in 2000. It is not an amendment.
I will start with broad themes that permeate the entire amendment. Granted, I only read as far as clause 20 of the 85+ clauses in this 60+ document, but I did not need to read further. The message is clear: The government wants to take as many of your existing firearms as possible, and make the ability to get new firearms virtually impossible by completely changing the rules.
The usual suspects feature in the text again: section 13 radically rewritten, section 14 deleted, sections 15 and 16 drastically restricted…and we cannot forget that competency certificates are to be given a fixed five-year validity period. Blah blah blah. Also and by the way, the five-year declaration of unfitness period is also deleted and replaced by…drum roll…whatever the Registrar decides! Yes, declaration of unfitness can now be 15 years if they decide. Sure, you can appeal to a court, but it is not like SAPS will pay your legal fees in full even if you win.
The preamble is also deleted and rewritten, as are the purposes, and ‘Principles and Objects’ are also added in a new section. The hubris of the entire document is summed up in the preamble, which says:
“”WHEREAS in terms of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996, the duty to maintain public order, to protect and secure everyone in the Republic lies with the State”
If this did not make you think that whoever wrote this was high on an illicit substance, they also went on to write:
“AND WHEREAS the easy availability of firearms to civilians and their uncontrolled presence constitute major threats to the security of persons and property, sustainable development and the stability of the State”
It is you, dear firearm owner, who is directly to blame for the instability of South Africa. You are the reason for so much murder and violence with knifes and blunt objects and single parent households, and poverty, and…wait sorry…I am reading the wrong script. Please forgive me, not that the script matters.
As you may have noticed, the government has directly accused firearm owners for being the reason the government has completely and utterly failed in all of its most basic duties. The entire liberal concept of a state is a government that guarantees the protection of rights through institutions such as the police, the courts, and the defence of the country as a whole through the military. Anything else is accessory and added on top of those basic requirements. The South African government has failed at all three of these basic things, and a myriad of other ‘add on’ features. Despite this, it is you, dear firearm owner, who is to blame.
The attempt at humour aside, the amendments propose many other things as well. These include blatant admissions that the SAPS has failed even at basic enforcement of the FCA. Blanks have been defined as ammunition since 2000, because blanks contain a primer, and primers are defined as ammunition. The amendment now makes a new definition for blank ammunition so that it is treated the same as ammunition…that it already is defined as.
The SAPS chose not to enforce this definition for 25 years, and that is also your fault. Apparently. It is also apparently Parliament’s fault, because the SAPS has asked Parliament to make possession of blank ammunition double illegal, because the first attempt at plain English was apparently too difficult to understand.
Competency certificates are to be valid for five years again, even though this was changed in 2006 because it was collapsing the FCA’s administration. Obviously, it can now be brought back because the FCA will arguably become easier to administer when the number of licensed firearms plunges towards zero (the goal of the amendment). Even if that is not the goal now, it will be in the future. Four amendment bills/drafts/documents since 2015 makes the trajectory very clear.
The amendment is also replete with tautologies (saying something twice, even though the first time was clear). There needs to be provision for ‘strict satisfaction of licence issue and renewal’, and ‘ensure proper storage and transport in the required manner’. New definitions are created, such as ‘family member’ which defeats itself because it does not include unmarried people living together.
Who wrote this rubbish? People are very quick to blame the ANC, and it is true that they are ultimately responsible for this garbage. It is also very shortsighted to lock on and direct much anger at the ANC, because even if they are ultimately responsible, they are not the ones who wrote it.
The authors are clearly the same in mind if not person as the 2015, 2018 and 2021 authors. These authors are to be found in the Civilian Secretariat for Police Service (CSP) and the SAPS, although it is the CSP who has the job of actually drafting police-related laws. I previously wrote about it here. It is imperative that we understand this, because it means that whoever inherits a government department will also inherit the people in it. The Minister almost always defers to the ‘expertise’ of the departments they are responsible for, after all, that is why the department exists in the first place. The days of Jan Smuts being the minister for two or three departments at the same time are over.
Even Martin Hood realised this, which he did as far back as 2018 when he said that the ANC was so scared of the firearm topic that it just abdicated all responsibility. The CSP and SAPS are leaderless, and do what they want, and books can be written about their astounding arrogance and incompetence. Indeed I already have! There is an entire chapter of my LLD thesis devoted to these people and their contempt for constitutional lawmaking.
The important question to answer now is how the firearm community as a whole should respond to these amendments. I am under the understanding that Jonathan Deal was invited to comment by NEDLAC, but that he rejected their invitation as illegitimate. This is the correct answer: Reject the amendments. We should not even discuss them in good faith, because they were created in demonstrably bad faith. It was born in sin, and must die in sin. We must not save it. We already played that game with the 2021 amendments, and look what it got us: Deal’s lipstick on a pig.
Do not be fooled by the creation of a ‘forum’ either. This is nothing more than a carrot on a stick, and biting it will bite us. It will co-opt the firearm community into playing an active role in legitimising the FCA’s control rationale, make any future efforts at reform more difficult, and make controlling us easier.
Whenever these amendments come up in discussion, reject them outright. Ridicule them and its authors for the ridiculous thing they are. These are not serious amendments, and drafted by people who are not serious people. It is an insult to your intelligence (for the fourth time). The authors think you are mind-bogglingly stupid that they can just churn out the same garbage over and over.
The CSP commissioned a report in the FCA’s effectiveness (the WSG Report), then classified it for six years rather than let anyone know it said (except for GFSA). When it was released, we found out that the report disowned the South African government as a whole. It used words such as ‘stop placing unconditional faith in the FCA to solve crime problems’. Not many people remember the 2015 Firearm Summit in Parliament, which produced a formal report with Maggie Sotyu (from the ANC!) even saying the age limit should maybe be reduced to 18. This was also ignored.
Reject the amendments. You are a citizen, not a subject, least of all a subject to unelected bureaucrats in Pretoria.