The stocks of firearms voluntarily surrendered to the police by the general public are building up, with the police ultimately unable to dispose of the weapons.
Police stations across the country are obligated to collect weapons surrendered by the public, yet the administrative service of the court is refusing to deal with them. These weapons should eventually be sent to the Firearms Proofhouse, from where they are inspected and destroyed.
"Police stations find themselves with dozens of firearms, voluntarily abandoned on their premises without being able to do anything about it," Federal MP Philippe Pivin told Sudinfo. "Several police officers have told me that these weapons are piling up in police stations." The MP also complained that the relevant authorities were refusing to process these weapons.
The issue relates to a legal vacuum, according to Minister of Justice Vincent Van Quickenborne. Specifically, there is a problem with the management of the voluntary surrender of firearms. The law, he said, would need to be revised.
Belgian bureaucracy
Technically, Belgian law does not permit the voluntary surrender of firearms. A 2021 document prevents the administrative services of the court from processing firearms. At the same time, the police are not in the position to refuse the surrender of potentially dangerous weapons. With the police having difficulty in finding relevant authorities to destroy them, these weapons simply pile up.
"A temporary solution was found in the form of informal handling by the Federal Police, who had the weapons destroyed at blast furnaces in Ghent, but it didn’t last," said Pivin.
Although there are no statistics on the number of firearms voluntarily handed into the police each year, Pivin estimated that the amount was large. In 2022, the government destroyed 45,000 firearms, at a financial cost of €450,000.
A new bill aims to close this legal limbo, allowing the police to rid themselves of these abandoned weapons. Under the proposals, citizens who want to return a firearm to a police station “will be able to do so, free of charge, within a guaranteed legal framework,” the MP explained.
"The police will register the firearm and send it to a private company for destruction (with the exception of collector’s firearms or firearms of special interest, which will be subject to an exemption), following a decision by the Governor. It’s a shame it has taken so long to simplify police work."
Related News
Violent incidents involving firearms are on the rise in the Belgian capital. Preliminary figures for 2023 show that there were 19 shootings in the Brussels-Capital Region. Many illegal firearms circulate around Belgium.
Between 2006 and 2020, there were 1,615 cases of illegal firearm possession registered by the National Institute for Criminalistics and Criminology (NICC). Gun surrenders help remove potentially dangerous weapons from the streets and avoid accidents among legal gun owners.
