Cops ordered to consider relicensing surrendered firearms

Gun rights lobbyists have welcomed a North Gauteng High Court ruling which they say opens up the current firearms amnesty to more South Africans.

The North Gauteng High Court on Wednesday ordered that the SAPS be instructed to accept all applications for amnesty that came their way during this period – and to at least consider any re-licensing applications they received.

This on the back of an urgent case professional hunter Brendon Sternberg brought against the SAPS last month. While The Citizen understands the case had initially been opposed, Wednesday’s order ended up being handed down by consent.

Last November, Police Minister Bheki Cele declared a firearm amnesty from December 2019 to May 2020 – during which time members of the public could surrender any unlicensed and illegal firearms without fear of prosecution. As a result of the impact of the global Covid-19 pandemic, though, the amnesty has now effectively been extended to the end of January 2021.

The Firearms Control Act makes provision for a person who surrenders a firearm in terms of an amnesty, to apply to re-license that firearm – something which Sternberg wanted to take advantage of.

Sternberg recently bought a number of valuable rifles and shotguns from a local widow whose now late husband had shipped them into South Africa under a temporary import permit in January 2014.

When the temporary permit had expired a year later, though, he had not renewed it and at the time of his death, the firearms were unlicensed.

Sternberg’s plan was to surrender the firearms – which he bought for work – in terms of the amnesty so the police could ensure they had not been used in the commission of any crimes; and to re-license them in his own name.

After much back and forth with the SAPS, though, he last month received an email informing him that “part of the amnesty process was to allow the public to bring forth unregistered firearms so that they can be registered on the system but only to be destroyed not licensed”.

This prompted Sternberg – backed by Gun Owners South Africa (Gosa) and represented by Martin Hood – to turn to the court.

“There was nothing in the FCA or the amnesty declaration that provides that firearms must be registered on the system to be destroyed where there is no license,” he had charged in his founding papers,

“They may only be destroyed if they are handed in for destruction by the possessor or if the license application by the possessor is refused and all internal and external remedies are exhausted and are negative against the applicant.”

His case was not that his re-licensing application ought necessarily to be approved but rather that it had to at least be processed.

Gosa chair Paul Oxley said on Thursday that Wednesday’s order was a win for the community as a whole.

“It means that now anybody can take in a firearm, not be prosecuted for unlawful possession and apply for a new license,” he said.

Oxley said over the last few months, there had been a number of reports of the SAPS refusing to deal with re-licensing applications for people in similar situations to Sternberg’s. He said some firearms that were licensed had simply disappeared from the police’s recording system; while others had been removed after the licensees had, for example, become stuck abroad when the pandemic hit, causing their licenses to lapse in the interim.

“This is a great leap forward,” he said – reiterating Gosa’s call for those with unlicensed or illegally possessed firearms to take advantage of the current amnesty.

“This makes it a lot easier for everybody,” he said.

The SAPS had not responded to The Citizen‘s questions at the time of publishing.

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