Hundreds of thousands of obsolete, surplus, surrendered and confiscated firearms have been destroyed in South Africa over the last two decades during various destruction processes. Several of these have been carried out by the South African Police Service (SAPS) in an effort to combat crime and reduce the number of legal and illegal firearms in circulation.

The most recent destructions took place at the start of the firearms amnesty process initiated in January this year. The four-month amnesty, which runs until 11 April, is an attempt to further reduce the number of illegal firearms in circulation, as well as provide an opportunity to firearm owners who did not meet the deadline last year for registering their firearms or to voluntarily hand them in.

During a national destruction that took place on the 15th January at Mittal Steel in Vereeniging, 80 611 firearms were destroyed.. The destroyed firearms included those that had been handed in during the amnesty process, obsolete police firearms, and firearms that had been recovered from criminal incidents. Firearms were transported to the metal recycling plant and melted in a furnace before being mixed in with more scrap metal to form steel bars.

Another two destructions followed the national destruction. On the 8th of February near Durban, KwaZulu-Natal more than 10 000 firearms were destroyed. These firearms were from the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal provinces. This was followed by another destruction on the 12th of February at Saldanha Bay in the Western Cape. These destructions received much support form civil society groups who were invited to attend the destructions along with the media.

A number of recently destroyed firearms have been redundant state-owned firearms as a result of an ongoing policy to standardise weapons used by state security departments. The standardisation process is aimed at reducing maintenance and training costs. While some governments are opposed to the destruction of serviceable firearms, for example the United States, the South African government has opted for destroying firearms rather than reselling them. This is to reduce the number of firearms in the country and to ensure that these weapons do not find a way into illicit hands where they might be used in criminal activities.

As part of a broader strategy to combat the proliferation of firearms at a regional level, the SAPS has also carried out several cross-border operations to assist with destruction of firearms and ammunition in neighbouring countries. This is aimed at reducing the number of illegal firearms entering the country as well as those circulating in the region. The SAPS provides technical and logistical assistance, as well as expertise for these operations. Examples include Operation Rachel - a joint operation with the Mozambican government to reduce the number of arms caches in the country left over from the civil war, and Operation Mandume - a joint collaboration with the Namibian and Angolan police and military forces to destroy weapons along the Namibia/Angola border.

The South African government has put in considerable effort in destroying firearms to significantly reduce the pool of both legal and illegal firearms. These efforts are ongoing and carried out in conjunction with other initiatives to strengthen controls over firearms. While it is difficult to assess the impact of these destructions and whether they have contributed to a reduction in the levels of armed violence, they demonstrate an ongoing commitment by the government in addressing the firearm situation in the country.