Cape Town - Research done by Gun Free South Africa shows that more than a thousand coloured people have died over five years as a result of legal guns in the hands of gangsters acquired because of corruption in the police force.

“The retrospective study looked at gun murders and non-gun murders in the Western Cape province between 1994 and 2013, reviewing all homicide cases at Cape Town’s two forensic pathology service facilities in Salt River and Tygerberg,” said the spokesperson of Gun Free South Africa, Sara Chitambo.

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She said additional new research recently published in the South African Medical Journal helped people to understand more about gun violence.

The research examined the impact of the changes in national gun laws and the enforcement thereof over this 20-year period. The study aimed to find answers to the question of whether changes in the number of legal and illegal guns in a community affect how many people are shot and killed.