Hayibo.com - Police to be issued same number of bullets as their IQ

Police to be issued same number of bullets as their IQ

JOHANNESBURG. In an attempt to limit the random machine-gunning of members of the public by police officers, South African police will be issued only as many bullets as they have IQ points. This will mean the average officer on the beat will be allowed to carry between 8 and 12 rounds. Officers were too busy shooting at motorists to comment on the decision.

There has a been a recent spike in the numbers of innocent bystanders gunned down by South African police, thanks largely to the government's new crime-fighting strategy of shooting anything with a pulse.

This morning Police Ministry spokesman Triggerman Mokoena denied that the strategy was creating an atmosphere of lawlessness and hyper-violence.

"We are hitting our performance targets," he said. "Mainly because we hit pretty much everything whether we aim at it or not."

Asked why police officers were being urged to act as judge, jury and executioner when none of them could even spell "judge", "jury" or "executioner", Mokoena said that spelling was of little help during a fire-fight with a young unarmed couple going home from the movies on a Friday night.

However he conceded that police needed to shoot fewer innocent bystanders as ammunition was expensive and was cutting into the Ministry's car-buying budget.

"At this rate we won't be able to get Deputy Minister Fikile Mbalula the Porsche he needs for semi-official visits to his local bistro," said Mokoena.

He said that part of the new cost-cutting exercise, codenamed Operation Semi-Automatic For The People, would see officers being issued only as many bullets as they had IQ points.

"If the average officer goes into a combat zone, say a park where small children are acting suspiciously, he might still need to discharge his weapon at the 5-year-old perps," explained Mokoena.

"But if he's only got 8 slugs, because he's got an IQ of 8, then he's probably not going to be able to neutralize multiple targets, like the 5-year-old's sister, or their pram, or their nanny.

"It's a win-win situation."