A British man accused of murdering his wife and two young daughters in England walked out of the country through Heathrow Airport, landed in South Africa, and bought an unlicensed firearm in a township within days — all under the nose of Britain's blanket gun prohibition. If you want to see the future American gun-grabbers are building, this is it: the law-abiding disarmed, the criminal class armed, and the press looking the other way.
Ndodana Mkhanyisi Tshuma, 45, a British citizen of Zimbabwean heritage, appeared in a Johannesburg magistrate's court Monday after his arrest Friday, Reuters reported. British prosecutors have authorized police to charge him with three counts of murder after the bodies of his 42-year-old wife and their daughters, ages 15 and 5, were found at their home in Bedfordshire earlier this month. Tshuma had already fled.
South African police spokesperson Athlenda Mathe told reporters that after landing July 5, Tshuma "went to one of the townships and he bought this particular unlicensed firearm." Police believe he intended to use it on himself. He has been charged in South Africa with illegal possession of a firearm, which carries a potential 15-year sentence for first-time offenders. The court is also weighing whether to extradite him to Britain.
Here is the part the establishment press won't dwell on: Britain has among the strictest gun laws on the planet. Handguns are effectively banned. Private ownership of firearms for self-defense is not a recognized right. Yet a man suspected of slaughtering his own family had no trouble leaving the country and arming himself on the black market in a foreign country where he had family connections. The gun ban did not save three women. It never does. It only ensures that the next law-abiding citizen who faces a threat has no means to meet it.
Mathe said Tshuma's family in South Africa helped police apprehend him. "His family did not harbour him. ... They played a very pivotal role," she said. South Africa has received a provisional extradition request from Britain and is awaiting the full document.
Reuters framed the firearm purchase as a possible suicide attempt, burying the obvious implication: a man wanted for triple murder obtained an illegal gun with ease in a country with its own severe firearms restrictions. The other two outlets in the feed, WTOP and the Associated Press, were occupied with an unrelated story — the death of South African World Cup soccer player Jayden Adams, 25, whose body was found at a Cape Town property. Authorities have not released a cause of death and are investigating. Neither outlet touched the Tshuma case.
The lesson isn't complicated. Gun laws constrain the obedient. They do not constrain the violent. Every American politician who points to Britain as a model is pointing to a system that failed three women in Bedfordshire — and would fail you just the same.
