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Why is private ownership of guns so critical for future peace and stability in South Africa?

In Sept 2002 these were the facts on legal ownership:

FIREARMS OWNERSHIP

Percentage of Households with Firearms: 6%.

Estimated Number of Licensed Firearm Owners: 2 million

Estimated Number of Firearms Legally Possessed by Individuals: 3.6 million

With a population of 40.58 million, the firearm to person ratio in South Africa is 10.45 to 100 persons, with firearm owner to person ratio at 5.75 to 100 persons. This translates to roughly six percent of the population owning a firearm with an average of two firearms per owner.

Of these licensed firearms, approximately 62% are handguns, 29% are rifles and the remaining 9% are largely shotguns

So roughly 1 in 20 persons in SA legally owns one or more firearm(s) and in approximately 1 in 16 households there is one or more firearms.

Is that cause for concern? Gun Free South Africa would have you believe so - but when compared with many other countries, the most accurate figures available do not show that SA is a 'gun-loving' society at all.In fact South Africa falls right in the middle of countries for which data is available.

The table below contains data based on the Small Arms Survey 2005:

As can be seen South Africa is certainly not 'awash with guns' at least as far a legal guns are concerned,as often claimed by the anti-gun lobby. Since no-one knows how many illegal guns there are however it is possible that SA is indeed actually 'awash' with illegal guns - and yet which guns are being targeted by Gun Free SA and the government? - you guessed it - legal guns owned by law-abiding citizens!

Apart from gun ownership for legitimate hunting and sporting purposes generally (shooting sports etc), valid reasons for gun-ownership for self-defence purposes in SA have in fact proliferated in recent years due to burgeoning crime - and unfortunately much of the additional crime is of a very violent nature (see "Crime Reports").

However the crime that probably most concerns the average citizen occurs at his/her home, often in the dead of night - when an armed robber or robbers clandestinely enters the home with the intention of holding the occupants at gunpoint and robbing them - this is often accompanied by a high degree of gratuitous violence, even murder, torture and rape.

Given the fact that in these scenarios (common) the invaders have already overcome whatever alarms and other security measures are in place and have entered the dwelling, then the ONLY suitable defensive tool is the firearm. It is the height of folly to say, as do Gun Free and others, that the homeowner should simply phone the police or rely on an armed security response company - the quickest response by such entities will invariably be too slow to prevent injury or death.

More and more in recent times, we see reports (See Defence Reports) of homeowners and others successfully using a gun to thwart attackers in their homes - we sympathise deeply with the victims of such attacks in that they had to undergo such a traumatic and terrifying event - but applaud such actions and hope to see more law-abiding citizens succeeding against thugs - while the state continues in it's attempts to disarm all such law-abiding citizens and remove any possibility that such future defensive actions may succeed as a result of having to defend the home with non-firearm weapons of limited power.

If the ability to properly defend is removed from citizens, then criminals will be allowed the freedom to perpetrate their crimes virtually without risk to themselves. The result of this, over time, will inevitably be an increase in crime, and we are seeing this result today, where home invasions have increased 25% (2005-2006 statistics) and the incidence of armed, as opposed to unarmed criminal attacks is almost universal - today one can expect that a robber who enters a home or business premises to rob, will be armed.

The fact of increased crime by weapon-wielding thugs is evidenced in every country which has adopted overly-strict gun ownership laws. Britain, Australia, Belgium are some recent examples, where exactly the opposite result to that desired by authorities, has been achieved after laws severely restricting and even banning ownership of firearms have been enacted.