Soundbite: https://civilsocietysouthafrica.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2026/11/After-brutal-farm-attacks-CSSA-accuses-government-of-planning-to-disarm-law-abiding-citizens.mp3
Three farm attacks in North West in less than a month. Seven licensed firearms ripped from a safe in Broederstroom. A farmer near Ventersdorp shot, stabbed and mutilated. A woman beaten to death at her own farm gate outside Ottosdal. Civil Society South Africa (CSSA) demands that government abandon its plan to remove self-defence as a ground for a firearm licence, and fund and fast-track the revised Rural Safety Strategy, which SAPS has told Parliament will only be implemented from 1 April 2027.
On Sunday night, 1 November, three masked men attacked Les Brett (66) and his wife Natasha (58) on their game farm at Broederstroom, near Hartbeespoort, and held them for about three hours. Police are investigating a case of house robbery. They confirm that seven firearms licensed to Mr Brett were taken from a safe, and they describe his injuries as minor. A family friend and private security responders say the couple were beaten and burned with boiling water. No arrests have been made.
On 28 October, cattle farmer Donovan Marx (50) was shot, stabbed and mutilated on his farm at Syferfontein, near Ventersdorp, and three firearms were taken from his safe. Four accused appeared in court on 3 November and remain in custody. Their bail hearing is on 13 November. On 5 October, Hannetjie van Zyl (55) was killed at her farm gate outside Ottosdal. That case resumes on 24 November.
“Three families in one province in four weeks. On a farm, help is kilometres of dirt road away, and Parliament’s own committees have found that rural police response is significantly delayed. Government cannot leave people that exposed and then take away their right to lawfully prepare to protect their own lives,” says Reece Clark, spokesperson for CSSA.
The proposed Firearms Control Amendment Bill seeks to remove self-defence as a valid reason for obtaining a firearm licence. For farmers and rural families, far from the nearest police station, self-defence is not a theoretical right. It is a daily necessity.
CSSA warns that government is planning to disarm law-abiding firearm owners in one of the most crime-ridden countries in the world, and that it still refuses to show South Africans the research and the process behind that decision.
Since July 2026, CSSA’s Transparency Project has filed six applications under the Promotion of Access to Information Act (PAIA). The first four, filed in July, went to the Civilian Secretariat for Police Service, the South African Police Service, the Department of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation and the Presidency. They seek the policy documents, research, crime statistics, legal opinions, consultation records and socio-economic impact assessments relied on in developing the Bill. In September, CSSA filed two more, to the Presidency and to the SAPS Information Officer for records held on behalf of the Police Ministry. They demand the full paper trail of ministerial decisions, legal advice, alternatives considered and the impact assessment that should have tested whether the Bill was fit to proceed. Before that, in June 2026, CSSA sent an open letter on the Bill to the Acting Minister of Police, Parliament, the Civilian Secretariat and the Portfolio Committee on Police.
Most of these applications have been acknowledged, but not one has received a full response. The state remains silent. It has still not shown the research, data or decision-making process behind its plan to take away law-abiding citizens’ ability to licence a firearm for self-defence. CSSA will publish every response, refusal and non-response, and will escalate through internal appeals, the Information Regulator and the courts where necessary.
CSSA demands that government:
1. Keep self-defence (section 13 of the Firearms Control Act) as a valid licensing ground, and withdraw any proposal to remove it from the Bill before it goes to Cabinet.
Release the evidence. Answer CSSA’s PAIA applications in full and publish the research, crime data, legal advice and impact assessments behind the Bill.
2. Fund the revised Rural Safety Strategy and bring it forward. Publish it, with its budget and timelines, now instead of waiting until 1 April 2027.
3. Fix rural response capacity. Parliament’s police and agriculture committees reported in 2025 that only 40% of SAPS vehicles in rural areas were suited to the terrain. Government must report station by station on vehicles and response times.
4. Go after the guns criminals use. Trace and recover firearms stolen in farm attacks, and act on illegal supply and on leakage from state stock. SAPS lost or had 3 433 of its own firearms stolen between 2019 and 2024.
Agricultural organisation TLU SA recorded 27 farm murders in 2026 by 7 October, more than the 23 it recorded in all of 2025. SAPS, which uses a much narrower definition, recorded one farm murder between April and June 2026.
“The law-abiding farmer is not the problem in this country. The criminal is. Yet government’s answer to the torture and murder on our farms is to leave the very people under attack defenceless. That is not how you fight crime. That is how you hand the country over to criminals,” concludes Clark.
South Africans can add their names to CSSA’s formal submission at https://civilsocietysouthafrica.co.za/campaigns/legal-firearms-save-lives/
About Civil Society South Africa (CSSA)
Civil Society South Africa (Civil Society SA NPC) is a non-partisan citizens’ advocacy platform that defends the right of South Africans to protect themselves and their families when the state cannot. CSSA monitors proposed legislation, runs petition campaigns, files PAIA applications and submits formal legal arguments to Parliament. Its campaigns include Legal Firearms Save Lives, Safety Tax Credits, the Transparency Project and a planned constitutional challenge on self-defence licensing. www.civilsocietysouthafrica.co.za
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