Saturday, January 8, 2011

Gun Registry in South Africa

This is a fascinating report about the fact that antique guns must now be registered as well.

The amendment will force muzzle-loading firearm owners, who include hunters and collectors, to register their weapons within the next year. 

Failure to do so could see such gun owners being sentenced to up to 15 years in jail for illegal possession of a firearm. 

Come Monday, muzzle-loading firearm owners - as opposed to the past - will also have to apply for a competency certificate to keep their weapons. The certificate will be valid for 10 years.
Is this a preliminary exercise to gun confiscation? That's what the pro-gun crowd always says isn't it? One year from now, if no such confiscation sweeps take place, may I call those who always say that paranoid?

My opinion is this, the fifteen years for non-compliance is a bit severe, but otherwise it sounds just about right.

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.

2 comments:

  1. Mike: “One year from now, if no such confiscation sweeps take place, may I call those who always say that paranoid?”

    One year from now, if this registration has had no positive effect on crime, may I call it useless?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Well, not really. It's not the same thing.

    You see, if no confiscation takes place then all those who keep repeating that such a result is the inevitable follow-up to registration are wrong and worthy of being called paranoid.

    If however there is no positive effect on crime, we'd have to look at all the other factors to determine why.

    ReplyDelete