Firearms and ammunition found?
You just want to liquidate your grandparents' apartment and you find a firearm with ammunition from your grandfather, well hidden and long forgotten?
When proceeding further, your safety and the safety of others has top priority!
- If the find involves firearms, always assume for safety reasons that they are loaded and ready to fire. If handled improperly, a shot may be unintentionally released and possibly have serious consequences for you or those around you.
- If you do not know how to safely check the loading status of the firearm yourself, please leave the firearm where you found it. Secure the place where it was found. In any case, prevent other people from accessing the place where the weapon was found. This applies in particular if children are in the vicinity.
Afterwards, immediately notify your local police authority. The police officers will then seize the items in question on site. If you report such a find to the police immediately, you will not face any criminal consequences.
Safe storage of weapons and ammunition
As of July 6, 2017, amendments to the Weapons Act came into force. There have been changes in the area of safe storage of weapons and ammunition.
- In principle, weapons must be secured from access by unauthorized persons. Unauthorized persons also include one's own partner or other family members living in the shared home.
- No information about the storage location of the weapons may be given to outsiders.
- The obligation to store weapons safely applies to all types of weapons, including alarm guns and air guns.
- Firearms requiring a permit must be stored in classified gun cabinets.
Amendment of the Weapons Act
According to the new regulations in § 36 WaffG on storage, it will no longer be sufficient in the future to store weapons in containers of security level A and B according to VDMA 24992 (as of May 1995). Nevertheless, it will not be necessary for most gun owners to purchase new containers. This is because gun safes that complied with the old legal requirements at the time the amendment came into force are grandfathered. They may therefore continue to be used. This is only different if the safe has changed hands after the amendment came into force. This means, for example, that in the future, in cases of inheritance, the gun cabinets cannot be taken over and the heirs would have to purchase new security containers if necessary.
If security containers are acquired after the amendment has come into force, the following provisions will apply in the future: Weapons or ammunition that do not require a permit must be stored in at least one locked container. For ammunition requiring a permit, a sheet steel container without classification with a swing bolt lock or an equivalent locking device or an equivalent container is required in any case. An unlimited number of long firearms and a total of up to five handguns and ammunition may be stored in a security container that complies at least with the DIN/EN 1143-1 resistance grade 0 standard (less than 200 kilograms). If this container weighs 200 kilograms or more, an unlimited number of long guns and up to ten handguns and ammunition can be stored in it. Finally, an unlimited number of long and short firearms and ammunition can be stored in a security container that complies at least with the DIN/EN 1143-1 resistance grade I standard.