During the last couple of years, the new fire-arms act was heavily opposed by several organizations representing owners and users of fire-arms. It hás however been implemented in July last year and is now a given. From here onwards the approach of hunters associations should be to serve the interests of its members by arranging the best possible position for fire-arm users within the stipulations of the act. A Hunters Forum, where hunting associations meet with representatives of the command of the Central Firearms Registry (CFR), have been established in September and CHASA’s goal with it’s participation in this forum is to:
- understand the regulations intimately, comprehend the behind-the-scenes administration thereof and advise members on the best possible course of action,
- initiate improvements to the regulations where possible and
- sensitise the CFR on the needs and interests of hunters when it comes to the implementation of the act.

The Hunters Forum was established on the initiative of Theo Venter, secretary of SA Hunters and Dir. Jaco Bothma, commanding officer of the CFR. The forum’s official purpose is to discuss and solve issues pertaining to hunters and the implementation of the Firearms Control Act. It is constituted by representatives of the CFR, as well as three members each from the accredited hunting associations in South Africa. They are CHASA (representing it’s thirteen member associations), SA Hunters, SA Wing Shooters, Lowveld Hunters, KZN Hunters and ECGMA. The latter three are also CHASA members, but obtained accreditation in their own right.

Very valuable interpretation issues and administrative matters were clarified at the Forum.

A concession for the very first round of license renewals has been made in which it is only necessary to undergo the theoretical part of the required Poslec training. The unit standard for this course is currently been set up in the Poslec environment and until such time as this is finalised, the CFR will accept training certificates from the training service providers. CHASA non the less, advises its members to undergo the full Poslec course and do so as soon as possible. There can be no doubt that year end will see a scramble for compliance that will make the queues experienced with driver’s license renewals look insignificant. Owners can in fact apply for renewals earlier than what is stipulated by the regulations and if this is done, the renewals for different fire-arms can be staggered if the owner has such a need. This is however subject to the availability of administrative capacity on the side of the local designated fire-arm officials (DFO’s). Again hunters are urged to be pro-active and save themselves a lot of effort later.

More good news is that although competency certificates are only valid for five years, Poslec certificates are timeless and it is not necessary to ever redo the training. Competency certificates and licensing can also be done simultaneously, although owners are warned that this would bring about a risk in terms of the possibility of administrative error.

In the first semester of 2004, the vast majority of license applications were refused.
CHASA advises hunters to not appeal against this refusal. The Appeal Board is the responsibility of the Ministry and not the SAPS and this Board is currently not constituted and, according to media statements, have a backlog of twelve thousand appeals to attend to. It is therefore advised that individuals re-apply for the same weapon under the new Act. The CFR assured that there will be no adverse inference during a future license application because of a previous refusal.

Dedicated Hunter (DH) status has already been awarded to about three thousand hunters and the name lists handed to the CFR. The database will be kept on grounds of identity numbers in order to prevent duplication in cases where hunters might opt to apply for such status through more than one association. Hunters associations agreed to recommend to its members to, in the interest of effectual administration, not apply for DH status with more than one association. It should furthermore not be more difficult to obtain DH status from any specific hunters association and therefore the Forum facilitated the standardisation amongst associations of the process and qualifying criteria for awarding of DH status.

The needs and sentiments of hunters are also shared with the CFR. The huge value of .22 rifles in training were relayed and the CFR confirmed that .22 fire-arms will not be viewed differently from any other caliber during licensing applications. On the issue of the refusal of licenses, the CFR acknowledged that “insufficient motivation” is not acceptable as a reason and undertook to develop internal guidelines on how to give appropriate reasons for future refusals. The destruction of weapons of monitory and heritage value was also severely criticized and the CFR agreed to have hunting associations and other knowledgeable organisations assist on a local level in identification of such. The Forum will continue with the planning of such an arrangement, but in the interim hunters are encouraged to have their local museums accredit with SAPS in order to be able to take possessions of such arms.