Nikkie Pretorius - Proposed new firearms training system could turn law-abiding citizens into criminals…

Civil rights group, Safe Citizen, has launched an urgent campaign to interrupt plans for drastic changes to South Africa’s firearms training system that could make obtaining a competency certificate so expensive and time-consuming that people are likely to resort to buying fake certificates. In this interview, Nikki Pretorius, the spokesperson for the Lead Service Provider Forum, says: “... previously… training would take place over a day, day and a half at maximum and would cost the person about 1800 to 2000 Rand… now…. for the purposes of competency…a five day minimum period in a classroom and on a shooting range…and you're looking at four thousand, six thousand rand... And over and above the expense, you're looking at five days away from work…And even worse for the security officers…before they could get their competencies done within three, four, five days, they're now looking at three weeks.” Pretorius warns that it could lead to otherwise law-abiding citizens turning to corruption: “... it's simply going to drive that need (for firearms licences) underground. And then we have a situation where the proliferation of illegal firearms expands, whereas proper law abiding citizen firearm usage and ownership declines.”