The State That Lost Its Own Guns
A parliamentary reply made public on 23 July 2026 shows that 41 297 murders were committed with illegal firearms over 4 financial years, compared to 393 with licensed weapons. The same reply reveals that 166 people were murdered using firearms that had previously belonged to state institutions, with 142 of those traced to former SAPS weapons. Acting Police Minister Firoz Cachalia has announced a policing reset agenda, including priority interventions at 140 high-crime police stations, but the station list has not yet been drawn up, and SAPS has refused to tell Parliament which stations are losing the most firearms.
A parliamentary reply signed by Acting Police Minister Firoz Cachalia and made public on 23 July 2026 has reignited South Africa’s firearm policy debate, with political parties across the spectrum citing it as evidence that the Firearms Control Amendment Bill is misguided.
But buried inside the same reply is a figure that has received almost no attention: 166 people were murdered over 4 financial years using firearms that had previously been in the possession of the South African state. Of those, 142 involved former SAPS weapons, 14 former South African National Defence Force weapons, and 10 former metro police weapons.
The reply was tabled in response to a written parliamentary question from Freedom Front Plus MP Wouter Wessels, who asked Cachalia to provide a breakdown of murders committed with licensed versus unlicensed firearms, and to identify how many of those unlicensed weapons had previously been state property.
The numbers in full
In the 4 financial years from 2022/23 to 2025/26, Cachalia confirmed that 41 297 people were murdered with unlicensed firearms and 393 with licensed ones. For the partial 2026/27 year up to 30 April 2026, the figures were 708 and 12 respectively.
The 142 murders linked to former SAPS firearms break down across the period as follows: 38 in 2022/23, 40 in 2023/24, 24 in 2024/25 and 40 in 2025/26. The figures show no meaningful improvement over the period.
A tracking system offline since 2019
The state’s difficulty accounting for its own weapons is not a new problem. In 2019, a sophisticated biometric system used to manage the Central Firearms Register was shut down by its service provider, Forensic Data Analysts, after SAPS failed to honour its contract. Police have since been recording firearm transactions manually.
A high court judgment directed then national commissioner Fannie Masemola to sign the contract and pay what was owed. Masemola was later suspended. Acting national commissioner General Puleng Dimpane has taken the matter to the Supreme Court of Appeal, seeking reconsideration of a decision the court has already made. As of July 2026 the outstanding debt has passed R1.2 billion, with interest accumulating at approximately R1 million per week.
Separate parliamentary replies, answered by Cachalia in late 2025, showed that more than 3 400 SAPS service firearms were lost or stolen between 2019 and 2024. Only 559 were ever recovered. A further question about losses specifically from inside SAPS armouries revealed that 170 weapons had gone missing over 5 years, with only 16 recovered, a recovery rate of roughly 9%.
When the DA asked Cachalia to identify which police stations, clusters and ranks had the worst record for firearm losses, he declined. His reply stated the information could not be disclosed as it might reveal specific vulnerabilities that could be exploited.
The Amendment Bill
The figures have landed in the middle of a long-running political dispute over the Firearms Control Amendment Bill, which has been in the pipeline since 2021. The Bill proposes to remove self-defence as a legitimate reason to hold a firearm licence and would give the Minister of Police significant discretion over who may be lawfully armed.
More than 118 000 public submissions were received when the Bill was published for comment, with the overwhelming majority opposed. The NEDLAC process produced a similar result. Government’s own Civilian Secretariat for Police Service has since acknowledged in Parliament that the Bill needs to be reconsidered.
An independent review commissioned by the Civilian Secretariat and conducted by the Wits School of Governance found no causal link between the Firearms Control Act and any reduction in violent crime, and described the Central Firearms Register as institutionally incoherent and incapable of maintaining accurate records. As recently as July 2026 the DA was calling for the Bill to be withdrawn.
The Reset Agenda and the 140 stations
On 25 July 2026, Cachalia briefed the media following the second Police MinMec meeting of 2026, held at Anew Resort in White River, Mpumalanga. MinMec is the intergovernmental forum where the national Minister of Police sits with the 9 provincial MECs responsible for community safety. It coordinates and builds agreement between spheres of government but has no power to command the South African Police Service.
Cachalia announced that the Reset Agenda for policing, covering strengthened vetting, lifestyle audits, rebuilt crime intelligence and detective capacity, digitisation of policing systems and procurement reform, has moved from planning into implementation. He said all 9 provinces have endorsed it.
He also confirmed that MinMec resolved to prioritise interventions at 140 high-crime police station precincts, which will become the first implementation sites of the Reset Agenda. They will receive targeted operational support, improved resource allocation, infrastructure upgrades and closer performance monitoring.
However, Cachalia said those 140 stations still have to be identified, in consultation with and in agreement with the MECs. The list does not yet exist.
The selection will therefore be made inside an intergovernmental forum that does not routinely publish its deliberations, using criteria that have not been made public. Since SAPS has refused to disclose which stations have the worst record for losing firearms, it will not be possible for the public to assess whether firearm accountability formed part of the selection criteria once the list is eventually released.
Cachalia separately acknowledged at the briefing that South Africa had lost sight of the importance of civilian oversight of policing, and said it needed to be restored to its proper place.
