Two years ago, the Constitutional Court confirmed that firearm ownership is a legislated privilege, not a right. But a high court judge stepped in to protect criminal gun owners. Under apartheid, a gun licence lasted for life. But since the Firearms Control Act was passed in 2000, that is no longer the case. Nobody in South Africa has a right to own a gun. Gun ownership is, instead, a privilege regulated by law. If a person owns a gun, they must be licensed to do so. The gun requires a separate licence. Under the new gun control regime, each of these must be renewed periodically. This final requirement – the renewal of licences – was at the heart of a court battle that ended on 23 July when the Supreme Court of Appeal dismissed an interim interdict against the South African Police Service (SAPS) handed down almost two years earlier by the high court in Pretoria. In 2018, seven weeks after the South African Hunters and Game Conservation Association failed to overturn the new system of gun licensing and renewal in the Constitutional Court, Gun Owners South Africa – an association of about 40 000 members that protects the interests of gun owners in the country – asked the high court to effectively end the new licensing system. The resulting interdict meant that gun owners whose licences had expired after they failed to renew them no longer had to surrender their firearms to the police. By prohibiting the police from demanding or accepting the surrender of firearms whose licences had expired, the interdict left nearly 450 000 illegal guns in the hands of civilians.  [full article]