Ten daily penalty units of difference: how a drunk recreational hunter keeps the way back to his gun open

A 32-year-old recreational hunter from the Penzlin region in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern fled a police check with a blood alcohol level of almost 0.2%. He crashed his off-road vehicle into a tree and resisted arrest. The local court in Waren an der Müritz sentenced him to 50 daily penalty units. For the consequences under firearms law, it is above all this figure that matters. It lies just below the threshold above which a firearms owner in Germany is, as a rule, deemed unreliable.

What happened that night

On 11 April 2026, after an evening with friends and beer, the man wanted to drive the few kilometres home, as Nordkurier reports. When the police tried to stop him, he accelerated, lost control of the car and ended up against a tree. A blood sample taken at around 3.45 a.m. showed almost 0.2%.

He refused to get out. His hunting dog was sitting in the car, and the officers felt threatened by it. According to his account, the officers announced they would take the dog to an animal shelter. He then resisted the check and being put in handcuffs.

The consequences were considerable. His driving licence was confiscated, he lost his job, and the hunting authority withdrew his hunting permit. In court, he largely admitted the charges. For the drink-driving and the subsequent incidents, the court sentenced him to 50 daily penalty units of 15 euros each, 750 euros in total. The public prosecutor had asked for 60 daily penalty units. A new driving licence can be issued after six months at the earliest, probably only after a medical-psychological assessment. The man accepted the verdict in the courtroom.

The threshold of 60 daily penalty units

The difference of ten daily rates is no minor detail. Under Section 5(2) of the German Weapons Act, anyone convicted of an intentional offence with at least 60 daily rates is, as a rule, deemed unreliable for five years. That was precisely what the defence counsel was aiming at. He said openly in court that his main concern was a sentence below this threshold. He described the loss of the hunting permit as a deep cut into his client's identity.

With 50 daily rates, the presumption of unreliability based on the level of the sentence does not apply to the man, who has no previous convictions. A return to firearms is by no means assured, however, as the authority can deny his reliability regardless. But the verdict stays just below the very threshold that the defence counsel wanted to avoid because of its consequences for the hunting permit.

There was a similar case in May. The Neubrandenburg Regional Court significantly reduced the sentence of a recreational hunter from the Demmin region who had been travelling with a loaded weapon on the passenger seat. According to Nordkurier, he can now try to get his hunting licence back.

The Federal Administrative Court ruled in 2014 that even a single use of a firearm under the influence of alcohol can establish unreliability under weapons law. How such proceedings unfold is shown in the WBW article Drink driving: recreational hunter loses hunting licence.

Switzerland: not even a blood alcohol limit

In Germany, there is debate over how quickly a drunk recreational hunter should get his weapon back. In most Swiss cantons, by contrast, there is no explicitly defined blood alcohol limit for recreational hunting. Zurich and Neuchatel apply road traffic alcohol rules to recreational hunting.

Initiatives regularly fail:

• In Bern, the Grand Council rejected a motion by Casimir von Arx by 74 votes to 64 (Recreational hunting under the influence of alcohol remains legal in Bern).
• In Fribourg, on 23 May 2025, a motion to introduce a blood alcohol limit for hunting.
• failed. Grisons already scrapped a planned limit back in 2016 (Shooting under the influence).

The standard argument is that recreational hunting has no alcohol problem. However, whether alcohol plays a role in hunting accidents is not systematically recorded at all, since there are no compulsory tests. Anyone who claims that recreational hunting has no alcohol problem should not oppose compulsory alcohol tests after hunting accidents. What else lies behind the facade is shown in the article Alcohol and weapons: the recreational hunters' drinking problem.

Petition: zero tolerance in the hunting ground

With the petition “Blood alcohol limit for recreational hunters”, the IG Wild beim Wild demands the following:

• 0.0 per mille for armed recreational hunters in the hunting ground
• a mandatory alcohol test after every hunting accident
• an independent investigation of hunting accidents outside the hunting administration
• a ban on carrying weapons under the influence of alcohol

Anyone who walks through woods with public hiking trails carrying a firearm must meet at least the same rules as someone behind the wheel. Sign the petition now

If you want to ask the more fundamental question of whether someone should be carrying a weapon at all, additionally support the petition for a psychological aptitude test for weapon owners.