Persons willing to voluntarily hand over illegally held firearms will be able to legalise them

A Government Decision stipulates that the persons who will voluntarily hand over the illegally held firearms will have the possibility to legalise them afterwards. The normative act including these provisions came into force after “The Official Monitor” was published on March 2. The Decision allows authorisation from the police bodies for the firearms previously held illegally. The need for passing this decision was justified by the fact that according to the estimations, the number of legally held firearms is equal to the number of illegally owned ones. Also, it was ascertained that the majority of incidents involving guns, especially murders and serious injuries among family members are committed with illegally held firearms. Authorities consider that the decision will allow instituting a thorough control in what concerns the possession of firearms without legal documents, and their owners, who will be permanently verified. The firearms will be legalised only if the investigations will confirm the fact they were not used in offences, are not searched by police and are not dangerous. According to the provisions of the Criminal Code, the persons who posses, keep, buy, repair or sell firearms without authorisation are liable to sanctions, and those who are voluntarily handing them over are not sanctioned. At present, the individual persons hold legally about 51.7 thousand firearms. According to the data provided by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, 44 offences with firearms, including with 40 – held illegally, were registered during the last nine months of 2006.