Federal Act
on Weapons, Weapon Accessories and Ammunition
(Weapons Act, WA)

¹ The com­pet­ent au­thor­ity shall seize:

a.

weapons car­ried by per­sons who do not have au­thor­isa­tion;

b.

weapons, es­sen­tial and spe­cially de­signed weapon com­pon­ents, weapon ac­cessor­ies, am­muni­tion and am­muni­tion com­pon­ents from per­sons who are sub­ject to an im­ped­i­ment un­der Art­icle 8 para­graph 2 or who are not au­thor­ised to ac­quire or pos­sess them;

c.

dan­ger­ous ob­jects that are im­prop­erly car­ried;

d.¹¹¹

fire­arms, their es­sen­tial com­pon­ents or ac­cessor­ies that are not marked in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 18a;

e.¹¹²

every ele­ment­ary pack­age of am­muni­tion that is not marked in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 18b.

f.¹¹³

high ca­pa­city load­ing devices and the re­lated fire­arm that are in the pos­ses­sion of per­sons who are not au­thor­ised to ac­quire or pos­sess the same.

² If the com­pet­ent au­thor­ity seizes weapons, es­sen­tial or spe­cially de­signed weapon com­pon­ents, weapon ac­cessor­ies, high ca­pa­city load­ing devices and the re­lated fire­arm, am­muni­tion or am­muni­tion com­pon­ents, or dan­ger­ous ob­jects from a per­son who is not au­thor­ised to own them, it shall re­turn these ob­jects to the per­son who is au­thor­ised to own them provid­ing no im­ped­i­ment in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 8 para­graph 2 ex­ists.¹¹⁴

^2bis If the com­pet­ent au­thor­ity seizes fire­arms in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 5 para­graph 1 let­ters b–d that are not re­gistered in the can­ton­al in­form­a­tion sys­tem on the ac­quis­i­tion of fire­arms in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 32apara­graph 2, the law­ful pos­ses­sion of which has not be re­por­ted in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 42b or for which no proof has been provided in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 28d para­graph 3, the hold­er must sub­mit an ap­plic­a­tion for an ex­emp­tion per­mit un­der Art­icles 28c–28e or trans­fer pos­ses­sion of the fire­arms to an au­thor­ised per­son.¹¹⁵

^2ter If the com­pet­ent au­thor­ity seizes high ca­pa­city load­ing devices and the re­lated fire­arm, the hold­er must sub­mit an ap­plic­a­tion for an ex­emp­tion per­mit for the fire­arm un­der Art­icles 28c–28e or trans­fer pos­ses­sion of the fire­arms to an au­thor­ised per­son.¹¹⁶

³ The com­pet­ent au­thor­ity shall or­der the for­feit­ure of the seized ob­jects if:

a.

there is a danger of them be­ing used im­prop­erly, in par­tic­u­lar if per­sons have been threatened or in­jured with such ob­jects;

b.

they are ob­jects that are defined in para­graph 1 let­ters d or e and have been man­u­fac­tured or brought in­to Switzer­land after 28 Ju­ly 2010;¹¹⁷

c.¹¹⁸

pos­ses­sion of the ob­jects has not been trans­ferred to an au­thor­ised per­son or the ap­plic­a­tion in terms of para­graphs 2^bis or 2^ter has not been sub­mit­ted or has been re­jec­ted.¹¹⁹

⁴ The com­pet­ent au­thor­ity shall no­ti­fy the Cent­ral Of­fice for Weapons about the per­man­ent con­fis­ca­tion, to­geth­er with the ex­act de­scrip­tion of the weapon.

⁵ The Fed­er­al Coun­cil reg­u­lates the pro­ced­ure if it is not pos­sible to re­turn the ob­jects.