The remarkable thing about the recent turmoil over guns in South Africa is not just the bill itself and its many outlandish provisions but the process that led up to the brouhaha. It's a process that bears watching all over the world, and which is going to be covered more extensively in these pages from now on. In short, the new gun bill that created all the conflict was not crafted locally but by a coterie of international anti-gunners in a Think Tank called Institute for Security Studies (ISS). Seems someone in, or close to, the Blair government in England donated one half million US dollars to ISS to do just that. Word of the bill was then leaked to the press, with an eye toward creating the impression that government had already approved it. The arrogance and presumption of the ISS bureaucrats is breathtaking - even by English standards. Would you believe, the bill among many other outlandish things would have banned the private ownership and import of double rifles? This in an African nation that hosts more international hunters than the rest of Africa combined!
What the colonialist anti-gunners behind this bill obviously failed to appreciate is the sophistication of the new South African government. All of the officials I met were intelligent politicians who seemed to have an instinctive understanding that this imported gun bill was not right for South Africa, where guns and hunting are as natural a part of many........(continued)
