Over 21,700 illegal firearms seized in five years

The South African Police Service (SAPS) has confiscated 21,702 illegal firearms over the past five years.

This is according to Police Minister Firoz Cachalia, who responded to a Parliamentary Question from Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) Member of Parliament Asanda Matshobeni.

However, police negligence is adding to South Africa’s illegal firearm epidemic.

Cachalia said that 6,853 of the confiscated weapons were involved in murder cases.

According to the response, the most significant portion of these illegal firearms was confiscated in the Western Cape, totalling 6,267 for the period. Seven hundred and forty-one of these weapons were reported to have been used in murders.

Gang-inflicted areas of the Western Cape, especially those such as the Cape Flats in Cape Town, are a hotspot for the trade and use of illegal weapons.

On Monday, 1 September, police announced that they had confiscated 19 firearms and 1,500 rounds of ammunition in Lentegeur during a single raid.

“Firearms remain the weapon of choice in gang conflicts, and the widespread access to illegal guns and ammunition empowers these criminal networks to carry out deadly attacks with devastating consequences,” the Western Cape Government said following the seizure.

The Western Cape was followed by KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng, with 4,297 and 4,248 confiscated in each province, respectively.

Like Cape Town, KZN also sees its fair share of gangsterism, with provincial police reportedly seizing 346 illegal firearms and 3,192 rounds of ammunition in January this year.

Gauteng has had several major illegal weapon busts, with cops arresting two individuals at the end of July outside Alberton for transporting unlicensed firearms.

The suspects were found with 30 unlicensed 9mm firearms, which, upon further investigation, were en route to the Western Cape, according to the police report.

Other provinces saw significantly fewer firearms confiscated. However, this does not necessarily indicate that there is less illegal firearm-related crime in these regions.

2,606 weapons were seized in the Eastern Cape, 1,243 in Mpumalanga, 1,070 in Limpopo, 949 in North West, 873 in the Free State, and 149 in the Northern Cape.

Of all the provinces, Mpumalanga had the highest rate of firearms used in murder cases at 53%, followed by KZN and the Northern Cape.

Police losing thousands of firearms

While the police may be confiscating thousands of firearms per year, the government is playing a part in fanning the flames.

In early 2024, the Minister of Police revealed that 1,725 firearms issued to SAPS officers had been lost or stolen between April 2021 and July 2023.

At the end of 2024, the late Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime researcher Jenni Irish-Qhobosheane said that research showed that 18,000 firearms were lost between 2003 and 2013.

Similalry, the City Press reported that 26,025 firearms issued to police officers had been lost or stolen between 2005 and 2017.

However, according to Irish-Qhobosheane, the overall figure for firearms the government has lost or had stolen is significantly higher, as only the police report their firearms losses to the Central Firearms Registry.

She said that entities like the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) are supposed to, but do not.

These figures only tend to come to light when Ministers are questioned in Parliament. For instance, former Minister of Defence and Military Veterans revealed that the SANDF had 42 firearms stolen between 2019 an 2023.

She also said that 3,000 rounds of assault rifle ammunition and another 3,000 rounds of handgun ammunition was also stolen during the period.

SAPS data failures

Rize Mzansi MP Makashule Gana argues that SAPS’s failure to record the make of weapons used in crime across the country undermines crime analysis and detection efforts.

Gana said this in response to a Parliamentary Q&A from Minister Cachalia in August this year.

“Rise Mzansi submitted a list of parliamentary questions to the Minister of Police to ascertain how prevalent the use of the AK-47 is in the commission of crimes,” he said.

“This is given the plethora of reports that point to the prevalence of this deadly automatic rifle at crime scenes, particularly crash-in-transit heists, political killings and mass murders.”

The Rise Mzansi MP argued that there are an estimated 2 million illegal firearms in the country, which include AK-47s, as they are prohibited in terms of the South African Firearms Control Act.

However, Cachalia told Gana in his response that the Enhanced Firearms Detection Service database can only differentiate between firearm types, not the make.

Therefore, the party has called on SAPS to expand its crime intelligence capacity to identify these weapons and confiscate them systematically.

Additionally, it argues that South Africa must broaden its national firearms amnesty for anonymous tip-offs for illegal guns.

To further crack down on the possession and sale of illegal firearms, Gana says that authorities must seek the harshest mandatory punishment for the offence.

He says this is particularly true for police officers who have been implicated in the theft and resale of confiscated weapons linked to murders and gang violence.

“Moreover, the negligent loss of a SAPS-issued firearm must be a dismissible offence, for which senior SAPS officers must be held accountable,” Gana added.

“Over a period of 6 months, from 1 October 2023 to 31 March 2024, 371 firearms and 29,128 rounds of ammunition belonging to SAPS were recorded as either lost or stolen.”

Gana, a member of the National Assembly’s Portfolio Committee on Police, has said that this matter will be raised at the next available opportunity.