I think the rules for acquiring a firearms license in Denmark is pretty similar to Sweden. The punishment for possesion of an illegal firearm is a minimum of 1 year in jail - and nowadays noone gets off easy. That includes both scenarios from the OP.
To expand on what EinsteinsHund said about consequences in Germany:
[ul]
[li]maximum penalty for possession of an unlicensed firearm (or carrying one when you are licensed to own but not carry it) is five years in prison (ten years if you did it as a member of a criminal gang). [/li][li]if you are a first offender, did not own the gun for the purposes of criminal activity, etc, you’ll get off with a fine plus confiscation.[/li][li]A somewhat typical case of sentencing in a graver case: News article from Hamburg - German language - a large-scale pimp, with multiple prior convictions over more than two decades, had a 9 mm pistol fall out his trouser leg when searched by police. Sentence: two years in prison. [/li][/ul]
In Spain even the cops and soldiers need a license. Of course in their case it’s automatically granted for their professional weapon (it doesn’t cover weapons they own personally). Licenses for security guards are issued to the company/individual combination.
The official info on license types is here.
The penalties include having the gun confiscated then and there (you can get it back if you do prove that you have the appropriate license but weren’t carrying it) and fines, you can also get fined for having a license but not having it on you when you did have the weapon, for concealed carry without a CC permit, for not carrying the gun in a properly-secured fashion; I don’t think they get up to jail time (don’t take my word for it and I’m not going to read the 13 laws involved) but then, normally when the cops find someone who’s got several unlicensed weapons it isn’t the only law they’re breaking.
To get a license you need to pass a medical exam; the rest of the requirements vary based on the weapon and license type.
Lets put it this way:
In the late 60s and 70s I tried to participate in international competition in muzzleloaders. I say tried because I simply wasn’t wealthy enough to seriously compete. Remember – we’re talking flintlocks, wheel-locks and such here.
Firearms laws are such in other countries (such as Japan, Germany and Austria) that owning a modern-made (read “affordable”) flintlock firearm was virtually impossible. So all international competition was with original vintage firearms. If you couldn’t afford that, shooting museum-grade firearms, you couldn’t really compete. It was felt that that was the only way to keep things equal across international borders.
Even with certified antiques, some nations made it tough – say about equal to our “carry” laws. Muzzleblasts magazine back then had a report from one of the Austrian shooters who had to keep his powder, balls and caps at the local police station and have them “audited and inventoried” on a regular basis.
I don’t know what the current status is of the competition or if things have changed; I may just have to make some calls around the oldtimers network and find out. There was talk of dropping it because it was becoming a rich mans game or somehow changing the rules and just letting it be unfair but I got out altogether about the time all that started.
In Pakistan
- It depends on what calibre the rifle is. If its prohibited bore (keeps changing but generally anything bigger than a .22 for a rifle and certain handgun types) you need a licence. A licence is very easy to get, go to the post office fill out a form pay a fee and thats it. You can also get the form online
2)Conclead carry; big trouble.
Wait… in France you can’t own a gas mask? What exactly is the justification for that one?
WAG - so you can’t use something like tear gas when committing a crime?
Or so that the authorities can subdue the population easier by using tear gas. 
I know very little about the actual punishments doled out here, though I got the impression that they were quite low from the reasoning in a proposed bill by the liberal party to increase them, due to gun crime around Göteborg. Maybe they have already done so. Perhaps somebody else can fill in.
Not true as far as I know. At least, I used to know several people in the late 80s (all farmers, or farmers’ sons) who owned and operated shotguns at their own property. For pest control and hunting.
I can’t imagine that that was illegal, and I would be surprised if it is illegal now.
I did a little research concerning Dutch law on guns, and I found the following:
In principle all ownership of weapons is forbidden. This includes sabers, knifes, guns, stun-guns etc. Weapons are divided in 4 categories:
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Weapons that are officially totally off-limits. This includes “ballistic knifes”, nunchaku, telescopic batons, brass knuckles and fake/replica guns. No mention of tanks or nuclear weapons here, though they probably are forbidden under some other laws
We can probably ignore this category since it makes no sense to forbid all weapons and then state an explicitly forbidden category of weapons. -
Automatic guns, stun guns, pepperspray etc are only available to the military, the police and a “select group of collectors”.
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Weapons like sporting and hunting guns that are available under conditions and you need to have a license to own one.
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Weapons that are available without a license to people over 18. This includes sabers, cross bows, harpoons, air guns etc. Carrying these in public is not allowed.
Most of this list is translated from the Dutch wikipedia page on on the “Wet wapens en munitie” - the law on weapons and munitions, but it seems to match what I could find in government sources.
In Australia, I think in both scenarios with hand guns you’d be looking at prison time (if the guns were unlicensed) Or at least they’d be confiscated for improper storage, all guns must be stored in locking gun cabinets. Hand Guns are only allowed as a member of a shooting club, and I believe you are not even allowed to take them off the premises (of the shooting club). Rifle’s are allowed for hunting and farming purposes, in a rural area you would probably get away with having a rifle in the corner in the city I’d say confiscation if they were licensed and prison time if not. Please note this is IMHO, not sure it’s 100% correct. Someone more knowledgeable might be along.
I think that’s mostly correct, except for the part about handguns having to be kept at the shooting club. It may vary by state, but I assume it’s still the same as it was in Victoria 20 years ago, where you could keep your handgun at home, provided it was stored properly.
Not quite “never”. “Self defence” became an unacceptable reason in 1946.
In China, the situation is like this:
(Taken from a WSJ article written on October 2008)
*The government imposed the current rules in 1996, forbidding the private manufacture, sale, transport, possession, import or export of bullets and guns, including replicas.
Possession of a single gun is grounds for a prison sentence of as long as three years, and the penalty for a gun crime often is execution. In July, a Shanghai man drew a prison sentence of 12 years, and his wife 11 years, for possessing three guns and 600,000 bullets, plus peddling weapons on the Internet.
Chinese authorities say they dealt with 4,666 gun cases last year. Officials often respond to sensational gun crimes in the U.S. and elsewhere by affirming the need to maintain tough laws.*
Source: Staring Down the Barrel: the Rise of Guns in China - WSJ
I have a feeling that the people in Gothenburgh that go around shooting each other (we’re talking about gang wars here) just don’t care about possible punishments.
What if you’re allowed the gun, but not the ammunition? Aren’t the Swiss soldiers given weapons, but the ammunition’s given in sealed packages to be opened only when ordered? What if a soldier smuggled in ammunition?
In the Swiss case, there’s nothing to stop you buying your own ammo to shoot, and many people do. What you are supposed to keep unopened is the mobilisation allowance.
Japan here.
Not jail, but prison, with a max of either 10 or 15 years. You would also make the national news, at least the national dailies, if not TV. The only “nice” thing is that it wouldn’t really matter which one of the senerios, so it’s not like you would go to prison for 15 years, plus another 90s for conceling the gun.
There are a limited number of hunters who are allowed shotguns, but no one gets to own a handgun.
In French “justifier de la possession d’un coffre-fort”. “Justifier”, in this case, doesn’t mean that you need a valid reason to own a safe (like being rich or whatever) but that you must be able to prove that you own one.