| The Sunday Times |
To: suntimes@tml.co.za
Subject: Never, never and never again
Date: Wed, 13 Dec 2000 19:13:25
Dear Sir
George Bizos suddenly gets a conscience when more unconstitutional measures are proposed in intended legislation.
Hypocrisy being the diet upon which Mr Bizos feeds. As a signatory to the Gun Control Charter and supporter of the Firearms Control Bill. Mr. Bizos should first examine what he supports before suddenly finding fault with the anti-terrorism bill.
Costing far more than the admitted R1.2 Billion when the police need more staff, better salaries, more vehicles and equipment right down to petrol to patrol their areas. This Bill cannot reduce crime nor will it put even 1% of criminals behind bars
Clearly Mr. Bizos is aware of the unconstitutional and ideological nature of the Firearms Control Bill. That seeks to punish the innocent who wish to defend themselves and reward the criminal by making their workplace safer.
Mr. Bizos may not be aware of the frightening revelations of the NCPS report on abuse of police powers. In particular the powers of search and seizure given by the current Arms and Ammunition Act.
What South Africa needs is less people with the double standards of George Bizos. People that are willing to stand up for the abuse of all constitutional and human rights by an out of control government and anti-rights organisations like the members of the Gun Control Charter.
To: suntimes@tml.co.za
Subject: Our debt to those......
Date: Mon, 11 Sep 2000 22:11:38
Dear Sir/Madam
Our responsibility to inform the public Refers: Our debt to those who have died by the gun.
I would like to congratulate Phylicia Oppelt on a thought provoking article highlighting some of the issues of the Firearms Control Bill.
There were some issues that should have been all to obvious to anyone in the media. That is the issue of what the media does not report and consequently hides not only from the public eye but it seems from it own reporters eyes.
I wonder just how many crimes or deaths were avoided by the simple fact that the intended victim was armed? Of course such events are not news and not often reported but that does not mean they do not occur.
Phylicia also made mention of an assertion made by many government officials and claimed it as a well known fact. In my written submission to the Portfolio Committee I requested that the Dept. of Safety and Security publish their findings as have many others. What this department claims is a world first and we desperately need the acclaim such a discovery will give us.
To-date the department has not published the evidence of this claim, that there is a causal relationship between firearms ownership and crime. Yet it continues to make the claim. To the extent that Mluleki George is willing to promote the waste of more than 1 Billion TAX Rands on this unsubstantiated and false claim. (The figure of more than 1,000,000,000 was confirmed in the portfolio committees questioning of the SAPS and is not the figure of 217M as stated by government in another of its many false statements surrounding this bill.)
What Phylicia should ask herself is why government is so intent on passing the Firearms Control Bill if it is admitted by government that it will have zero impact on criminals. What is the point of wasting such vast amounts of desperately needed money, time and resources that the police could better use in the capture of criminals?
Small wonder that the police have no support from the public when such obvious non-crime fighting tactics and deliberate misrepresentation are the daily utterances of socalled leaders.
If licenced firearm owners are responsible for all of societies ills then where is the evidence? If the government can afford to waste more than 1 Billion Rand why is it not upgrading the police service or addressing crime in a manner that will aid the capture and incarceration of criminals?
If judge Chaskalson can comment on the abuse of civil liberties and our constitution what does Phylicia think of the Firearms Control Bill. I'll bet that it has not been read because if it had then the very dangerous precedents it seeks to set would have been mentioned. That this bill which will not contribute to the incarceration of 1% of criminals is seen as for the good of the people speaks volumes for government and gun control propaganda.
To: suntimes@tml.co.za
Subject: Criminal utopia
Date: Sat, 9 Sep 2000 09:47:45
Dear Sir
As a citizen of South Africa I am frightened when I read the utterances of ANC members like Mluleki George. With such irrational statements that even the crickets stop their chirping to listen to the ANC drown their last remaining credibility.
Are we to accept that Safety and Security are willing to squander more than 1 Billion rands on making it difficult to own a legal firearm. When the same person tells us that criminals don't obey laws. It requires no leap of intelligence to figure out that the government is uninterested in illegal firearms and has absolutely no intention of doing a single thing about crime or the safety of citizens. Instead wasting huge amounts of TAX money on a Bill they have done nothing but backpeddle on is more a priority.
My mind is having great difficulty with Steve Tshwetes' promise that as soon as this Bill is implemented they will begin collecting illegal firearms. Is the Firearms Control Bill to which Steve Tshwete referred not the same as Mluleki George has in the Portfolio Committee? Surely this can not be the same Firearms Control Bill which has been promised by the ANC as the end to all crime. That women and children could in safety enjoy the rights accorded to them without fear of rape or brutal attack from criminals.
If the Bills intention is to remove the right to selfdefence with a firearm and we cannot question this, as no lesser person than the Portfolio Committee on Safety and Security Chairman, Mluleki George has stated such. Then just what purpose has the ANC government in making the criminal workplace safe.
Have we reached the point where criminals now outnumber citizens and the ANC is activly seeking the criminal vote. That honest citizens working all day and paying tax need to have their rights taken from them, their money wasted and crime given a government sponsored boost.
To: suntimes@tml.co.za
Subject: People in glass houses
Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2000 21:50:31
Dear Sir or Madam
Adel Kirsten tries very hard using all the propaganda techniques she knows to convince readers that firearms owners are irresponsible. The simple truth evades her fanatical mind. If firearms owners are irresponsible then where are the crime statistics to back up her contention? Why are our jails and courts not filled with errant licenced firearms owners? There are more than enough laws at present to prosecute and convict them.
Who would you rather believe Adel Kirsten or the then Minister of Safety and Security Mr. S. Mufamadi when in answer to questions in Parliament stated that licenced firearms owners are responsible for 0.5% of violent crime. This record of good behaviour has never been disputed by government. Not only that when taken as a reflection of the total population firearms owners are more than 60 times less likely to commit violent crime.
Adel Kirsten and her band of zealots set out to slander a group of citizens that they know has one of the best records of safety and freedom from crime. Then to have the audacity to claim they are being harassed by the same people they have campaigned against, belittled and lied about at every opportunity brings new meaning to the term femi-nazi.
Adel has yet to make a statement that is not irrational or emotional. GFSA statements in every instance follow the rules of propaganda in emotional appeals as laid down by Adolf Hitler in Mein Kampf, as reading the two chapters on propaganda will show.
To: suntimes@tml.co.za,
Subject: Citizen rights
Date: Mon, 18 Dec 2000 23:25:35
Dear Sir
The Sunday Times in the past years has printed
many controversial articles that attempt to justify removal of
citizens rights. "Our debt to those who have died by the
gun." Phylicia Oppelt as an example. More recently the two
faces of George Bizos with his double standards supporting the
Firearms Control Bill.
What is clear is that the Sunday Times has joined the ranks of oppressors because it does not permit opposing views. By censorship the Sunday Times promotes the propaganda of oppression. Reprehensible behaviour indeed from a newspaper that claims to be the bastion and protector of the people and citizen rights.
The integrity of the Sunday Times is worth no more that the paper it prints and judgement will be passed. When the ideology of tyrants, oppressors and zealots is placed above public knowledge. Then it is time to speak out. It is time for the Sunday Times to examine its record of promotion of oppression of citizen rights.
The Sunday Times has yet to comment on the unconstitutional issues of the Firearms Control Bill. Let alone the ideological government agenda or the moral and increase of crime issues.
The Sunday Times has yet to comment on the government budgeted cost of more then R1.2 Billion of the Firearms Control Bill when the government claims it has no money to pay police salaries. We can expect it to cost significantly more than this if the flawed budget is examined.
The Government and the Sunday Times have yet to produce one scrap of valid evidence to support the belief that crime will be reduced. R1.2 Billion is a lot of TAX money to waste on beliefs.
There was a time when I regarded the Sunday Times as a newspaper worth reading. Simply because it left no stone unturned in exposing the truth. Now that the Sunday Times has joined the ranks of zealots and oppressors the Sunday Times can do without my support. It no longer deserves it.
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