30 people die by the gun every day in SA — it’s time to stop the
violence. (Photo: iStock) 
Maverick Citizen earlier this week published a guest editorial by Gun Free SA’s director, Adèle Kirsten. In response, we received a number of complaints by gun advocates alleging factual inaccuracies in the article. To set the record straight, we invited Kirsten to address the issues raised and provide sources and evidence to support her claims. – Mark Heywood, Maverick Citizen Editor
Read more in Daily Maverick: “30 people die by the gun every day in SA – it’s time to stop the violence”
Claim 1: Knives – not guns – are the leading murder weapon in South Africa.
Fact: Guns are the leading murder weapon in SA, and have been since at least 2015/16 (when information on weapon use was first published).
After not publishing this for a number of years, information on the weapons used in murder was provided for the years 2015/16, 2017/18, 2017/19 and 2020/21 in response to two parliamentary questions.
It was also provided in SA Police Service (SAPS) presentations on annual crime statistics for the years 2017/18 (slide 23); 2018/19 (slide 27) and 2019/20 (slide 18).
From this information, we can see that more people were murdered with guns than knives from as early as 2015/16 (see Table 1).
Further, in 2018/19, firearms replaced all stab-related deaths (knife and other sharp weapons combined) as the leading weapon used in murder (see Graph 1).
SAPS did not provide information on weapon use in 2020/21, but has provided it for the first two quarters of 2022 (April to June and July to September) Note: Information for April to June 2022 was downloaded from “police recorded crime statistics – Republic of South Africa” on 19 August 2022. A video of the presentation, including slides, is available here: “
style="font-weight: 400;">Police Minister Bheki Cele presents the quarterly crime statistics”.
As summarised in Table 2, the latest quarterly crime statistics show that 5,574 people were murdered with a gun (averaging 30 people a day over 183 days) and 2,866 were stabbed (1,866 with knives and 1,001 with other sharp weapons, e.g. broken bottles, averaging 15 sharp-wound deaths a day).
Claim 2: Licenced gun owners and businesses (such as trainers and dealers) are responsible and law-abiding.
Fact: There is evidence that thousands of licenced gun owners and businesses have broken and continue to break the law.
Licenced gun owners have not always complied with the Firearms Control Act, 2000 (FCA). Failures include:
Not relicensing firearms under South African law:
The transitional provisions of the FCA gave existing gun owners with “green licences” issued under the 1969 Arms and Ammunition Act a period of four years to renew their licences under the stricter provisions of the FCA, starting in 2005.
In 2009, as the transitional provisions were coming to an end, the North Gauteng High Court granted an interim court order under which “green” licences remain valid pending the final outcome of an application to have certain sections of the FCA declared unconstitutional.
Although this ruling protects gun owners with “green licences” from being in possession of illegal firearms, more than one million firearm owners have chosen to not comply with the law of South Africa by reapplying for licences under the FCA, despite this being the responsibility of law-abiding citizens.
Failing to renew licences as required by law
In 2016, SAPS issued a directive to standardise the firearm licence renewal process, which had been unevenly enforced and complied with around the country.
According to SAPS (2015-2016 Annual Report, p. 111), the directive was “prompted… by individuals and businesses not applying to renew their licences”.
Figures from SAPS revealed an overall compliance rate of just 67% with section 24 of the FCA (which deals with licence renewals): of the 191,488 firearm licences liable for renewal in the 2015/16 financial year, 128,419 applications were received (source: SAPS 2015-2016 Annual Report, p. 111).
In addition, gun-related business have committed a range of criminal acts – some of the more high-profile cases are summarised below:
High-profile South African examples of crimes committed by gun-related businesses
Accredited firearms training institutions:
- Police close illegal KZN firearms training academy: A 2015 joint police operation swooped on a Richards Bay firearms training academy which had been running illegally since 2009, making all firearms certificates issued by the academy invalid (Police swoop on firearm training academy).
- Journalist buys fake gun proficiency certificate: The secretary of the South African Professional Firearm Trainers Council (which, on 6 March 2015, was appointed as the national body responsible for ensuring the quality of firearms proficiency certification) was caught on camera selling a proficiency certificate to a journalist without her having received any training (
