Dear Colleague

There has been a lot of noise in the industry since it became known that the unit standards for firearm competency training expired on 30 June 2024. The facts are briefly as follows:

All unit standards – such as the unit standard for competency training to own a firearm – expire occasionally to be replaced or renewed.

The Minister of Education failed to make timely arrangements to extend the unit standard or to replace it with an appropriate unit standard. The implication of this is that no one would have been able to provide legal and valid firearm competency training after 30 June 2024.

Recently, the Gauteng High Court ruled in favour of the Professional Firearms Trainers Council’s (PFTC) urgent application to declare the unit standard valid until another unit standard is in place or a renewal is registered.

This means that certified and registered firearm trainers can continue to offer valid competency training. There are numerous other unit standards whose registration also expired on 30 June 2024.

This is once again a result of poor administration at state institutions.

Kind regards
Fred Camphor
CEO
SA Hunters