Guns, Guns, Guns!
While I understand pupa's argument - I think it is rubbish. Owning an illegal gun just makes you a criminal as well - your standing in a court of law will be even less than if you own a licensed arm. To add to that, to complain about law breakers while yourself proposing to break the law is truly hypocritical.
That having been said, the gun laws are far from ideal - they aim to disempower individuals from being responsible fire arm owners. If I were to write gun laws, I would ensure that owners shoot a minimum not maximum amount of ammunition per year. That would ensure that the guns are in a workable state, and that the owners know how to use them.
Guns need to be owned by citizens in order to defend themselves. An unarmed population is a vulnerable one. Think of this yourself, would you more likely break into a house if you knew that the owner was likely to be armed and defend himself?
Of course, the ideal situation would be no firearms, but this situation is in practice impossible in SA. Therefore, in order to keep a balance in power between criminals and residents, residents need to be able to own firearms to defend themselves.
Some important caveats:
(1) No one should own a firearm if they are not prepared to shoot to kill. This is not a toy we are talking about, and owning a firearm can put you in harms way.
(2) The moment you draw, you must shoot to kill, there should be no uncertainty in your mind that you are going to kill, and absolutely no hesitation - otherwise you are a risk to yourself and those around you.
No person should ever contemplate owning a firearm for self-defence purposes unless they are absolutely sure that they will do this.
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