The government wants to disarm law-abiding South Africans

Many experts are warning that the Firearms Control Amendment Bill will take guns out of the hands of legal firearm owners while criminals are unaffected.

The Firearms Control Amendment Bill is a contentious piece of legislation which will make it more difficult for South Africans to get a gun.

Ian Cameron, the Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Police, has slated legislation as a way for the government to disarm law-abiding citizens.

“Lawfully armed citizens are vetted, trained, and licensed. They are not the problem.  They are often part of the solution,” he said.

Cameron added that in South African communities where criminals ignore the law, responsible self-defence matters.

Cameron has repeatedly labeled the 2025 Bill a dangerous assault on the right to safety in a country which is riddled with crime.

He argued that the Bill seeks to hand the Minister of Police arbitrary power to decide who may live safely and who may not by controlling lawful firearm ownership.

He contends that the government is trying to disarm law-abiding citizens to gain draconian control because it has lost control over actual crime.

A government wants to disarm law-abiding citizens because it fears them,” Cameron said in a social media post.

“Governments usually fear citizens when they intend to pass laws so intrusive or oppressive that they know resistance would follow.”

He often points out the irony of disarming citizens when SAPS itself has lost or had stolen over 3,400 firearms between 2019 and 2024.

“I want to see them try to disarm lawfully armed and law-abiding citizens in this country because they are going to fail dismally. That is a fight they should not pick,” he said.

While on an unannounced oversight visit in Philippi, Cape Town, Cameron was attacked by several individuals who threw bricks at his vehicle.

He used his firearm in self-defense, shooting and wounding one of the assailants. He used this experience as an example of why people should be armed.

He said that without his firearm, he and his colleagues might not have survived the attack, framing the right to self-defense as a lifeline.

Jonathan Deal weighs in on gun control

Jonathan Deal, the founder of Safe Citizen, shared Cameron’s concerns over the Firearms Control Amendment Bill.

He argues that the legislation is driven by an antiquated ideology rather than the public safety concerns of ordinary South Africans.

Deal said the bill focuses exclusively on legal firearm owners who are often the only people capable of responding to violent public incidents before police arrive.

He doesn’t expect a mass door-to-door confiscation immediately. However, he predicts the government will use a subjective test during the license renewal process.

By making it nearly impossible to renew a self-defense license, the government would force citizens to hand in their firearms and ammunition within a short window.

He argues that removing legal firearms will leave citizens, particularly women and those in isolated areas, defenseless against violent crime and gender-based violence.

He claims the bill will expose the already exposed citizens of this country to more violent crime.

There is also an ideological push to disarm the commercial security industry, which is significantly larger than the South African Police Service (SAPS).

He criticized the government for doing very little to address the actual issue of illegal gun ownership, instead focusing its legislative energy on those who follow the law.

Deal said civil society is organizing to fight the bill through court challenges and by building a diverse, non-racial alliance of gun owners to pressure the government.