On 6 December in Saulsville township, west of Pretoria, three gunmen stormed a hostel, also acting as an unlicensed illegal shebeen, and opened fire indiscriminately. The attack claimed at least 12 lives, including three children, and injured more than a dozen others.

The shootings occurred in the early hours, with police only alerted hours later. This in itself offers an uncomfortable truth about the challenges of responding to violence in informal settlements with high levels of crime and unregulated alcohol sales.

Authorities are looking into connections to possible “taxi violence” disputes, a persistent scourge involving rival transport operators.

This attack is classified as a mass shooting — an incident in which multiple people are killed in a single act of gun violence. It is also far from an anomaly. Between 2017/18 and 2019/20 alone, South African police recorded 314 incidents where three or more people were killed in a single attack.

Against that backdrop, the Pretoria massacre has once again ripped open the national argument about gun control, in a country already grappling with a murder rate 959% higher than the average G20 country. 

South Africa’s gun laws: what they say and how they work

South Africa’s firearm framework is anchored in the Firearms Control Act 60 of 2000 (FCA), introduced to tighten controls after years of high violent crime. Under the FCA:

  • Individuals must apply for a competency certificate and a separate licence for each firearm.
  • Each firearm must be issued its own licence. Licenses are issued for a specific firearm, with each governing its specific uses, such as hunting/sport shooting, private collection or self-defence.
  • Licences are typically granted to South African citizens or permanent residents 21 or older who demonstrate they are a “fit and proper” person: criminal record checks, references, and a basic mental-health/behavioural screening form part of this assessment.
  • Gun owners need to have a legitimate reason or motivations (self-defence, sport, hunting).
  • There are limits on the number of firearms and rounds of ammunition per licence (With some exemptions for dedicated shooters and hunters).
  • Certain zones, such as schools or other public spaces, can be declared firearm-free. Carrying a firearm in public requires compliance with specific rules (handgun in a holster, safe transport, etc.).
  • Ownership and transfer of firearms, as well as penalties for illegal possession or storage failures, are criminalised and can carry a prison sentence of up to 15 years, or even more depending on the case.


The FCA is stringent on paper, but enforcement and implementation remain inconsistent.

Critics note that administrative shortcomings, especially at the Central Firearms Registry, and failures to prevent legal guns from leaking into illegal circulation, undermine the law’s intent.

According to Gun Free South Africa, an NGO working to prevent gun violence, there are 5,049,000 licensed guns. 9,500 are reported stolen or lost every year, a steady pipeline feeding South Africa’s illicit firearms economy.

South Africa’s firearms legislation is often described as among the strictest globally. Licences are tightly controlled, competency must be proven, and ownership is limited by law. Unlike in the United States, where the right to gun ownership is protected under the Constitution, South Africa’s legal framework takes the opposite approach: firearms are regulated as a tightly controlled privilege rather than a fundamental right.

Why do shootings like Pretoria still happen?

The answer lies less in legal ownership than in illegal firearms and systemic challenges. South Africa’s murder rate is among the highest in the world. According to recent crime reports, the nation recorded over 26,000 homicides in 2024 (an average of more than 70 per day), and firearms account for a large share of these deaths. 

Moreover, many of the weapons used in violent crime are unlicensed and illegally held. A parliamentary question, posed by the Democratic Alliance in June this year, revealed that more than 3,400 SAPS firearms were lost or stolen between 2019 and 2024, with only a fraction recovered.

Australia: Strict laws & rare but deadly attacks 

Just days after the Pretoria shooting, on Sunday, Sydney’s Bondi Beach was the scene of one of the deadliest mass shootings in Australian history, where two gunmen killed at least 15 people at a Hanukkah celebration. The attack has been declared a terrorist act influenced by extremist ideology.

Australia is often held up as a model for strict gun control. After the 1996 Port Arthur massacre, the nation enacted sweeping restrictions: bans on semiautomatic rifles, stringent licensing and registration requirements, and a massive buyback programme.

Yet critics now warn that loopholes and weak enforcement have eroded the rigour of these laws, with state systems differing in their stringency and background checks sometimes reliant on self-reporting rather than comprehensive intelligence data.

Despite strict rules, firearm ownership in states like New South Wales remains high, with more than 1.1 million guns registered and some licence holders owning hundreds. Australia’s gun homicide rate remains far lower than that in the United States: estimates suggest around 0.09 per 100,000 people, compared with 5.6 per 100,000 in the US. 

But the Bondi attack has reignited debates about the adequacy of even tight restrictions.

United States: Constitutional rights and persistent violence

Across the Pacific, the United States offers the starkest counterpoint in the global gun debate.

Gun ownership in the US is constitutionally protected, deeply woven into national identity and fiercely defended in political life. 

The result is a country that experiences mass shootings with grim regularity, to the point where they barely register as international news unless the death toll is exceptionally high.

As of 1 December this year, the US had already recorded over 380 mass shootings, with firearm deaths far outstripping those in any other high-income democracy. School shootings have become a recurrent national trauma. According to a CNN analysis tracking incidents where at least one person is shot on school property, recent years have seen a troubling surge: 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024 each set new records for school-based gunfire incidents since at least 2008, with at least 83 such occurrences in 2024 alone.

And yet, in the aftermath of the Bondi Beach attack, social media in the US filled with a familiar refrain: Australia’s gun laws didn’t stop this, so gun control doesn’t work. It is a claim that collapses under even the lightest scrutiny.

Australia’s gun homicide rate remains a fraction of that in the US, and mass shootings there are so rare that each one shocks the nation into action. In the US, by contrast, they have become routine — tragic, yes, but politically survivable with ‘thoughts and prayers’.

The irony is hard to miss. Countries with strict gun laws debate them after rare atrocities. Countries with permissive laws debate them endlessly, even as the death toll climbs week after week.

What Pretoria forces us to confront

South Africa sits uncomfortably between these global poles. Its gun laws are closer to Australia’s in design than America’s in philosophy. But its lived reality looks far closer to a country drowning in firearms it cannot fully track, control, or remove from circulation.

The Pretoria massacre did not happen because South Africa lacks gun laws. It happened because illegal guns are plentiful, enforcement is weak, and violence has been normalised in spaces where the state arrives late or not at all.

Emma@explain.co.za |  + posts

Emma is a freshly graduated Journalist from Stellenbosch University, who also holds an Honours in history. She joined the explain team, eager to provide thorough and truthful information and connect with her generation.