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Background: The SA Firearms Act allows for one firearm in an owner's collection to be registered as a a dedicated self defense gun. Last year a farmer was arrested for having shot and killed an armed robbery gang member who pointed his pistol at the farmer's wife. He had his competition Glock on him which was not the S&W M&P Shield registered as a self defense pistol. The silly charge was contravention of the Firearms Act by using a handgun for self defense which was not licenced for self defense. He was found guilty by the Magistrate. The man appealed to the High Court and was again found guilty. That verdict was taken to the Supreme Court of Appeals where the Minister of Police was found guilty of contravening the Firearms Act and quite a sum of money had to be paid to the farmer. The Court said that in self defense ANY weapon at hand can and should to be used.
Just this morning the Appeals Court again found the Minister of Police guilty of acting against the Constitution: That silly self defense category had its own caveat - such a licence for the so called sewas only valid for a period of five years after which the licencee had again to prove his competency, again write the exams on firearms technical and legal questions and reapply for the licence. We challenged the constitutionality of that part of the law and today the Minister of Police was given 7 months to remove that clause from the Act. Many of us would have been guilty of a firearms related offence because just about everybody refused to do the renewal and a class type action was started against the police.