South Africa’s latest round of inquiries into crime and policing has produced a familiar response: blame the legal firearm. Recent commentary has gone further, suggesting that “private guns move into criminal use” and that privately owned firearms are therefore a major driver of crime. From that flawed premise flows an equally flawed policy conclusion: that the solution to violent crime is to further restrict lawful firearm ownership. At the core of this argument is the idea of a single, undifferentiated “pool of circulating guns”. In this view, all firearms are treated as essentially the same: lawfully owned, stolen, state-issued, illegally imported, diverted through corruption or used by organised criminals. Yet this collapses the most important distinction in the debate. In any rational policy framework the difference between lawful possession and criminal use is foundational. A firearm secured in the safe of a vetted, licensed owner is not the same policy problem as a firearm stolen from a police armoury, diverted through corruption, smuggled across a border or carried by a gang member. To pretend otherwise is not evidence-based policy but ideological simplification. South Africa does not apply this “single pool” logic anywhere else. Knives are frequently used in violent crime, yet society does not seek to eliminate their lawful use. Motor vehicles contribute to thousands of deaths each year, yet the answer is not prohibition. Instead, the state regulates legitimate use, enforces standards and punishes misuse. Firearm policy should follow the same principle. South Africa already has one of the more stringent firearm-control regimes in the world. Legal firearm owners are vetted, licensed, competency-tested and subject to detailed regulation. The state does not lack law, but it has repeatedly failed to administer and enforce the law effectively. That failure is visible everywhere: a dysfunctional Central Firearms Registry, long licensing delays, weak record-keeping, corruption, poor enforcement, poor recovery rates and the loss or theft of state-owned firearms. These are not peripheral issues. They go to the heart of the firearms crisis. The state’s own figures make the point clearly: the South African Police Service (SAPS) reported 3,433 official firearms lost or stolen from 2019/20 to 2023/24, with only 559 recovered. In 2023/24 alone, the SAPS reported 741 firearms lost or stolen from police, with only 170 recovered and eight recovered firearms linked to crimes. Those losses matter, because a firearm lost from official custody is not an abstract policy concern. Yet the public debate too often focuses on the lawful owner, the hunter, the sport shooter, the collector, the trainer, the dealer and the citizen seeking to protect a family in a country with extreme levels of violent crime. In this context, drawing policy attention on the relatively limited number of firearms stolen from lawful civilian owners while neglecting the far greater losses and diversions from police and military stockpiles is a perverse policy position. The surge in firearm licence applications in recent years is also being cited as evidence of a growing firearms threat. But that interpretation ignores the obvious reality of life in South Africa. People are not applying for firearms in a vacuum. They are doing so in the context of violent crime, home invasions, farm attacks, hijackings, business robberies and declining confidence in the police. To blame lawful firearm applicants for this environment is to invert cause and effect. It is like blaming homeowners for installing alarms, electric fences and security gates. The proposed Firearms Control Amendment Bill reflects this same disconnect. Recently the Civilian Secretariat of Police Service publicly acknowledged in parliament that draft legislation was handed to the National Economic Development & Labour Council (Nedlac) before research into fundamental issues was completed. Nedlac then proceeded in obscurity, avoiding meaningful participation by key stakeholders. Therefore, these questions remain unavoidable: On what evidence is this suggested legislation being advanced? Where is the research proving that further restricting lawful owners will reduce violent crime? Where is the evidence distinguishing lawful ownership from illegal possession? Where are the analyses of state firearm losses, corruption, trafficking, border control, gang supply chains and failed prosecutions? Where is the operational assessment of how the state will enforce further restrictions when it already struggles to administer the existing system? Where is the record of meaningful consultation with the industries, associations, experts and communities most directly affected? These questions matter because policy made in the absence of facts is dangerous policy. Until the government can show that the proposed amendments are based on objective research, proper consultation and a rational connection to the real sources of firearm crime, the amendment bill should not be advanced. The distinction between legal and illegal firearms is not a technicality. It is in a very real sense the central issue. Ignore it and the country will once again punish compliance while criminals remain largely untouched. • Van Niekerk is group CEO of Outdoor Investment Holdings, the largest formal importer, distributor, and retailer in the South African firearms sector.