Amnesty: 70 000 guns handed in
2005-05-29 22:13
Pretoria - Police have expressed satisfaction with "the overwhelming" response to their gun amnesty.
Police spokesperson Phuti Setati told government news agency BuaNews on Sunday that the response from the community had been "encouraging" since the amnesty period was extended.
More than 70 000 firearms and more than 10 000 rounds of ammunition had been handed over to the police since the campaign started, he said.
Setati said the amnesty period had been extended to the end of June to give people more time to hand over their firearms.
"We are not only targeting illegal firearms, we are also targeting legal firearms that the owners feel they do not want anymore," he said.
Meanwhile, Setati said, police would continue with their day to day operations targeting the owners of illegal firearms.
Police had confiscated 13 000 illegal firearms during
raids, he said.