South Africa would be better off if access to firearms was only limited to the country’s armed forces and not available to private citizens, Police Minister Bheki Cele has said.
The minister, accompanied by National Police Commissioner Khehla Sitole, said this on Wednesday when he oversaw the destruction of 30,039 firearms in Vereeniging city, south of Johannesburg.
“It would be better if one day we don’t have private citizens having guns at all. It’s a tall order going forward but it would be better if one day, only the armed forces — namely police and soldiers — have [access to] guns,” Cele said.
The firearms that were destroyed included rifles and were surrendered to the state by their rightful owners. Others were either seized or forfeited to the state.
The destruction process at which the minister and the police chief inspected a vast array of firearms is the first to be conducted since October 2016.
Asked about why it took long to destroy the firearms, Cele said one of the reasons for the delay was around firearms which were sought for historical purposes.
“We have organisations requesting to find arms to be used as museum material. These are then taken to the museums. But we [have] since spoken about this with the Commissioner. We will need a Memorandum of Understanding with those organisations to tell them that we are no longer going to wait for too long,” he said.
He added: “We still have 60,000 guns in the storeroom waiting to be destroyed. I can assure you that it will not take a year to destroy them to cut off naughty ideas people might have.”
NM/jn/APA