New firearms regulations determine that firearms may be kept at home during application process

6 July 2022

The FF Plus welcomes the latest regulations which determine that firearms with expired licences may be kept at home while the new licensing process is being finalised.

The regulations were necessitated by a recent ruling by the Constitutional Court, which stipulates that the owner of a firearm whose licence has expired remains the legal owner and does not forfeit ownership of the said firearm.

The applicant must take his/her firearm to the police station where it will be inspected. A certificate authorising the owner to keep the firearm in a safe place at home will then be issued.

Thus, a firearm whose license has expired no longer needs to be turned over to the police.

The new regulations are welcomed seeing as many firearm owners were concerned that they would lose their firearms once they turned them in.

This new process will also make things easier for the police seeing as there is a lot more clarity about what needs to be done with expired firearm licenses.

It also means that firearm amnesty periods will no longer be necessary in the future and as a result, new applications for licenses will be distributed over a longer period of time.

A bottleneck of new applications will thus be avoided, which will facilitate the Central Firearm Registry's administration process.

The FF Plus has always held the view that legal owners must be allowed to keep their firearms in their possession while the licensing process is finalised.

For the first time, these regulations demonstrate appropriate and constitutional action concerning firearm ownership.

Issued by Pieter Groenewald, FF Plus leader, 6 July 2022