News
Reiger Park Shooting Sparks Renewed Calls for Gun Reform in South Africa
A Community in Mourning and a Country Demanding Answers
The streets of Reiger Park in Boksburg are quieter this week, but the silence carries the weight of grief and anger. Six lives were lost and three others were injured in a drive-by shooting on Saturday night, another brutal reminder of how ordinary South Africans are caught in a storm of gun violence that never seems to end.
Authorities have confirmed that additional police have been deployed to the area. But for residents, that reassurance rings hollow. They’ve heard it before. From the Cape Flats to Ekurhuleni, communities have grown weary of the same promises while illegal guns continue to circulate freely.
Violence That Feels Routine
National police commissioner General Fannie Masemola says reinforcements are on the ground, yet criminologists warn that South Africa’s mass shootings have become disturbingly normalised.
Dr Witness Maluleke, a rural criminologist, described it bluntly: “Cases of this nature are no longer surprising.” It’s a chilling reflection of how violence has seeped so deeply into daily life that tragedy barely shocks anymore.
Criminal law expert Cornelia van Graan echoed the same sentiment, warning that the rate of gun-related crimes is rising across the country. She called for stronger intelligence networks and proactive policing rather than reactive deployments after each incident.
“Our Community Is Traumatised”
For those living in Reiger Park, the shooting isn’t just another news headline. It’s personal. Councillor Izelle Senol of the DA said the community is heartbroken. “This senseless act of violence has left our community devastated and traumatised,” she said, adding that local leaders had repeatedly warned police about growing criminal activity in the area but felt their concerns were ignored.
ActionSA’s Ekurhuleni mayoral candidate, Xolani Khumalo, believes this tragedy exposes a much deeper national problem. “Communities are rightly asking why police cannot answer the critical question of who is supplying the weapons that continue to terrorise communities,” he said.
His words cut to the heart of South Africa’s gun crisis. Every year, thousands of firearms, many unlicensed, find their way into criminal networks. And while police confiscate weapons in raids, new ones seem to appear just as fast.
A Broader Pattern of Violence
Reiger Park is not an isolated case. Only weeks ago, two teenagers were killed in Westbury, Johannesburg, when gunmen opened fire on a group of young people. Over the same weekend, emergency services in Tshwane responded to another shooting near Menlyn, where a car carrying gunshot victims crashed through a fence outside a nightclub.
Each scene tells the same story: too many guns, too little accountability, and communities left to bury the dead while waiting for justice that seldom comes.
The Growing Urgency for Change
What makes the Reiger Park massacre hit harder is its familiarity. People are beginning to ask what will finally make South Africa act decisively on gun control. Experts say reform must go beyond bans and raids; it requires long-term investment in intelligence, community safety, and transparency in firearm licensing systems.
For now, the families of Reiger Park are left to mourn, their pain serving as another haunting reminder of a nation in need of urgent reform. Until illegal firearms are traced, confiscated, and controlled, these stories will keep repeating; names will change, but the headlines will not.
Follow Joburg ETC on Facebook, Twitter, TikT
For more News in Johannesburg, visit joburgetc.com
Source: The Citizen
Featured Image: Vecteezy
