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    Default GOSA Media Statement - 17 September 2009 - Licensed to Kill

    Haven't seen this on the site. A worthwhile read.
    Apologies if it was posted elsewhere.

    GOSA Media Statement - 17 September 2009 - Licensed to Kill

    "LICENSED TO KILL" screams the Sowetan headline. "Cops turn into law unto
    themselves as their bosses talk tough".

    "Unrepentant Cele stands by shoot-to-kill order" writes Mfundekelwa
    Mkhulisi in a Sowetan special report that lists a Limpopo man who had the
    tar beaten out of him for dating an SAPS member's girfriend, nine
    Atteridgeville police officers arrested for the murder of a 19-year-old,
    the inexplicable resignation of the Deputy Commissioner of the SAPS, the
    arrest of a North West SAPS member for murder - a love triangle - and more.
    This is one newspaper. Other media reports focus on a mass-shooting in a
    Durban bar. The list is endless.

    Every person in South Africa who opens a newspaper occasionally is
    confronted with the reality that members of the SAPS abuse their firearms,
    using their service pistols in the commission of violent crime at a rate
    that far exceeds the rate at which the owners of registered firearms abuse
    their guns -- a fact which leaves the gun prohibitionists and their old saw
    about 'tightening up control over licensed firearms' looking hugely stupid.

    Mere months ago the arrest of several high-ranking members of the SAPS
    broke the back of the gangs of ATM bombers.

    The fact is that the SAPS is terminally ill, and the latest round of
    grandstanding and displays of bravado by the Commissioner of the SAPS and
    the Minister of Police fill Gun Owners of South Africa with trepidation.
    Other Ministers and Commissioners of the SAPS started off that way and left
    a trail of ignominy behind them.

    We have seen the SAPS veer from one crazy plan to combat crime to another.
    The 'demilitarization' of the SAPS springs to mind. Now the Minister and
    the Commissioner promise their members superior firepower. Are these not
    the same politicians who ordered the R1 rifles seized from every police
    station in the country and destroyed, leaving street cops to face heist
    gangs with handguns, and disbanded the Scorpions because they struck too
    close to home?

    Why are we still waiting for Johannesburg Metro Police Department members
    to go on trial for the shootout with the SAPS on the M1? Why have no
    Johannesburg Metro Police Department members been found unfit to possess
    firearms? What disciplinary steps have been taken against the SAPS members
    involved in the raid on one of our most prestigous museums which left the
    curator blinded?

    Recent judgements in which our courts have spanked the SAPS for their
    unlawful and unconstitutional conduct towards this country's gun owners
    make it clear the rot starts at the top. Seemingly, 'accountability' and
    'the SAPS code of conduct' are words that do not exist in the vocabulary of
    the Minister of Police and his Department.

    For 5 years the SAPS refused to pay compensation for surrendered firearms
    -- until our courts cried foul. The courts were a last resort -- both the
    Independent Complaints Directorate and the South African Human Rights
    Commission refused to come to the rescue of gun owners whose constitutional
    rights were being violated. The head of the South African Human Rights
    Commission, Mr. Jody Kollapen, was personally acquainted with the facts and
    kept abreast of developments. He declined to intervene in a complaint where
    the facts were so clear that the SAPS battled to file a defence on the merits.

    It took the Western Cape High Court just 15 minutes to rule that the
    pleadings had shown that the SAPS' conduct towards gun owners had been
    unlawful and unconstitutional, Mr. Kollapen!

    We would like to believe that the SAHRC would find that this week's
    firefights with heist hangs did not amount to extra-judicial executions --
    Brazil style; we would like the Independent Complaints Directorate to be
    able to rule that members of the SAPS did not use excessive force.

    We are afraid though that both organisations' first reactions would be to
    decry the lack of resources to investigate police actions of this kind
    while nevertheless clutching their fat paychecks. For whom in any organ of
    state is taking care of the people's business a pre-requisite for taking
    the people's money?

    Gun Owners of South Africa say that there is no magic wand, no miracle cure
    for the moral malaise that this country finds itself in. We do however know
    that a new round of grandstanding and bellicose statements from politician
    policemen is no solution when those politicians could not even prevail on
    their predecessors to resign as a point of honour when the office was being
    dragged through the mud.

    S199 (5) of our Constitution demands that the security services must act,
    and must teach and require their members to act, in accordance with the
    Constitution and the law.

    Subsection (6) also provides that no member of any security service may
    obey a manifestly illegal order.

    Section 205 (3) of the Constitution states that the objects of the police
    service are to prevent, combat and investigate crime, to maintain public
    order, to protect and secure the inhabitants of the Republic and their
    property, and to uphold and enforce the law.

    The gun owners of this country have had their constitutional rights
    violated in a deliberate, considered, systematic and organised way. The
    orders came right from the top. The SA Human Rights Commission and the
    Independent Complaints Directorate turned a blind eye.

    When are the perpetrators going to be held to account?

    Brett Nortje
    Gun Owners of South Africa
    PO Box 2522
    Clareinch
    7740
    Tel: 021-6894481
    www.gunownerssa.org
    "Guns are just tools, the way they're used reflects the society they're apart of, if you don't like guns, blame it on society" ~Chris Kyle

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    Default Re: GOSA Media Statement - 17 September 2009 - Licensed to Kill

    Really food for thought FrankH

    I would really like to know why we as South African gun owners who can see that our legal rights are been discarded by the governement are not standing united with GOSA? And i do not mean just talking about the situation but actually starting to do something about it.

    GOSA seems to be the only group of gun owners who are actually walking the talk and getting things done. Its all well and nice to talk about SAGA wanting to ride the coattail of GOSA but are we not also doing the same??????

    Joining the winning team seems to the smart thing to do but who at GUNSITE has actually done this? As i have said a couple of days ago,
    if all the members of GUNSITE just join and donate R100 to GOSA it will open doors for the attourneys to fight against more than just 1 stupid part of the Firearm Control Act.....

    Well thats just my .01c worth of thought

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