Top court ruling means 400,000 people are in possession of illegal firearms
About 400,000 people are now deemed to be illegal firearm owners following a ruling by the Constitutional Court on Thursday upholding the constitutionality of regular firearms licence renewals. This means possession of an unlicensed firearm constitutes an offence and is subjected to criminal penalties, Justice Johan Froneman said. Gun owners with unlicensed firearms must surrender them to the police. SA’s R8bn-a-year recreational and trophy hunting industry has long opposed the anti-firearm movement, saying tighter regulations would affect its members most. The industry estimates that of the 12,000 game farms in the country, more than 10,000 have a hunting exemption. It expects to have created about 220,000 jobs by 2020. In a unanimous ruling, the court upheld an appeal by the minister of safety and security by dismissing a high court order which had declared that two sections of the Firearms Control Act of 2000 were unconstitutional. It ruled that gun ownership was not a fundamenta...
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