19,000 guns in private hands

This is according to the Ministry of Internal Affairs which governs the licensing and proper use of firearms.

Mr Obiga Kania, the Minister of Internal Affairs, says another 500 applications for gun licences have been pending for years and are being scrutinised.

“We take our time (to issue certificates),” Mr Kania says. “We issue certificates on a case-by-case basis. We look at the risk the applicant is facing assess if his or her need to have a firearm before giving him or her a firearm certificate.”
Debate about members of the public bearing firearms has picked up following a spate of shootings that have claimed a number of lives.

The current law, the Firearms Act, 1970, for instance, does not bar a holder of a licensed firearm from carrying it in a public place. This has prompted the Uganda National Focal Point on Small Arms to push for a ban on bearing arms in public places such as entertainment venues and schools.

The most cited case of gun misuse was in May 2009 when former Arua Municipality MP, Hussein Akbar Godi, shot dead his wife, Rehema Caesar Nasur, using a licensed gun.

In 2014, Central Police Station officers confiscated a firearm owned by a city car dealer, Mr Mohammad Ssebuwufu, after he allegedly used it to threaten violence against business rivals at Pine Car Bond in Kampala.

Last month, social worker Kenneth Watmon Akena died after being shot dead outside Lugogo Mall in Kampala. Kampala businessman Mathew Kanyamunyu along with his Burundian girlfriend, Cynthia Munwangari and brother, Joseph Kanyamunyu, were charged with murdering Akena and remanded in Luzira Prison pending trial.

Also in November, gunmen attacked former mayor of Kiira, Mr Mamerito Mugerwa, as he entered his residence in Bweyogerere Township. Mr Mugerwa escaped into his home and only fended off the gunmen who were in pursuit when he pulled out his pistol and shot back.

The latest case of gun misuse is where Kampala City businessman Ben Mugasha of Bemuga Forwarders Ltd is accused of using a licensed gun to settle a love-affair dispute.

In addition, a number of Muslim clerics were shot dead in recent years, with the latest being the shooting to death of a Uganda Peoples’ Defence Forces major, Muhammad Kiggundu, who was also a Muslim cleric.

Most of the shootings that have occurred recently have not been resolved, and therefore there is no conclusive information on whether the killers use licensed guns or illegal ones. There is also a fear that guns licensed to private security companies may be prone to abuse. This aside, it is not known how many guns are illegally held by private individuals.

Amid the rise in shootings in 2014, police chief Gen Kale Kayihura told a security meeting in Kampala that he was overwhelmed by firearm applications in his office, saying he feared meeting with some of his “friends” because of his reluctance to clear their applications.

Gen Kayihura said then that he had on several occasions got embarrassed over reports that people who were licensed to carry guns were posing with them in bars and placing them on tables for everyone to see.

The police say they have had to revoke some firearm certificates or halt the acquisition process after discovering misuse.
“There are many firearm applications that are pending clearance. I can’t ascertain the number, but IGP halted the clearance of firearm applications because of misuse,” police spokesman Andrew Felix Kaweesi says.

The Act gives the firearm chief licensing officer power to suspend issuance of a certificate to any applicant.

The Act adds that even when an applicant appeals the licensing officer’s decision to the minister, the minister “may either dismiss the appeal or give such directions as he or she may think fit to the licensing officer or the chief licensing officer, as the case may be, from whose decision the appeal has been lodged, in relation to the firearm certificate or register which is the subject of the appeal”.
The law empowers the chief licensing officer, the government official in charge of issuing gun licenses, to “refuse to issue a firearm certificate without assigning any reason for the refusal…” Gen Kayihura, the Inspector General of Police, currently acts as the chief licensing officer.

For a gun licence to be issued, according to the Act, the chief licensing officer must be convinced that, among other things, the applicant “has reasonable cause (to acquire a firearm), “is of sound mind and of temperate habits”, and “is in all other respects a fit and proper person to purchase, acquire or have in his or her possession a firearm”.

The applicant must also be 25 years old or older, and must be “competent to use a firearm of the kind in respect of which the application is made”, on top of him having a crime-free record.

The type of guns civilians may acquire is also restricted by the Act, and they must not be “designed or adapted that, if pressure is applied to the trigger, missiles continue to be discharged until pressure is removed from the trigger or until the magazine containing the missiles is empty”.
This means civilians can’t apply for assault rifles and other semi-automatic or fully automatic fire weapons that can fire non-stop.

Most of the applications for gun licences, the records show, are filed through Wakiso District and Kampala Capital City Authority.

Mr Ian Kyeyune, the Wakiso Resident District Commissioner (RDC), says in the run-up to the 2016 elections, the number of people who applied for gun licences significantly increased in his area.

“Everyone wanted a gun. These pseudo rich people who have just got Shs200m, all came seeking for guns. Many didn’t have risks, but they were looking at it as a lifestyle. We have become strict on such people,” Mr Kyeyune says.

On average, Mr Kyeyune’s office receives more than 300 gun applications annually. Although we were unable to reach the Kampala Resident District Commissioner, a member of the city security committee said they receive around 1,000 firearm applications annually.

The applications for gun licences are first scrutinised at the district level before being forwarded to the ministry. Many of the applications are dismissed at the district level, explaining the lower number of applications that the ministry eventually has to deal with.
Mr Kyeyune says they have a challenge that some people have taken up the licensed guns of their deceased relatives and the guns are not registered or marked, making tracking difficult.

Debate on individuals holding guns
According to various theories, the State is supposed to monopolise legitimate use of force and, therefore, it is the authority within a country that should legally hold guns and other weapons, with which it is supposed to protect the citizens.

In a regularly cited lecture (Politics as a Vocation, 1918), for instance, the German sociologist Max Weber defined the State as a “human community that (successfully) claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory.”

But this thinking has always been challenged, especially by what is called the Second Amendment in the US, which in fact precedes the famous lecture we just cited above.

The Second Amendment of the United States Constitution reads: “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.” Such language has created considerable debate regarding the amendment’s intended scope.

Before the Second Amendment, English Common Law was thought to support the right to keep and bear arms based on the English Bill of Rights of 1689.

Some of the arguments that have been advanced in support of the right to hold and bear arms by individuals include “the natural rights of self-defence, resistance to oppression, and the civic duty to act in concert in defence of the State”.

Debate about holding and bearing guns in Uganda is at best sporadic, usually picking up whenever there has been a shooting that touches the nerves of a big section of the public, but then dying down as people move on with their lives.

A common argument that springs up in the US whenever there are calls for curtailing the right of private citizens to hold and bear arms, is this: “Criminals will always find a way to get guns no matter what measures we take, so what’s the point of denying law-abiding citizens guns for self-defence?”

Dealers of firearms
Police have registered a few firearm dealers including Hash Security Company, Saracen, Pinnacle and Protectorate SPC. Pinnacle and Protectorate SPC have since merged.

Although many dealers could not talk to record, they said they also feel the pinch when clearance of firearm certificate applications is frozen.
Some of their clients pay upfront then the delay means that they get stuck with the weapons since they can’t sell them or will to refund the money.

How to get a gun
The process of acquiring a firearm certificate starts from the Police Private Security Department where an applicant obtains a clearance form.

The form is taken to the police revenue office and the applicant obtains new forms after depositing Shs53,000 in the bank and returns them to the Police Private Security Department.

The applicant is issued a form that must be approved from Local Council 1 to LC III and Resident District Commissioner. Security committee on each of the local council levels must approval or reject the application.

Then the form is brought back to the Police Private Security Department for verification, and later it is submitted to the Inspector General of Police for approval.

However, the applicant must attach a receipt indicating the type of firearm he or she wants and the firearm dealer he or she is to buy the gun from. After IGP’s clearance, it is submitted to the Minister of Internal Affairs where it may be approved or rejected.

If the application is approved, the applicant is given a certificate to carry a firearm.

The applicant takes that form to the gun dealers and he is given a firearm. The ministry also has power to order the chief licensing officer to issue a firearm certificate without the applicant going through the ordinary channels.

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