[eicnix]

Not surprising seeing how he bought this tank disarmed and was trying to rearm it.

Given the strong gun laws in Germany, I think he's lucky to get away with a fine for illegally acquiring a tank, anti-aircraft cannon, mortar, torpedo as well as an assortment of guns.

There is the "Kriegswagfenkontrollgesetz" (law to control weapons of war) that deals with owning and trading these kind of things.

Source in German: https://www.google.de/amp/s/www.spiegel.de/panorama/justiz/k...

Comment on rearming: »Ich wollte den Panzer so herrichten, wie er aus dem Werk kam«, soll F. am 12. Juli 2015 gesagt haben. In einem Telefonat am 12. August 2015 soll ihn ein Gesprächspartner daran erinnert haben, wie er ihn mehrfach darauf hingewiesen habe, den Panzer zu demilitarisieren. »Aber Sie, Herr F., sagten: Einen Teufel werde ich tun«, zitiert der Staatsanwalt aus den Protokollen.

Source behind paywall: https://www.google.de/amp/s/www.spiegel.de/panorama/justiz/k...

[aixi]

gun laws are not that strong in Germany actually, they are just strong in the sense that you cannot carry/own without a license, but for collection purposes I'd say they are even lighter than the US' in some aspects.

this video by JoergSprave explains it in detail: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0-J2pYLCvI

[refurb]

Indeed. It’s often the nuances that matter. My understanding is that acquiring a silencer in Europe isn’t much harder than acquiring a firearm (obviously country dependent).

While in the US it’s much harder to get a silencer as they fall into a category similar to automatic weapons.

And the US laws are very strict for things like tanks and such since they fall under the NFA which again, lumps all these things into a similar category as automatic weapons and even if you’re a cop they’ll put you in prison for violating those laws.

https://www.justice.gov/usao-md/pr/former-taneytown-police-c...

[User23]

This is one of the ways in which the USA is more like 50 little countries than a single one. At the federal level most everything besides post 1986 machine guns, including 120mm cannons and explosive shells along with a tank to move them around, can be had with some paperwork and a tax stamp, which is $200 or less.

There are businesses in Nevada[1] that will let you drive tanks and fire off howitzers[1] that are privately owned. However many states, and in some states counties and cities, have additional restrictions on what they permit. For example, a muzzle loading revolver isn't even considered to be a firearm federally, but in NY State if you happen to have powder and lead handy congratulations you're now a felon even in your own home unless you have a handgun permit.

[1] https://www.battlefieldvegas.com/

[albertsondev]

Excuse me, "muzzle-loading revolver"?

Would that not entirely defeat the point of a revolver?

[alan-crowe]

They probably mean an old revolver such as the 1851 Navy revolver. See the loading video here https://civilwarhorror.blogspot.com/2011/12/how-to-load-and-...

The barrel of the revolver is effectively 6 terribly short smooth bore muskets. Be sure to load them before the shooting starts. Then you can fire six shots in rapid succession, before changing to your other revolver. You did remember to buy two?

[User23]

You load all six chambers, or five if it’s an antique without a firing pin safety. Typically this is accomplished by pouring the powder charge into the front of the cylinder and then placing a lead ball on top of it and ramming it into place, although one can also remove the cylinder altogether with some models and load it externally.

The end result is you can get 5-6 shots off quickly, but reloading will take rather a lot longer than with a cartridge firearm. This is one reason people carried two revolvers in the old West. Needless to say they’re of little interest to criminals, but fairly popular amongst sportsmen and re-enactors and such.

[spoonjim]

Not always. One of the biggest advantages of a revolver is that if you have a misfire you still have your next chamber waiting for you. That doesn't go away.

[doikor]

> My understanding is that acquiring a silencer in Europe isn’t much harder than acquiring a firearm (obviously country dependent).

True. You don't need any special permits for suppressors at all here in Finland as long as you got a valid permit for the gun it will be installed on. So basically the seller just checks that you actually legally own the gun you say you are going to install it on (nobody actually checks what you install it on)

[hef19898]

Being a licensed hunter near urban areas is enough to have the right to get silencers. E.g. boar hunters in Berlin.

[causi]

Suppressors are not hard to get in the US. They're just subject to an extra $200 tax stamp.

[throwaway0a5e]

You have to invite a notoriously capricious and hair trigger federal agency into your life, sure less so than an automatic weapon but you still need to put yourself on their radar to some extent. After you've done that the first time $200 a pop isn't that big a deal but a lot of people are unwilling to take the initial plunge of putting their name on that list.

[refurb]

Harder than Europe though. Basically the same amount of effort as getting a machine gun. Full fingerprints, $200 tax, submit to ATF, wait months, then take possession.

And each state can have additional laws that differ from federal laws. CA bans ownership entirely I believe.

[doikor]

$200 tax is quite crazy though. You can get a cheap suppressor for that (or less). So the "tax" is literally doubling the actual price of a suppressor in the worst case.

[hef19898]

The tank had some maintenance from an official German army depot, it seems.

[sparkling]

> and was trying to rearm it.

Where does it say that in the BBC or Spiegel article?

[hef19898]

I never heard of that. If he did indeed try, the sentencing is quite light.

[throwaway0a5e]

At most this is as legitimate as seizing someone's house because they once sold some pot to a friend in said house. Yeah it's within the letter of the law but it's still dumb and wrong.

"Rearming" a 70yo tank is fundamentally a historical restoration project and the kind of people who do it are no hazard to public health. The law was not written for these kinds of people. It was written for people who are actually up to no good. It's pretty clear from patterns of behavior who is arming tanks to have a cool historically accurate tank and who is doing that sort of thing as a means to a more nefarious end.

Defending this sentence is only a hair away from defending insane drug sentencing "because the law is the law". The law is dumb and if this were the US I'd say the judge has poor judgement for not using his discretion to hand down a practically nonexistent sentence. I don't know to what extent German judges can influence sentencing.

[alpaca128]

Calling arming a tank a "historical restoration project" is already quite an example of Olympics-level mental gymnastics. And no, it's not comparable to selling pot either.

> The law was not written for these kinds of people. It was written for people who are actually up to no good.

What "good" purpose does arming a tank have then? Authorities don't like to wait and find out, and that's not unreasonable in any way.

[SquishyPanda23]

> the kind of people who do it are no hazard to public health.

Well they do, you know, keep weapons of war in their homes.

Unless they have 24/7 armed guards and their home is defensible from armed invasion that alone is a pretty sizable risk to public health.

Then of course there is the added factor of what sort of person thinks this is a good idea. If someone is going to have an armed tank, it would be preferable if they also didn't have questionable judgment.

[atatatat]

The only reason I'm agreeing with you is he didn't have enough control over his domain to maintain the secret.

[grumblenum]

I think the number of people killed in the world each year by personally owned novelty military vehicles is approximately zero. Hundreds of people are killed in the United States every year by unarmed assailants. When will we wake up and pass common-sense karate-chop control?!

[scraptor]

How many people would die from personally owned military vehicles if they were not illegal and how many people would die from karate chops if there were (magically enforced) laws banning them?

[MereInterest]

Please also compare the relative numbers of people with rearmed military vehicles and people with karate-chop capable arms. The important comparison is the conditional probability, not the total numbers.

[throwaway0a5e]

0 divided by a small number is going to be smaller than a small but nonzero number divided by about seven billion.

If you want to be obtuse you should argue the "tanks in the service of foreign warlords seeking to overthrow their local governments are privately owned" angle.

[MereInterest]

Something being irrelevant in war between nations doesn't mean that it is irrelevant at all scales. You could make the same argument about a Spanish galleon, and that for historical accuracy it should be stocked with at least a few tons of gunpowder, but I'm still not allowed to stockpile more than 50 pounds of black powder. And that's reasonable, because there's a lot of other uses for large quantities of gunpowder.

Rearming a 70yo tank greatly increases the likelihood for neighborhood disputes to become, um, "explosive".

[eicnix]

I added the source for it above

[tannhaeuser]

Posting an AMP link by Spiegel as "German source"? The original source is a dpa article by Carsten Rehder btw.