[Folks, this morning I went to renew my firearms license, and I want to urge those of you who thought of not doing it, to give it a bash, even if you’re late. I’ll tell you why. JUST MAKE THE EFFORT.

Last year I went to a firearms dealer and went through the whole exam/competency test.

The exam is simple – its a 1 hour oral exam. You don’t even need to read the book (though I did), and you’ll pass. They help you along.

The shooting is a bit more effort, but the gunshop I went to gave you a free hour’s training and then finally you fire at the A4 target and its easy to pass with flying colours (except for blacks I believe – so the gunshop guys told me!)

I was told by someone related to GOSA (Gun Owners of SA) last year that very FEW people were renewing firearms licences annually – perhaps as few as 70,000 per year (out of millions of owners).

Well, today, with my own eyes, I saw something that made me much happier.

I was the first at the Police station this morning with my licence – and at first they treated me like dog-sh*t – perhaps because I was a bit cheeky – not verbally – but in my attitude. (I’ll tell you the story later). I had also forgotten some stuff and then had to dash off home and back to the Police station to finish the whole thing.

But the blacks became warmer and chatted more, and I could see one of the black cops wanted to chat – so I encouraged him and we had a great chat. At the suburban Police station I went to, they moved their office to a small hall on the premises in anticipation of a BIG RUSH. I noted that from about 8:30am people started coming in more and more. The black cop told me their either “a hundred” or “hundreds” were coming in each day – I didn’t hear clearly. Then I asked him how many applications they had to date (since cut off is 31st March) – he said, in that Police station alone – 8,000 – 9,000 firearms applications!!!

I was stunned. There are HUNDREDS of Police stations around the country. Let’s say there are 500 Police stations and each gets 1,000 applications – that’s 500,000. This is way more than I heard from my GOSA contact. So it could be that large volumes of people will make the effort. So I urge you to please join them.

If the suburban station I go to has 9,000 applications already – AND they’re expecting a FLOOD plus, they expect people to apply EVEN AFTER THE CUT-OFF DATE – which may then probably be allowed. Imagine, for a Police station that serves Randburg – the final total of applications could be enormous – maybe even 20,000. That’s fantastic!

Now here’s the kicker. While I was there, about 10 people applied. Of them, only 1 was black, 2 were Indian and the rest were whites! So… there are STACKS of whites applying for the licences and jumping through the hoops. I think its awesome if non-blacks are applying for firearms licenses on such a scale.

Look, the gunshops make some money out of the training – but give them a break – they are going bankrupt and the money they make from training keeps them going – which is good for us. If they close down completely (90% already have), then it will be an incredible tragedy. So we owe it to the gunshop owners to keep them going.

So I got the feeling, chatting to this cop, that chances are, even if people are late they will extend the deadline if enough people do it. He cited the case of people renewing their drivers’ licenses.

I was delighted to see that I was not alone in jumping through the hoops.

The gunshops go to great lengths to help you and advise you on how to fill in the forms to stand a chance.

It reminds me of Zimbabwe. After the blacks took over there, and Mugabe made all sorts of rules to make life tough – the whites who lived there became MASTERS – geniuses in fact – at “playing the bureaucratic game”. And here in SA we are slowly wising up and getting better too. I see whites smoozing with the blacks, being all friendly and polite, etc. Whites are playing the game too.

Because of my problems, and me waiting for the cops (who move slower than an 80-year-old), and also having to return home to fetch stuff I forgot – I wasted 2 hours. But for others it went faster.

The bottom line is, the blacks want to put all sorts of irritations in our way in the hope that we’ll give up our weapons willingly. We owe it to ourselves, individually and as a group, to do all we can to legally retain what few weapons we have. They’re ours and we have a right to self defence. Even if you never use your weapon – there is a principle at stake.

So make the effort… it seems to me the gunshops are WELL OILED MACHINES… at churning out the help, courses and assistance even with 2 weeks to go. Help them… don’t be afraid to pay a few hundred rand for the courses – you’re helping them, keeping them in business before the ANC destroys them – and they’re helping us. Its a small price to pay to keep our weapons. Jan]