How the FCA affects you as a gun-owner

The FCA of 2000 demands that you obtain a "competency certificate" and submit an application for relicencing of your firearm(s) by a deadline date dependant on your birth date.

This process began after promulgation of the FCA in 2004 and ends March 31 2009 - by which date all 2.5 million firearm-owners would be expected to have applied for relicencing of their legally held firearms.

Briefly and for informational purposes only (since the final deadline for all relicencing has passed!):

You may have a handgun or shotgun (not semi-auto) for self-defence and three additional firearms one of which may be a handgun.

HOWEVER you still have to 'prove' a need for each licence. It does not simply mean you will be granted licences.

An "occasional" person may therefore obtain licences for: 1 handgun + 3 long guns OR 2 handguns + 2 long guns OR 4 long guns

This all sounds simple, doesn't it? After all, you have had a gun for years, looked after it, secured it, been lucky and never had the need to use it "for real" perhaps - you have taken all steps necessary to become and remain a responsible gun-owner - why should there be a problem?

That of course is what all law-abiding people would be inclined to think, and we believed just that, until we started to discover the true situation regarding relicencing.

The biggest hurdle, apart from jumping through the hoops of competency certificates and the high cost of the process, is due to the manner in which the SAPS are approaching this exercise.

Firstly, the reason you put on your first application, back in the day, 'self-defence' just will not cut it anymore - virtually all licence renewals are turned down when that is given as the motivation.

Whatever reason you give had also better be backed up by some convincing "evidence of need", otherwise no chance.

Since the implementation of the FCA in 2000 it appears that the vast majority of applications, whether new or renewals have been refused on arbitrary grounds, with no reasons given, other than "Not convinced of need"!

INVASION OF YOUR HOME/OFFICE/BUSINESS/CAR BY POLICE WITHOUT A WARRANT UNDER THE UNCONSTITUTIONAL PROVISIONS OF THE FCA OF 2000

As a firearm owner, your home may be entered at any time by any police officer without a search warrant if he/she believes that there is a firearm on the property - this includes any dwelling, factory, office or business or any place whatsoever.

As a firearm owner should you carry your firearm it must be hidden at all times from public view and should you not have your identity document on you and are requested to produce same by a police officer, you face 2 years imprisonment for "failing to identify yourself"

The Way Forward

As a person who has failed to apply for relicencing, the information above is somewhat redundant - it is now too late to apply!

However you did not intend to apply anyway as you have seen through the charade that is the FCA process and will not subject yourself to likely confiscation of your assets and throw yourself on the tender mercies of the ineffective SAPS in case of need!

The only way forward from here is to engage in the legitimate battle for our rights with authorities- a battle that should have been won many years ago in the late 1990s when the FCA was first mooted.

To engage in this fight for your rights, a united front with sufficient visible support must be created - this must become a vocal and visible entity, adequately funded and structured nation-wide to take the fight, by whatever legal means are necessary to whatever battlegrounds are appropriate. These would include the media, the courts,government institutions and the streets.

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