SUBMISSION ON THE FIREARMS CONTROL BILL SUBMITTED TO THE PORTFOLIO COMMITTEE ON SAFETY AND SECURITY BY:

Soul City: Institute for Health and Development Communication

Soul City is a health and development communication project (A NGO).

Soul City was initiated in 1992. It is a mass media project with the aim to impact positively on health and development through different media.

The Soul Buddyz project purpose is to create a popular and ongoing multi-mass media health education vehicle, which will carry health and social messages for children between the ages of 8 to 12 years, first in South Africa and then in other sub-Saharan African countries. The vehicle will initially focus on three key message areas:

• HIV/AIDS and sexuality
• Trauma – including intentional and unintentional injuries, and sexual abuse
• Disability

The materials are produced with extensive consultation and research into the field and with many children and through the development of partnerships.

Our submission is based on the fact that we have been through an extensive research process with 50 groups of children around the country, from urban and rural backgrounds as well as across the race and cultural spectrum. The research was conducted with children between the ages of eight and twelve years. This research was very disturbing in that children’s experiences of guns were fairly widespread and most of their fears related to guns. One of the children had even seen his mother shot dead in front of him. We are attaching two drawings and some quotes from children to illustrate this point.

 Soul City commends the fact that the proposed legislation is firmly rooted in the rights of every person to life and to security of the person, including the right to be free from all forms of violence

We also welcome the provisions for Competency Certificates, the regular renewal of licences, the limits on the number of firearms which may be legally owned by different categories of applicants for licences, the inclusion of domestic violence offences in the list of considerations to be taken into account before a competency certificate may be issued and the proposed new system of linked data bases with data bases in a new Central Firearms Register.

Age of eligibility

In South Africa the following horrifying statistics were recorded in 1998:

461 gunshot victims were under the age of eleven and 358 of them between the ages of twelve and seventeen.

Soul City believes that the age of eligibility should be radically changed to 25 years. ( In the same way insurance companies have this cut off age for higher insurance rates)

We also welcome the powers given to the Minister in terms of Clause 149 to declare Firearms free zones. This should prove very helpful where the police have identified places as particularly prone to firearms crime such as schools

Our point of departure is that children have the right to a safe environment and to live free from fear and violence and abuse, as laid out in the international convention on the rights of the child, to which South Africa is a signatory. Any legislation which assists in this is welcomed. Our experience is that children are often victims of gunshot violence as well as often having access to guns in situations which adults have never dreamed of. A gun free society is the ideal, and certainly we support the charter of the Gun Control Alliance:

Especially the following points:

* Severe penalties for negligent loss of a firearm and for failure to report such a loss, including the possible refusal of any new licence

*There should be a total ban on the sale or possession of replica toy guns."

We are very appreciative of the fact that we are allowed to make this submission, thank you.