A safer South Africa is only possible with less gun crime. Achieving that requires more from police than recovering illegal guns.

Mass killings have wreaked havoc in numerous South African communities in recent months. Along with the devastating murder of 18 people in Lusikisiki in the Eastern Cape province on 28 September, other attacks have taken a heavy toll on human life.

These occurred in places as disparate as Qumbu, Bityi and Tsolo in the Eastern Cape, Bishop Lavis and Atlantis in the Western Cape, Orange Farm in Gauteng province and Orkney in North West province.

We don’t know the exact reasons for each of these incidents. But there can be no doubt that the widespread availability of firearms to those involved in crime makes mass killings more possible and more likely.

These killings are one of many reasons the Institute for Security Studies (ISS), in a new policy brief, is calling for the South African Police Service (SAPS) to develop an integrated strategy to reduce firearm crime. This should ensure clear and measurable reductions in all categories of crime associated with the use of guns.

Mass killings have become an embedded feature of violence in South Africa. The number of people killed in Lusikisiki is slightly higher than the death toll at the Mdlalose Tavern shooting in Soweto in July 2022, when 16 people were killed. In April 2023, 10 family members died in a single shooting incident in Imbali in Pietermaritzburg, KwaZulu-Natal province. 

Mass killings have reached unprecedented levels in South Africa since the early 1990s. SAPS data for July-September 2023 showed 125 people killed in incidents with four or more deaths. Recently released data compiled by Gun Free South Africa showed a similar number had been murdered in shootings of four or more people in the past three months.

Firearms are crime enablers and violence multipliers. They make a massive contribution to crime-related deaths, injury and fear in South Africa. Police data indicates that guns were used in 12 000 to 16 000 murders in South Africa over the 2023/24 year. There were also between 17 000 and 20 000 cases of attempted murder, where people sustained non-fatal firearm injuries.

The severity and complexity of many of these injuries place an enormous burden on the healthcare system. Inga Mkoko, who was 25 at the time of the Mdlalose tavern shooting, spent three weeks in intensive care and six months in hospital. He had both legs amputated and lost four fingers.

Notwithstanding the large number of firearm-related deaths and injuries, guns are mostly used to threaten victims without the weapons being fired. Fear of firearms makes them the favoured instrument for coercion in robberies, extortion and some incidents of rape. They also play a major role in taxi violence and violent organised crimes such as extortion and conflict between gangs involved in the illegal drugs or mining trade.

The fact that criminals have the capacity to use equivalent levels of force to the police directly undermines the state’s ability to exercise authority. Virtually all killings of SAPS members are with firearms.

The SAPS must focus on reducing firearm crime. But it cannot do so using its established approach that relies mainly on the recovery of illegal firearms.

A key element is making optimal use of available data. As a starting point, police should use crime statistics to identify the areas where most firearm crime occurs. The recently released ISS policy brief illustrates how this can be done.

The SAPS should be able, quite easily, to map firearm crime. Effective mapping is vital to ensuring that police resources are deployed in a precise way, targeted at the groups involved and places where it’s occurring.

Beyond mapping, the SAPS should invest in strengthening information management systems to synthesise information on firearm crime. This includes crime reports, ballistic data, interviews with suspects, victims and witnesses, and details from sources in the community.

This process, along with crime investigation, should then be used to identify, arrest and prosecute perpetrators of firearm crime. This approach can also dramatically improve our understanding of where guns used in crime are coming from. Tracing the source of these weapons would allow for proactive interventions to close loopholes that enable criminal access to firearms.

Recovery of illegal firearms is not enough. South Africa needs a practical firearm reduction strategy that provides for collaboration between appropriate state, private sector and civil society role players. There is knowledge and experience of firearm crime reduction in South Africa and internationally that SAPS can draw on.

Effective implementation of an integrated firearm crime reduction strategy should be an exercise in learning how a more effective SAPS can work. Without it, gun crime is likely to continue devastating many families and communities.

Written by David Bruce, Independent Researcher and ISS Consultant

Read the ISS policy brief ‘Targeting firearm crime will make South Africa safer’ by David Bruce, here.