Thanks Gollum and Shorti. I'm really sorry for what happened to these guys on the weekend. It's horrible, and I hope these guys do get caught.

I must note that in the past I've been against carrying weapons and said so on this forum. I no longer hold that opinion.

I see the rules for the kloof state "No firearms". With the current crime situation in mind, does this still make sense?

That was quite the conversation killer...

Bad dog!!

Yeah, this is a a horrible nasty topic that I prefer to not even think about...

The following is an excerpt is a news article today: Two arrested for shooting shopper

"what appears to be an attempt to secure a getaway vehicle, they confronted a member of the public who was parked (outside), a scuffle ensued and the owner of the vehicle was shot and fatally wounded."

What I take from this:
- If someone wants to take a piece of your property, hand it over. It is not worth being injured or killed for and it can be replaced.
- If your person / life is threatened then this is different.

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Climb ZA - Administrator

It is a nasty topic, I agree, and one I'm not going to debate any further than this post.

By abiding by the rules we are being made soft targets, so I guess what I'm asking is to give people the option of taking a firearm with them if they chose to do so. I'm fortunate to have a small group of very enthusiastic new climbers, among them a person trained in personal protection and a guy from JMPD - it would be really nice if I could ask them to take along their weapons when we venture out there.

I'll venture that the other people in the area at that time would also not mind knowing that they are there and know how to properly defend themselves and those around them.

On a side note, as a suggestion: I bought myself a whistle but so far did not bother to carry it with me, silly I know. But that's possibly a good deterrent - if you see these guys coming and make a seriously big noise, they know other people will be coming (hopefully) and (hopefully) decide to rather let you be.

The idea I was thinking of to sort out the crime, is that similar to in the mweni area of the drakensberg with the mweni cultural center. By us hikers and climbers coming to the area we bring support to the community and in return we get support.

I would be willing to help in whatever way possible as I’m in that area weekly, and we can’t afford to lose it. But I just believe violence is not a solution being 3 main reasons
1 - Our weak and useless police force
2 - If we somehow injured one of these criminals our justice system would work against us.
3 - In injuring one of these criminals we are bound to have the whole community after us with hatred.

However we can’t just leave this. Together us climbers and the MCSA could think of ways to help this community with a agreement to help us.

Seriously bru that's the biggest load of s*t I've ever heard!

I like Ur idea bro and its worked in the past. how ever this problem turns out its not with the community in the area.
it seems that there are maybe 5 guys in this area that walk in quiet a distance and are targeting
us.
It is nice to know that the MCSA is on top of this by hiring two well trained men who specialise in this.

with the help of Grant im sure they going to take control of this