Information for gun owners from the Mettmann District Weapons Law Office
Anyone wishing to acquire and possess weapons or ammunition requires a permit in accordance with the Weapons Act. The competent weapons law authority for the district of Mettmann is the district police authority. Permission to acquire and possess firearms is mainly granted to hunting license holders, active sport shooters or in inheritance cases by means of a gun ownership card.
The carrying of these weapons in public also requires a weapons license!
A permit is not required for the acquisition and possession of alarm, irritant or signal weapons with the PTB mark in the district, but a small firearms license is required to carry these weapons.
The Weapons Act regulates the handling of firearms and ammunition as well as cutting, impact and semblance weapons (replicas of live firearms). The employees of the responsible department ZA 1.2 of the Mettmann district police authority will answer any questions you may have.
On-site inspections of weapons storage/ammunition storage
The Mettmann district police authority regularly carries out on-site inspections regardless of the occasion.
It is obliged to do so by decree. The checks are carried out on a random basis and are generally unannounced.
The selection of the weapon owners to be checked is carried out at random.
Whoever possesses weapons or ammunition must take the necessary precautions to prevent these items from being lost or taken by third parties (§ 36 Para. 1 of the Weapons Act (Waffengesetz-WaffG).
As a permit holder, you are obliged under Section 36 Para. 3 Sentence 2 WaffG to grant the weapons authority access to the rooms in which weapons and ammunition requiring a permit are stored in order to check that they are stored safely. If you repeatedly fail to comply with this obligation without justification, this may result in unreliability and thus revocation of your firearms license.
In mid-May, the Bundestag passed a bill by the federal government to amend the Weapons Act and other regulations (2nd WaffRÄndG). This was published in the Federal Law Gazette on 05.07.2017 and therefore came into force on 06.07.2017.
For gun owners, this results in particular in changes to the storage of firearms.
Under the new storage regulations, it will no longer be sufficient to store weapons in security level A and B containers in accordance with VDMA 24992 (as of May 1995). Nevertheless, it will not be necessary for most gun owners to purchase new containers. This is because gun cabinets 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 to the law came into force.
This means, for example, that in future, gun safes cannot be taken over in inheritance cases and the heirs may have to purchase new safes. If safety containers are acquired after the amendment to the law comes into force, the following provisions will apply in future:
Permit-free weapons or ammunition 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.
An unlimited number of long guns and a total of up to five handguns and ammunition can be stored in a security container that complies 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 weapons and up to ten short weapons and ammunition can be stored in it. Finally, an unlimited number of long and short weapons and ammunition can be stored in a security container that complies at least with the DIN/EN 1143-1 resistance grade I standard.
The licensing and monitoring of shooting ranges in the district of Mettmann is subject to the supervision of the weapons department. There are currently more than 70 licensed shooting ranges within the jurisdiction of the Mettmann district police authority. Safety inside and outside the facilities operated is paramount and is intended to prevent accidents and health risks in connection with weapons. For this reason, shooting ranges and the responsible operators are subject to regular inspections.
The 3rd Act amending the Weapons Act and other regulations (3rd WaffRÄndG) was published in the Federal Law Gazette on February 19, 2020. The day after it was promulgated, amendments such as the constitutional inquiry into background checks came into force.
Further amendments came into force on 01.09.2020. The main changes can be found on the website of the Federal Ministry of the Interior, Building and Community (BMI)
https://www.bmi.bund.de/DE/themen/sicherheit/waffen/waffenrecht/waffenrecht-node.html
and the website of the Federal Criminal Police Office
The new forms and an information sheet on the NWR IDs can be found on the right-hand side under Forms.