Gun Registration in Germany

(Cologne, Germany)

Germany's first national weapons register should be online at the start of next year to provide information about the six million legally-held guns in the country, authorities said on Tuesday.

Until now, keeping track of weapons has been the duty of 551 different local authorities and much of the information was held on paper.

But civil servants in Cologne have been collating and computerising the data since April, and the national database should be live from January 1.

The new database would offer a “considerable improvement to safety in Germany,” said Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich, who has been in charge of the project, which also fulfils EU guidelines that member states should adopt by 2014.

Gun registration accommodates gun confiscation to a greater degree than it improves safety, I contend. Also, thieves wanting to steal guns, or avoid establishments and residences protected by guns, would gleefully make use of an online gun registry displaying the names and addresses of gun owners.