South African Disarmament - Brief Article

Guns Magazine, Dec, 1999 by Massad Ayoob

In some ways, Draconian gun control laws are worse when they are enacted in countries that had once been bastions of firearm freedom. Sadly, clouds are rapidly forming over one such nation, the Republic of South Africa.

I first went to South Africa in 1987 with our editor-in-chief, Cameron Hopkins. I brought my daughter, then 10 years old. We were licensed to carry concealed weapons upon filling out the paperwork at Jan Smuts Airport in Johannesburg. The carry of concealed weapons was common among South Africans at the time, and even then -- in the time of apartheid -- the practice extended to Black and Coloured citizens as well as White, the three striations of racial profiling under apartheid.

Then came the ascendancy the communist-connected African National Congress. From the beginning, the ANC made it clear that they had a prohibitionist agenda insofar as gun owners' rights. 1999 was the year they came totally out of the closet, and they have proposed profound limitations. Fewer guns can be owned. There can be only 100 cartridges in the home for each gun. It gets worse.

This comes at a time when violent crime in South Africa, including car-jackings and home invasions, is skyrocketing. Jeff Cooper's lovely wife Janelle once said, "Saying that we should ban guns because crime is rising is like saying we should ban boats because the floodwaters are rising."

The same madness she warned against is about to take place in South Africa. One hopes that reason will prevail -- but how much precedent is there for that?