Minister is out of touch with reality on guns – IRR

The IRR will oppose moves by the government to restrict the use of firearms for self-defence.

IRR campaigns head Gabriel Crouse said that the IRR had asked its attorneys to send a letter to the Civilian Secretariat for Police Service (CSP) asking for more detail on the proposed policy to restrict civilian access to firearms for self-defence, and for it to provide the IRR with the research and data it used to frame the policy.  The IRR warned the CSP that it would support legal action to have the policy scrapped.

Crouse said that the proposed policy was “out of touch with reality, given the extent to which citizens are exposed to serious and violent crime, and the extent to which the police are compromised by criminality, corruption and ineptitude. Even the most ardent anti-gun lobbyists point to police failures to uphold the law – rather than the law itself – as the heart of the crime crisis”.

Crouse said that the IRR had over a number of years exposed the extent to which the police had been infiltrated by criminal syndicates, and the scale of police officers committing rapes, robberies, murders, and assaults against members of public.

Crouse said that the IRR saw responsible firearm possession as a civil rights question and that it would defend the rights of law-abiding gun owners to protect themselves.

Media contacts: Gabriel Crouse, IRR Head of Campaigns – 082 510 0360; gabriel@irr.org.za
Media enquiries: Michael Morris – 066 302 1968; michael@irr.org.za
Kelebogile Leepile – 079 051 0073; kelebogile@irr.org.za