Maintain Dedicated Status

MAINTAIN DEDICATED HUNTER AND/OR SPORT-PERSON STATUS

Maintaining Dedicated Status is necessary to continue legal ownership of your section 16 licensed firearms.

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ANNUALLY MAINTAIN YOUR DEDICATED STATUS IN TWO STEPS

STEP 1:   Make Sure your Membership Fee is annually Paid-up on the last day of your enrolment month.  If your annual paid-up date is June, we shall send you a payment notice in May.   Your membership will then be confirmed to be paid-up till June the following year if you make the payment.

STEP 2:   Enter TWO Hunting Related Activities and/or TWO Sport Shooting Related Activities before the end of your birthday month annually (2 Separate dates / days - the day counts towards the activity not the amount of targets) to be compliant for the current year and to retain your dedicated hunter and/or sports-person status until the same time in the following year.  Please see the complete explanation of how this works HERE.

What happens when I do not enter sufficient activities for the relevant reporting period?

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1.1    Irrespective of you holding dedicated hunter status or dedicated sports-person status or both, your membership fee remains the normal single annual fee for the age group you fall under (paid once per annum on your renewal date for which the office annually also sends you a payment advice per Email).

1.2    At Natshoot we accept any hunting- and/or sport shooting related activity of our members in which they might participate anywhere in the world. 

1.2.1    Activities are entered with confirming documentation which confirms that the member had participated in that specific activity (hunting or sport shooting related) on that day at that specific place. 

1.2.2   Confirmation documents for hunting activities must preferably contain a Permission to Hunt and Transport Game Meat letter issued by the farmer / game ranch owner where the hunt took place (see example - or use the NHSA Hunt Confirmation document).  Photos of the hunter with game hunted are acceptable or a photo which clearly confirms the hunting activity (standing against a tree with a rifle cannot be accepted as confirmation of a hunting activity).  Members who hunt on NHSA approved hunting farms must please always attach the NHSA Email sent to them to confirm the NHSA's acknowledgement of the hunting farm (that is adequate confirmation of the hunt). 

1.2.3   Confirmation documents for Sport Shooting related activities are apart from a scan or photo of the target(s) (any target) to which the activity refers (with name, date, ID number and range name on [or name of NHSA acknowledged range]), or a receipt of the range or photo of the shooting range showing the name of the member, or score sheet for gongs / falling steel plates (download from activity targets on your portal page).  Photos of just firearms on tables or firearms on ground cannot be accepted as confirmation of participation in a sport shooting activity.  The afore-mentioned is also valid even if members shoot on NHSA recognised private shooting ranges.

1.3    Activities, which may be logged to maintain (retain) dedicated hunter and/or dedicated sports-person status are understood to be activities, which are;

     i.    strictly legal

     ii.   clearly firearm-related

     iii.   clearly hunting and/or sport shooting related.

1.4     Activities a member can enter to annually Maintain his/her Dedicated Hunter Status with Natshoot

1.5    Activities a member can enter to annually Maintain Dedicated Sports-Person Status with Natshoot

1.6   A dedicated member may submit a Non-Active Report for a year if the member cannot for good reason participate in any hunting or sport shooting in a specific year.  If you cannot log any activity for a year, at least log a Non-Active Report so that we have something to show SAPS if they should ever come for inspection of our dedicated compliance register.

Please see the BASIC RULES for loging Activities to annually retain your dedicated hunter and/or sport shooter status HERE

NOTES:

i.    Postal Target Shooting automatically counts towards maintaining dedicated sports-person status.  Rifle postal targets, however, present the option to let that target count towards maintaining dedicated sports-person status or towards dedicated hunting status (choose the option when entering the Score).

ii.   Please do NOT enter postal Targets under Activities on your Natshoot Member Portal as they will be declined there.  Only Activity Targets may be entered on the Activities page on your Natshoot Member Portal.

iii.  Please keep in mind that the date (the visit to the shooting range), counts towards the activity and not the amount of targets, shot on the occasion. Thus in order to log multiple activities, there needs to be separation of days / dates. Example: for 2 Activities to reflect you need to have participated in 2 different shoots on two different days.

iv.  Air Pistols / Rifles:   All Air Pistol / Rifles are in the FCA considered to be firearms from calibres 5,56mm and larger.   Postal shooting Scores and/or Activities entered for air rifles from calibre 5,56mm and larger thus count towards annual maintaining one's dedicated sports-person status and will be Approved as these Air Pistols / Rifles are legally considered to be firearms.  Postal shooting Scores and/or Activities entered for air pistols / rifles in calibres below 5,56mm (i.e. 4,5mm or 5,5mm) cannot count towards annually maintaining one's dedicated status as those air pistols / rifles are not considered to be firearms under the FCA.  Evaluation of Scores and/or Activities for last mentioned air pistols / rifles will be Acknowledged so that the activity will still reflect on a member's Activities & Scores report as an activity.

ENTER ALL YOUR FIREARM RELATED ACTIVITIES

2.2    All we ask is that you enter your dated activities under specific headings for purposes of our annual statistical analysis of our member's firearm-related participation profile.

2.3   All activity entries MUST please be accompanied by confirmation documents.  Confirmation documents must contain a member's Initials and Surname, ID number, and the place and date of the activity.  Confirmation documents can be a receipt with the date of the activity on it, or a letter from an accompanying friend stating that s/he vouches for the activity having been conducted on that specific day, or the date & name written on a practice target, or any confirmation of days indicated for the duration of a hunting trip.

2.4   Confirmation documentation must please be scanned in PDF format or please be presented in photographic format (i.e. a cell phone photo with the date of the activity on the photo itself or on a piece of paper in the photo subject - a mere photo with a hunter and an impala or of a person at a target says nothing, as it could have been taken at any time, any place).

2.4    If you do not know, or have forgotten, please read how to log Activities

YOU MUST READ THE FOLLOWING RULES REGARDING REPORTING OF ACTIVITIES

3.1    How do I know that I comply with all NHSA requirements to Maintain my Dedicated Status ?

3.2    What happens if I do not annually comply with the rules to maintain dedicated status ?

3.3    Why is it to my own advantage to log all activities I participate in, and not only the minimum required to maintain my dedicated status ?  

NHSA UNCONDITIONALLY ACCEPTS THE WORD OF ITS MEMBERS

4.1   This is the official unconditional stance of NHSA.  However, accreditation in effect means that NHSA is an extension of SAPS's legal responsibility to control firearms in this country. 

4.2   NHSA procedures are electronic and our members mostly participate on their own or in small numbers.  We also do not have branches like other associations where members can verify the activities of each other.  All activity entries must, therefore please be accompanied by the attached activity confirming documents showing clearly that the reporting member had participated in that specific activity or event on a specific day or days over a specified time (i.e. the 4 days of a hunting trip). 

RETAINING DEDICATED STATUS IS A REALLY SIMPLE PROCEDURE TO COMPLY WITH

5.1    We really cannot make the legally prescribed procedure of maintaining dedicated status simpler and more convenient to comply with than what is presented above, without starting to circumvent the prescribed legal process.

5.2    As the above arrangements are important for NHSA to retain its accreditations and to conform with the legal prescripts attached to its accreditations, we ask members to please be diligent in attaching verifiable confirmation documents of their activities.  Please do not be affronted if after having been asked once to conform, your incorrect entries are declined.  NHSA cannot protect one member's dedicated status to the detriment of more than 40,000 other members whose legal firearm ownership comes into play immediately if our accreditations come into contention. 

5.3    It is our considered opinion that if you would find the above procedures to difficult to comply with, it might be time for you to seriously consider reducing the number of firearms you own so as not to have to conform with the legal requirements attached to owning more than four firearms (or a semi-auto rifle or shotgun - or three handguns).

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