A night in Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital: Ground zero for gun violence (continued)
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The new South African government inherited its liberal gun laws from the Apartheid government. Until 1983, black people were prohibited from owning guns, but white people could easily obtain licenses for nearly any type of weapon. Now, it's easy for anyone to buy a gun, especially an illegal one.

Illegal guns — many of them stolen from licensed owners — can be bought for as little as $30 in Soweto. Last year, 29,694 guns were reported stolen. Guns also make their way into the country from neighboring African countries, Eastern Europe, China and the United States. Recent burglaries of South African armories have added to the supply.

"All we're saying is having a gun doesn't work," says Adele Kristen, director of Gun Free South Africa, the country's most prominent gun control organization. "So if you have a gun under the assumption that it's going to protect you, you're just giving the gangsters more guns."

But white South Africans have a history of arming themselves to protect their property and land, and some black South Africans point to guns as the key to the success of their long liberation struggle. Five years after South Africa's first all-race, democratic elections, many South Africans are not willing to lower their defenses.

"South Africa's attitude is I'm OK with a gun, but I don't want anyone else to have one," says Antony Altbeker, a lecturer in the policing program at Witwatersrand University who has studied the effects of gun violence. "With that attitude it's like the U.S.-Soviet Union arms race."

Two weeks ago, in its last session before the elections, Parliament got rid of a 30-year-old clause that allowed licensed gun owners to lend their weapons. The police says criminals abused the clause, using it to get around applying for gun licenses.

Parliament plans to vote on a completely new Arms and Ammunition Act by Christmas. The act, currently being drafted by the Department of Safety and Security, is expected to mandate a review of all firearm licenses every five years and ban automatic weapons, toy guns that look real and bullets and handguns that can pierce bullet-proof vests.

While the leaders of gun associations agree that something needs to be done to control the flow of unlicensed guns in the country, they oppose the stricter new laws.

Eugene Roets, owner of a gun store in downtown Johannesburg and member of the South African Gun Owners Association, says the proposed law will limit the number of legal, not illegal, guns in circulation.

"Illegal guns give a bad name to the law-abiding citizen," he says, echoing the oft-repeated slogan of the National Rifle Association in the U.S. that if guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns. "It's like drugs. If a doctor prescribes a drug to you it's all right, but if someone sells you illegal drugs, it's entirely different."

Roets blames the South African media for the current push for new gun laws, but gun control lobbyists have been advocating a new Arms and Ammunition Act for four years. Kirsten says the elections have helped the group put pressure on Parliament. Less than two months before South Africa's second all-race elections, opinion polls rank crime second only to unemployment as the most important election issue.

No one sees the effects of gun violence more than doctors at Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital in Soweto.

Anushka Lekha, a 24-year-old Indian doctor from the east coast city Durban, is so scared of the violence in Soweto, she has never visited the communities she serves. Every day she drives to the hospital before dusk and returns home after day break to avoid driving through Soweto at night. If she does have to drive at night, she never stops at red lights for fear of being hijacked, and she repeats, "Please God take me home safely," like a mantra until she arrives at her destination.

"I see what crime does to them," she says. "Whatever happens around Soweto comes here."

Lekha is not the only South African who is intensely afraid of crime.

In a gun store in suburban Johannesburg, a middle-aged black man is shopping for an ankle holster for his gun. His eyes flashing with fear and anger, he tells the shop owners why he wants to conceal his weapon.

Last week, he says, he was mugged while making a delivery to a Soweto Supermarket. His three attackers weren't interested in the small electrical appliances that filled his truck. They just wanted his gun.

The man, who declines to give his name because he is scared the muggers would come after him again, grew up in Soweto. He's been shot and stabbed in ten muggings over the years, he says, and he spent three years in prison for shooting one of his attackers. But he says he's never seen gun violence as bad as it is now.

Although the muggers targeted him for his firearm, the man says he needs a gun to protect himself and his business.

"They mustn't ban guns," he says. "The law should be there to control guns. But our government is doing nothing."

Parliament is trying to do something, but even if the new gun laws are passed, some people doubt the police and justice systems will be able to enforce them. Each department places the responsibility on the other.

"Our main concern is that we can arrest the person, but what will the justice department do?" says Soweto police inspector John Shaburi. "The judgment will be light. The person knows he will get out in a few months."

John Welch, deputy director of public prosecutions, says that there is a one-year backlog of cases in the court system, but once the criminal is prosecuted, judges are handing down stiff sentences of at least five years in prison.

"It's a matter of law enforcement," he says. "If the police can't enforce the law it is absolutely useless."

While politicians, gun control lobbyists, police and prosecutors argue about how to stop the proliferation of guns in South Africa, doctors and nurses at Baragwanath Hospital are cleaning up the mess guns cause.

Dr. Costa Bope, who saw only one gunshot wound while he was in medical school in the Congo eight years ago, says gun violence is a lingering symptom of Apartheid oppression.

"It's like a war zone," he says. "When you have a weekend shift, it's amazing to see the number of gunshots. You can have 15 gunshots, and you think, is it a war outside or what?"

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