Germans hand in more than 200,000 illegal weapons

Germans have turned in more than 200,000 illegal weapons under an amnesty policy introduced last year in the wake of a school massacre of 15 people by an armed teenager, the government said yesterday.

Tim Kretschmer, 17, killed nine pupils and three teachers at his old school plus three passers-by in March 2009 using a gun belonging to his father, stunning the country and prompting a crackdown on unregistered firearms.

"More than 200,000 weapons have been turned in to arms authorities and police stations across the country between the introduction of the amnesty rule for illegal weapons possession after the rampage in Winnenden (southwestern Germany) in March 2009 and the end of the year," the government said.

It was responding in the statement to an inquiry by the parliamentary group of the opposition Social Democrats. While stepping up checks on possession and storage of firearms, the government introduced a five-month policy during which owners of guns and other weapons held illegally could hand them in with no risk of prosecution if they had committed no other crime.

Yesterday's statement said that in the state of Baden-Wuerttemberg, where the March massacre occurred, around 50 per cent of 1,527 weapons owners were found to be in violation of the strict regulations on how guns and ammunition are to be safely stored.