By Clare Nullis
ASSOCIATED PRESS

12:29 p.m. January 26, 2006

CAPE TOWN, South Africa – South African gun lobbyists set up a new organization Thursday to press the case that even more weapons are needed to curb crime in a country notorious for murders and armed robberies.
The new group, Gun Owners of South Africa, said people had the right to self-defense in a nation that has one of the highest homicide rates in the world.


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"We want the Firearms Control Act scrapped altogether, and we want a constitutional amendment to ensure we have the right to have firearms to protect our families," group leader Charl van Wyk said.

The group, which held its inaugural meeting with about 100 people at an industrial park outside Cape Town, was supported by Gun Owners of America.

"The criminal in South Africa has too much freedom of action, too much job security," said Larry Pratt, executive director of the U.S. group, which claims to have 300,000 members.

Pratt said he supported demands to scrap post-apartheid legislation restricting the ownership of firearms.

"The only way to tackle this Wild West scenario is to allow the good guys to have guns," he said.

South Africa's Safety and Security Ministry, which collected and destroyed nearly 100,000 unlicensed and 46,000 legally owned guns during a six-month amnesty last year, dismissed the claims.

"Gun control is here to stay across the world, including in the United States. Anything else would lead to chaos," ministry spokesman Trevor Bloem said.

South Africa's 45 million people own an estimated 3.7 million licensed guns and many more illegal ones. Gun ownership is deeply embedded in the national culture.

At the birth of all-race democracy in 1994, South Africa had the world's highest homicide rate – 67 per 100,000 people – largely because of violence in the country's impoverished and overcrowded townships. The rate fell to 40 per 100,000 in 2004, behind Colombia at 67 and Jamaica at 59.

Violence accounted for almost half the 25,000 fatal injuries in South Africa in 2003, according to a report by the Medical Research Council. More than 6,000 people died from gunshot wounds – as many as those killed in road accidents, it said.

A separate report by the Institute for Democracy in South Africa said 19 percent of people it surveyed had suffered an attack on themselves or a family member last year, and 57 percent feared crime in their own homes.

The Firearms Control Act, which came into force in 1994, introduced licensing requirements and background checks on gun owners. It also limited ownership to one gun for self-defense and up to four for occasional hunters.

Van Wyk said the bill was a "disgrace."

Gavin Cawthra, director of the Center for Defense and Security Management at Johannesburg's University of the Witwatersrand, said the gun lobby relies on a "very selective use of statistics."

"South Africa has got very high rates of crime and it has got one of the highest rates of gun ownership in the world," he said. "Virtually every firearm owned by criminals was once legally owned by a non-criminal and it got lost or stolen."

It's good to see GOA, NRA and other American RTKABA groups helping out their counterparts in other countries.

Give 'em hell GOA.

You know, as un-PC as it is to say...I'm sorry, but Apartheid worked...

SA before the libs in this country helped dismantle the SA Gov't...a beautiful, safe place, people could own guns, you could walk the streets. A paradise....

SA after the fall....the natives run wild, killing and looting with impunity, normal people severely restricted with gun ownership, but for some reason the savage natives have all they want, its become a dangerous, lawless shithole.

I feel bad for the South Africans....

Quoted: It's good to see GOA, NRA and other American RTKABA groups helping out their counterparts in other countries.

That's what I consider effective foreign policy.

man, one pasty faced white guy supporting another pasty faced white guy...that's gonna go over big with the munts! they need to get a spokeman named "jonas nkwame" or "buthelezi magumbo" before they'll make any traction outside the afrikaaner enclaves!

Quoted: man, one pasty faced white guy supporting another pasty faced white guy...that's gonna go over big with the munts! they need to get a spokeman named "jonas nkwame" or "buthelezi magumbo" before they'll make any traction outside the afrikaaner enclaves!

I'm guessing "munt" is a perjorative nickname, based on racial or ethnic status...like kafir?  



Sheep

not as pejorative. means something like "peons".

ETA: what i was saying is if the murungu want to make any leeway in getting gun rights, they're gonna have to expand their base of support, be more inclusive. it wouldn't be all that hard; south africa has a large middle and upper class of blacks who are just as scared as the white folks (even more so as black-on-black is more common than black-on-white).

No worries, HC.  Just never heard that one before.  Now I can add it to my list of:

Skel
Shitbag
Harv
Mutt
Mope
Mook
etc etc etc


Munt.  I like that.

"FREEZE, you fuckin' MUNT!"

Yep....works for me.


Sheep

Quoted: not as pejorative. means something like "peons". ETA: what i was saying is if the murungu want to make any leeway in getting gun rights, they're gonna have to expand their base of support, be more inclusive. it wouldn't be all that hard; south africa has a large middle and upper class of blacks who are just as scared as the white folks (even more so as black-on-black is more common than black-on-white).

It is no differnt than using other words used to demean "peons"

It is most likely against the COC to use it here, I would recommend not using it again.

Quoted: No worries, HC.  Just never heard that one before.  Now I can add it to my list of: Skel Shitbag Harv Mutt Mope Mook etc etc etc Munt.  I like that. "FREEZE, you fuckin' MUNT!" Yep....works for me. Sheep

Munt is a Bantu word for man used by South Africans and some Britons in place for the n word.  So I wouldn't use it if you are a cop ;p

South Africa's Safety and Security Ministry, which collected and destroyed nearly 100,000 unlicensed and 46,000 legally owned guns during a six-month amnesty last year

Destruction of legally owned guns... very depressing

.

Quoted: sweet jeebus! i used the word "peon" as "working class" or "working folk" not as a derogatory word towards mexicans. and "munt" is thrown around casually by blacks and whites in south africa! sure, you can use it in a situation to mean something akin to "nigger" but you can do the same fucking thing with "THOSE people" or "you-know-who" or even "the locals". chill out, you'll live longer. and that's not a threat or anything...

He's not trying to razz you for no reason.



Do you remember the "tonk" fiasco?



Everything you said above could also be applied to the word "tonk", yet there was a big blowup about people using that word in the same manner as your word "munt".

Quoted: sweet jeebus! i used the word "peon" as "working class" or "working folk" not as a derogatory word towards mexicans. and "munt" is thrown around casually by blacks and whites in south africa! sure, you can use it in a situation to mean something akin to "nigger" but you can do the same fucking thing with "THOSE people" or "you-know-who" or even "the locals". chill out, you'll live longer. and that's not a threat or anything...

not saying your a racist or even  not a nice person.  

Just saying it is most likely against the COC.

Peon is not tied to any ethnic group.  Wetback or beaner would be words to compare munt to.
Btw, any pejorative term like "munt" or "tonk" can be used in a way that attempts to remove the negative meaning of the word.  Its called empowerment/disempowerment and its usually only done by the affected group of people.  

Its why Chris Rock can get away with using the N word, but I can't.

I also didn't want people to think your definition was the only definition (or even the primary definition)

hahahaha i should take my own advice! and it's true, if someone said "look at what those stupid munts are doing in sa!" that would definitely be pejorative...

i missed the whole "tonk" thing. funny thing is i never heard that term when i was a cop but it really IS the sound a maglite makes when you thump some toad on the gourd!

back to the subj, we really need to get more minorities in our sport as well. it ain't just a south african problem. i remember i got my nra catalog a couple years ago and i was surprised that everyone in it was lilly white! i mean, i don't think anyone in it had black hair let alone darker skin and i know the nra is an all-inclusive org!

1.) Posting derogatory comments of a racial, religious, or sexual nature.