German pensioner given hefty fine for WW2 tank in house
bbc.com
bbc.com
Given the strong gun laws in Germany, I think he's lucky to get away with a fine for illegally acquiring a tank, anti-aircraft cannon, mortar, torpedo as well as an assortment of guns.
There is the "Kriegswagfenkontrollgesetz" (law to control weapons of war) that deals with owning and trading these kind of things.
Source in German: https://www.google.de/amp/s/www.spiegel.de/panorama/justiz/k...
Comment on rearming: »Ich wollte den Panzer so herrichten, wie er aus dem Werk kam«, soll F. am 12. Juli 2015 gesagt haben. In einem Telefonat am 12. August 2015 soll ihn ein Gesprächspartner daran erinnert haben, wie er ihn mehrfach darauf hingewiesen habe, den Panzer zu demilitarisieren. »Aber Sie, Herr F., sagten: Einen Teufel werde ich tun«, zitiert der Staatsanwalt aus den Protokollen.
Source behind paywall: https://www.google.de/amp/s/www.spiegel.de/panorama/justiz/k...
this video by JoergSprave explains it in detail: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0-J2pYLCvI
While in the US it’s much harder to get a silencer as they fall into a category similar to automatic weapons.
And the US laws are very strict for things like tanks and such since they fall under the NFA which again, lumps all these things into a similar category as automatic weapons and even if you’re a cop they’ll put you in prison for violating those laws.
https://www.justice.gov/usao-md/pr/former-taneytown-police-c...
And each state can have additional laws that differ from federal laws. CA bans ownership entirely I believe.
True. You don't need any special permits for suppressors at all here in Finland as long as you got a valid permit for the gun it will be installed on. So basically the seller just checks that you actually legally own the gun you say you are going to install it on (nobody actually checks what you install it on)
There are businesses in Nevada[1] that will let you drive tanks and fire off howitzers[1] that are privately owned. However many states, and in some states counties and cities, have additional restrictions on what they permit. For example, a muzzle loading revolver isn't even considered to be a firearm federally, but in NY State if you happen to have powder and lead handy congratulations you're now a felon even in your own home unless you have a handgun permit.
Would that not entirely defeat the point of a revolver?
The end result is you can get 5-6 shots off quickly, but reloading will take rather a lot longer than with a cartridge firearm. This is one reason people carried two revolvers in the old West. Needless to say they’re of little interest to criminals, but fairly popular amongst sportsmen and re-enactors and such.
The barrel of the revolver is effectively 6 terribly short smooth bore muskets. Be sure to load them before the shooting starts. Then you can fire six shots in rapid succession, before changing to your other revolver. You did remember to buy two?
Where does it say that in the BBC or Spiegel article?
"Rearming" a 70yo tank is fundamentally a historical restoration project and the kind of people who do it are no hazard to public health. The law was not written for these kinds of people. It was written for people who are actually up to no good. It's pretty clear from patterns of behavior who is arming tanks to have a cool historically accurate tank and who is doing that sort of thing as a means to a more nefarious end.
Defending this sentence is only a hair away from defending insane drug sentencing "because the law is the law". The law is dumb and if this were the US I'd say the judge has poor judgement for not using his discretion to hand down a practically nonexistent sentence. I don't know to what extent German judges can influence sentencing.
Rearming a 70yo tank greatly increases the likelihood for neighborhood disputes to become, um, "explosive".
Well they do, you know, keep weapons of war in their homes.
Unless they have 24/7 armed guards and their home is defensible from armed invasion that alone is a pretty sizable risk to public health.
Then of course there is the added factor of what sort of person thinks this is a good idea. If someone is going to have an armed tank, it would be preferable if they also didn't have questionable judgment.
If you want to be obtuse you should argue the "tanks in the service of foreign warlords seeking to overthrow their local governments are privately owned" angle.
> The law was not written for these kinds of people. It was written for people who are actually up to no good.
What "good" purpose does arming a tank have then? Authorities don't like to wait and find out, and that's not unreasonable in any way.
What is a "collector" in this context? Wasn't he a collector, because he... Hmm .. collects?
Quite possibly, there might be nothing illegal about owning the disarmed tank for a law-abiding collector.
There was some other stuff going on, like shit loads of live ammunition in the guys possession.
2. Equally, the man has been known in the Heikendorf community for years and restored the tank, after buying it from the British Army's REME. Even helped the locals get out of snowdrifts with the tanks. If he was going to cause trouble he would have.
3. In the BBC article it says - "Many US historians argue it was the most efficient such vehicle deployed by Germany during World War Two. " The Panther was a good tank but was over-engineered, the Panther Ausf G versions were better and had the issues rectified.
He sounds to have had quite the collection. If he actually had it in a shooting condition complete with a big case of live shells I can imagine it but the article doesn't really specify.
They almost certainly wouldn't omit that kind of thing if he did.
Or simply a licence.
IMHO the amount of ammunition he had is more of a problem. That and the general amount of WW2 / Nazi memorabilia.
That's why the Tank Museum in Munster is the only [correction: not only] museum in Germany where you can see tanks without modifications: the museum is technically part of the Bundeswehr's 9. tank brigade that is stationed there, and the civilian staff around it is just "in cooperation".
That can't be right, there's also the Militärhistorisches Museum der Bundeswehr in Dresden.
It is of course illegal to own these things. You're supposed to call the army (DOVO in my case), who will then tell you they have no time, have lost the capability to process these things, are on holiday for the next 5 years, whatever.
If this bothers you, you might drop them in a truck and dump them off at an army base, which will scare the bejeesus out of the poor soldiers, especially if you start jumping up and down on the heap like an angry madman (this might make it to some local newspaper). The army will declare this stuff far too dangerous for their base, and demand you to drag them back to your own field. If you can get kids to steal the stuff, this solves your problems with both the ammo and the kids. You might have a new complaint about noise levels.
What exactly is the problem with an old farth owning a few sheds full of world war ammo? Damn, my sarcasmometer just broke.
Uh, the explosive potential? If his house catches fire and firefighters arrive only to be hit by a vicious explosion, that is quite a problem? IDK if that particular person lives in wilderness or has close neighbours, but if the latter, those people may also be pissed of when they learn that they live next to an improvised Vesuvius?
Old ammo is unstable and the region of former trench fighting of the Great War is still restricted for development, 100 years after the war has ended:
That post was pure sarcasm. Nobody young or old should own live ammo that has been rusted away for about a century, especially if they desperately want to get rid of it. The governement should start funding the relevant orgs again so they can collect and safely disarm these things.
Sarcasm does not travel well over TCP/IP.
On a serious note, that's the reason why private EOD is quite busy in Germany. And the reason why Baltic Navy mine divers are among the best in the world, apparently these guys see more live WW1+2 mines in 6 months of training than US Navy divers in their whole career. Might be a tad exaggerated, but the Baltic sea is among the heaviest mined ones on the planet.