The Democratic Alliance (DA) has called for the withdrawal and full reconsideration of both the proposed PSIRA (Private Security Industry Regulatory Authority) regulatory amendments and the Firearms Control Amendment Bill, arguing that South Africa’s crime response system depends on cooperation between the state and lawful private actors rather than increased restrictions on them. The amendments and the Bill sought to strip private actors of their firearms.

The party says the events surrounding the 30 June security operations again highlighted a structural reality in South Africa’s policing capacity. According to the party, the government reportedly allocated around R600 million for security-related interventions while simultaneously relying on a wide network of metro police units, private security companies, community policing forums, neighbourhood watches, farm watches, and ordinary citizens to stabilise public safety conditions.

In the DA’s view, this demonstrates that crime prevention in practice already depends on coordinated effort across both state and private sectors. The party argues that government policy should reflect this reality rather than undermine it.

South Africa depends heavily on private security firms and lawfully armed civilians to maintain law and order. In much of rural South Africa, state policing has essentially collapsed into ineptitude and corruption. At a national level, the South African Police Service (SAPS) has been deeply penetrated by criminals. In urban areas, the middle classes make almost complete use of private firms to prevent, react to, and investigate crime. South Africa has the unique distinction among democracies that its police officers frequently commit serious and violent crimes.

During the 2021 uprisings, after the police had fled their posts, private citizens and security firms restored order across large swathes of the country.

Central to the DA’s criticism are the proposed PSIRA amendments gazetted at the end of March this year. The party says these changes would place additional administrative and operational burdens on private security providers in relation to the issuing, carrying, storage, tracking, and use of firearms and other controlled equipment. It argues that this would duplicate existing firearm control systems, increase costs, create regulatory uncertainty, and reduce the operational capacity of armed response units, particularly in high-risk environments where response times are critical.

The DA also raises concerns about the state of PSIRA itself, pointing to ongoing questions around governance, allegations of corruption, leadership instability, and what it describes as regulatory overreach. In this context, the party argues that layering additional compliance obligations onto the sector risks weakening a system that is already under pressure.

The Firearms Control Amendment Bill is also rejected by the DA, which says it was opposed by the majority of participants in consultation processes and has since been flagged in parliamentary discussions by the Civilian Secretariat for Police Service as potentially requiring reconsideration. The party argues that the Bill focuses excessively on lawful firearm owners while doing little to address the flow and use of illegal firearms by criminal networks.

According to the DA, the legislation risks undermining lawful self-defence rights, increasing strain on the states already chaotic Central Firearms Register and placing hunters, sport shooters, collectors, and private security operators under further pressure despite their compliance with existing law.

South Africa already has extremely onerous firearms licencing, training, and background checking regulations for civilian owners and private security firms. These are seen as a global gold standard of gun control.

The party says the reasons for South Africa’s high crime rates lie elsewhere, including weaknesses in police intelligence, overstretched detective services, forensic backlogs, firearm losses within SAPS structures, inefficiencies at the Central Firearms Register, and weak consequences for violent offenders.

The DA concludes that government must shift its approach away from treating compliant citizens and lawful industries as regulatory problems and instead focus on violent criminals and illegal firearms – which necessarily requires stronger cooperation between the state and private sector capacity, not less.