German gun control laws in the pre-WWII period respected the rights of sportsmen and hunters, but took strong action to control and confiscate any weapons that might have a military use. Special permits and authorization were required to buy and firearms and ammunition, and only those with a ‘legitimate sporting purpose’ were allowed. Police, and members of the government, of course, were exempted.
The purpose and goal of the law at hand are to get firearms that have done so much damage from the hands of unauthorized persons and to do away with the instability and ambiguity of the law that previously existed in this area. The difficult task was to find the appropriate limits between this necessity of the state on the one hand and the important interests of the weapons industry that was employing a large number of workers and had been heavily damaged through the peace treaty, the interests of the legal sporting industry, and the personal freedom of the individual.
We all know how that ended up. It’s a good thing nothing like that could ever happen here.
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