A small arm is a gun that is small enough to be held by one person. This includes pistols, shotguns, and rifles. Artillery are larger guns that cannot be carried by one person.
Small arms
Mandatory Labeling
Special legal regulations apply to small arms in Germany because of their dangerous nature and in order to improve traceability, whereby the marking regulations for export weapons differ considerably from those for weapons that remain in Germany (for police, sport shooters, etc.).
The marking obligation for small arms that remain in Germany is regulated in Section 24 of the Weapons Act.
Small arms intended for the export market must be marked in accordance with Section 13 of the Second Ordinance on the Implementation of the War Weapons Control Act.
The less stringent marking regulations for export weapons mean that small arms are smuggled into dictatorships by re-declaring the serial numbers without the deliveries being traceable. The inadequate legislation is also criticized by German customs, among others.
The UN resolution (a60-88), which calls for tighter marking of export weapons, has not been implemented in Germany since 2005.