GIVING our policemen and women powers to shoot to kill will produce state sponsored killings in South Africa. Like in America and elsewhere in the world, mistaken identities and claims of suspects resisting arrest and threatening the lives of police officials will now become the common but fallacious arguments in South Africa to justify the state-enabled deaths of innocent citizens.

President Jacob Zuma may not have enough apologies for all the families who could lose their loved ones at the hands of the police.

Throughout the world, including the rich countries of the north, there’s tons and tons of empirical evidence militating against giving police powers to shoot to kill. It has unprecedented unintended consequences.

In countries where racism remains a major problem, state weapons in the hands of police officials become necessary tools in the advancement of racist agendas, resulting in indiscriminate shootings and killings of the powerless citizens. We have been down that road as South Africans.

I don’t know how many times we have witnessed the killings of black people here in the US by trigger-happy police officials, who always claim their lives were in danger. I am still traumatised by the shooting of an unarmed 23-year-old Sean Bell, who was violently sprayed to death with 50 bullets by New York police on the morning of his wedding day in 2006, on suspicion he had a firearm.

Who will ever forget the famous case of Amadou Diallo, a young immigrant from Guinea in West Africa, who was literally ambushed with 41 bullets by the same New York police who were not wearing uniforms? In both cases, the policemen were exonerated by the courts on the basis they were protecting themselves. From unarmed civilians?

With South Africa having its fair share of racial problems, it won’t be long before accusations of police brutality against black people start trickling in. We already know some white people believe they are the only victims of crime and criminals are black folks.

Let’s face it, there are some crooks and bullies in the police service who might shoot to kill for their own selfish interests. Stress levels of our police officials are also much too high, and we know how they often kill themselves and their families with the very same state weapons they hold, due to their own frustrations.

In addition, many of them are not sufficiently trained to be able to make an accurate assessment of dangerous and life threatening situations in a blink of an eye. Pulling a trigger will always be the easiest thing to do.

Should we give such people a free rein to shoot to kill?

Sure, it’s a worldwide known fact that crime is a big problem in our country. Too many people, including hard working and dedicated police officials, have been killed by criminals and they continue holding us as prisoners of fear in our own homes.

We certainly have to deal with them very harshly. But allowing ourselves to be driven by paranoia and employ measures that will place the lives of innocent citizens at risk, is hardly the way to go. – Thami Dickson, New York, US

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IT appears Zuma now thinks we should have even tighter laws for controlling gun ownership in this country. I assume he is referring to legal gun ownership by ordinary citizens who would like to protect themselves from the murderous thugs who roam this country at will.

Having made this statement, it has to be assumed either he or his advisors have carefully studied the current Firearms Control Act. If he has done this, he may have noticed ownership of fully automatic weaponry by ordinary citizens is strictly prohibited.

These weapons are only allowed in the military. Does this mean our karaoke loving President will in future put his money where his mouth is and refrain from singing his famous Bring Me My Machine Gun ditty, and stop embarrassing us in the eyes of the world? – Brian Clark, Uitenhage