SA’s gun owners and security companies are arming its criminals

With about 700 guns lost each year, the SA Police Service (Saps) has often been blamed for arming criminals, thus fuelling SA’s scourge of violent crime.

But it appears licensed firearm owners and private security companies lose thousands more guns than the police.

This seemingly strengthens Police Minister Bheki Cele’s push to tighten restrictions on public ownership of guns through the Firearms Control Act (FCA) Amendment Bill, and clamping down on rogue elements within the private-security sector and within Saps’ ranks.

Civilians arming criminals

According to the 2000-2014 Police Secretariat Firearm Report, a total of 176,000 cases of lost or stolen firearms were reported, with a paltry 19% recovery rate.

Out of these weapons, 132,126 were lost or stolen from individuals and 17,159 from security firms, with an average recovery rate of just 20%.

According to the Saps Annual Performance Target 2021-2022, just 4,204 stolen or lost firearms were recovered and only 459 Saps firearms were recovered. Considering the poor recovery rate, the number of recovered guns indicates the sheer number of guns stolen from civilians and security companies exceeds those lost by the police by far.

According to the Saps 2019-2020 Annual Report, the number of stolen or lost firearms – including illegal firearms – recovered was 7,141, with the audited number rising to 10,204.

The number of Saps firearms reported as stolen or lost during this period was 607 and the audited figure climbed to 689.

Armed civilians and security companies have also been at the centre of the killing of 36 people during last month’s riots in Phoenix, KwaZulu-Natal, with at least 164 firearms seized from four security companies and private individuals.

According to University of Stellenbosch criminologist Guy Lamb, licensed civilian firearm holders and security firms accounted for 70% of all stolen or lost firearms, with civilians losing about 9,000 licensed firearms a year.

“Yes police are obviously a problem but nowhere near as big a problem as licensed civilian firearm holders in terms of volume of guns that go to the illegal sector…” he said.

Firearms the weapon of choice for killers in SA

Firearms have been the weapon of choice for murder in SA, with over 25,000 people killed with firearms between April 2015 and March 2019.

The former head of the University of Cape Town’s Safety and Violence Initiative said of concern was that since the 2015-2016 reporting year, the number of firearm murders had increased by 32%.

With 13,360 incidents, Lamb noted that firearms had been the leading weapon used in attempted murder incidents and aggravated robberies.

He said police mostly lose guns because of corruption, made possible by the manual firearms recording system at police station-level armouries.

Lamb said without a central database to know, in real time, how many guns there were in more than 1,100 police stations across the country, rogue officers had a loophole to arm gangs.

There has been a call for a national firearms audit of all police station armouries following the shocking revelations that a gun used to kill a police officer during a firefight with robbers in Brakpan in July was supposed to be in the Norwood police station’s Saps 13 storage.

“So the point to be made here is that in terms of the firearm problem, police are part of the problem but not the only problem and not a major problem but there is still work that need to be done; improvement in terms of firearms control,” he added.

But independent security expert and Firearms SA founder Ian Cameron disagreed with Lamb, saying between 2005 and 2017 police had lost over 26,000 firearms, all to criminals as the recovery rate was less than 07%.

“So in terms of who loses the most, it is by far the police … I think the police a rethe biggest supplier of guns to criminals in SA, whether deliberately or not. In a six-year period, between 2013 and 2019 they (Saps) lost over 10 million rounds of ammunition,” Cameron said.

He said these excluded 82,000 firearms the SA Defence Force (SANDF) could not account for, as admitted to Parliament’s standing committee on public accounts (Scopa) in 2011.

“…there is recent testimony in the Zondo commission about the State Security Agency giving guns to friends,” Cameron said.

Police spokesperson Colonel Brenda Muridili and Private Security Industry Regulatory Authority (PSIRA) spokesperson Bonang Kleinbooi are yet to respond to questions.

siphom@citizen.co.za