This SAMJ editorial (June 2026) by Peacock, Navsaria and Taylor frames gun violence as South Africa’s neglected public health emergency, citing 27,621 homicides in 2023/24 (over six times the global average) and firearm-related murders rising from 31% to 44% of all murders between 2020 and 2025, with disproportionate harm to young men, women (firearms are now the leading mechanism used to kill women), and children exposed to gun violence. The authors highlight commercial determinants of violence — gun lobby claims that ownership is a constitutional right or that guns offer effective protection are both contradicted by evidence — and note that major SA policy frameworks on gender-based violence, child protection, and men’s health largely overlook firearms despite their centrality to violence patterns. They point to the 2000 Firearms Control Act’s earlier success in reducing firearm homicide, subsequent administrative weaknesses that allowed mortality to rise again, and stalled legislative reform, while drawing on international models (hospital-based violence intervention programmes, improved surveillance, and integration of firearm risk screening into health services) to argue that acute care alone is insufficient. The piece closes with a call for sustained advocacy from health professionals — comparable to their historic role in securing ART access — and for South Africa to leverage its prior global leadership to support renewed WHO attention to firearm injury as a preventable contributor to mortality and disability.
