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When I go to the US, taking a firearm and trying to get it through customs there is an effort not worth the trouble. Bringing your guns to hunt in South Africa it is a formal but easy procedure and may take 20 minutes of your time, if that.
Because firearms are not formally registered in their owners' names in the US (informally they in fact are, as everybody knows!) the South African authorities need your personal confirmation that any firearm being brought into the country in fact legally belongs to the person who carries it. This is to prevent illegal weapons entering the borders.
This statement is used to have your rifle entered into the South African firearms register and to issue you with a temporary South Africa firearms licence on the spot. Now you can take your firearm anywhere like any other citizen without any interference by anyone as long as you keep it under your control, or locked in an approved safe with somebody.
To make it easy for the hundreds of US hunters who fly out to South Africa, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Form 4457 – “Certificate of Registration for Personal Effects Taken Abroad” is used to confirm ownership of firearms on top of whatever other personal assets you declare there . Inexplicably the CBP went and put an expiry date on this form for whatever reason some bureaucrat had conceived at the time. Lately a number of hunters from the US have made the declaration of legal ownership on Form 4457 without seeing that the form had in fact gone past its use-by date. The date of validity had expired.
You can be as sure as daylight that another bureaucrat halfway across the globe who sees that your firearm ownership statement carries a date that says that the form you used had formally expired will (and not unreasonably so) assume that the form is not valid anymore, and the firearm will remain in custody until you return to the USA.
Hunters visiting South Africa (or Europe and Australia) please insist that the U.S. Customs and Border Protection bureaucrat hand you a form that will not expire during your stay in the foreign country.
Back To Hunters Bringing Their Rifles Into South Africa
This Is How The Process Works:
You supply me with your name, address, passport number as well as the make, model, calibre and serial number(s) of the rifle(s) you plan to hunt with, 3 months before arrival. I go to the National Firearms Registry and get your rifle imports pre-approved and receive your Temporary Firearms Licence and forward a scanned copy to you. This saves you standing in the long queue of US hunters at the S.A. Police Services import counter at the airport to have their rifles cleared and licensed.
In fact, for first time visitors I advise that you pay the $100 fee and a pretty young lady will meet you after you have passed through customs, take you to this police department and do all the talking for you and get your rifle. She is an ex SAPS ranking officer and a big game hunter herself. She will also take you to your lodge near the airport where you will stay the first night.
I shall meet you at the lodge at 9 a.m. the following morning and we set off for the concession where we hunt first. After the seven or ten or whatever days of hunting I take you to the airport and assist you with checking in. A dedicated gun courier from Delta Airlines will grab your rifle from us and on his own gets it checked on your flight.
It happens 20 times every day of the year.
The enemy of the USA is not where the military is fighting - that is clear to the objective observer. The unabashed hatred of the president, the unlawful, unabated violence in the streets, the one-sided interpretation of laws, fear of speaking your principles, the loss of democracy, all points to one thing and that is civil anarchy is about to happen anytime soon - and then civil war. It is coming without a doubt.
(This thing posted before I could finish and edit) What I was trying to say above is that the country is terribly divided now and the liberal left is in full "ends justify the means" mode. I fear an uprising of sorts, something unheard of in this country in a hundred and fifty years if things do not settle down. Firearms ownership will be one of the issues. Prohibition was a classic example of government overreach. Imagine what will happen if they attempt firearm confiscation. I hope I am totally off base with this. But, follow the news with government officials (including our last president) ignoring the laws of Congress and trashing our constitution and sanctuary cities harboring criminals, I do not know if there is an amiable solution.
There has been a tremendous change in the U. S. in my lifetime. I grew up in rural deep south. Guns were and to some extent still are a way of life. I can remember when I was 10-12 years old spending the weekend with my best friend. i would take my 22 rifle or my shotgun to school and it would set in the coat closet until school was out. No one thought anything about a couple of kid with shotguns taking the school bus home.
I do not have to tell you that there are areas in our country where a concealed carry permit is impossible to get because the laws allowing one are impossible to satisfy. The liberal left would like nothing better than to confiscate all firearms. They are prolific enough to scare the heck out of law abiding gun owners. That is where distrust of the government comes in. We stay only one election away from a serious problem. As divided as the country is now and the absolute
I like the topic. Laws are not political and I am not a so called "politically correct" individual.
During my time in Colorado and Wyoming, and knowing about other states I have come to the conclusion that our Firearms Act, despite requiring firearms to be registered, allows us much more freedom of usage and carry and transport than what is the case in the USA. Never will a policeman ask here you if you are armed - it has nothing to do with him.
Handgun carry is allowed anywhere, but by law it must be concealed. A great deal of trust is in the individual's self-discipline. Hunting mishaps are very rare indeed. A course and exam in firearms law and safety and technical issues of all types of firearms is a requirement for original issue of a licence.
In my observation the 2nd Amendment is of very little value in the US: I have stacks and stacks of legal reports where it is sneered upon and ignored and discarded on a daily basis by mayors, police chiefs, BATF, State governors, etc. If it had meant anything the federal government would have jailed these who trespass the Constitution but there is no will to enforce the Constitution. With impunity the 2nd Amendment is simply ignored as if it does not exist - so for those it indeed does not exist.
Out here the Minister of Police, the Chief of Police, district and station commanders and individual policemen get criminally and civilly charged by our gun owners associations the very moment any statute of the Constitution or Firearms Act is ignored or broken. Having my firearms licensed in terms of a concise and precise Act gives me more freedom to carry and transport and use it than I can in the U.S. Also it gives every firearms owner the precise pre-knowledge of the limits of the mandates the government has regarding his firearms. They overstep that and they end up in jail or pay a heavy fine.
I am a member of the NRA and became that when I bought my first rifle in the US. I was shocked to learn that it has only about 5 million members - there should have been at least 100 million.
We have been fighting formal firearm registration in this country for years. If the government knows who has firearms and what they are, it is easier and more likely for the government to act against those citizens for what ever reason. It is an intense distrust of government that drives many in the U.S. and not without good reason. It goes back to the American revolution and has survived and thrived among our more conservative citizens. Those of us who support the second amendment and individual personal freedoms feel there are already too many infringements by government into our lives as it is. Federal registration of firearms is simply another hold the government has upon its individuals.
I know that those of us who own guns are not secretive and it is easy enough in many cases to find out who has firearms and who does not. Formal registration, however, is another mater entirely.
Andries, if this comment is too political and not appropriate for this forum I will have no issues should you decide to delete it. Not sure exactly where the lines are drawn. Just let me know and I will be more careful with what I say.