I was bewildered to hear this afternoon that the Western Cape Community Safety Department managed to misplace more than 2,500 firearms, all within a single year between 2008 and 2009.  The department said today, quite rightly, that it was ‘concerned’ that too many police officers were just kind of, losing, their guns.

The esteemed University of Cape Town‘s safety and violence conference has revealed the shocking stat about the province’s so-called ‘safety’ department’s firearm losses in the 2008-9 financial year.

Gilbert Lawrence, the provincial chief of community safety, added this insightful comment: “We are concerned as I’m sure the citizens are. Even though there’s a greater number [of guns] that are lost by citizens than by the police, the police should not be losing their weapons”.  He says the public has lost 12,000 guns in a year.

Stop it.

[Source: EWN]