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Title I
GENERAL PROVISIONS
Article I
This law lays down general weapons and ammunition regulations in Cameroon.
As such, it shall govern the manufacture, importation, exportation, transfer, purchase, transit, transportation, tracking, keeping and bearing of weapons and ammunition.
Chapter I
DEFINITIONS
Article 2
For the purposes of this law and the implementation instruments thereof, the following definitions shall apply:
Accessory: any additional part of a weapon that does not affect the normal discharge of the weapon, including any device intended to diminish the noise caused by firing the weapon.
Riot-control agent: any chemical, not listed on the table of toxic chemical products, which can produce rapidly in humans sensory irritation or disabling physical effects which disappear within a short time following termination of exposure.
Microbial agent: any living microorganism (algae, fungi, bacteria, toxins, etc.) having harmful properties capable of disabling or killing living things and used as biological agents.
Arm or weapon: any object or device that can be used to kill, wound, knock, incapacitate or cause bodily injury.
Sound or blank arms: any object or device that has the appearance of a firearm or not, designed or intended to generate only a sound effect upon the discharge of ammunition, and whose characteristics exclude firing.
firearm: any barrelled weapon capable of firing lead, bullets or projectiles using an explosive charge as a propellant, and designed for that purpose or to be converted for that purpose.
Dane gun: any indigenously made barrelled firearm capable of firing lead, bullets or projectiles using an explosive charge as a propellant that can kill, injure or incapacitate the victim.
Old and collection weapon: any weapon of an ancient model that has been disabled and declassified by the ministry in charge of defence and is listed in its register of armaments.
Airgun and recreational weapon: any object or device designed for sport, discharged by means of compressed air.
Native gun: any traditionally made object or device that can be used to kill, injure or produce a sound effect.
Cluster munitions weapon: any classical weapon designed to spread or release explosive cluster munitions, weighing less than twenty (20) kilogrammes each and comprising such explosive cluster munitions.
Biological weapon: any weapon that uses vectors or vehicles carrying biological agents or pathogens to a target, intended to cause disability or death of humans.
Pointed or edged weapon: any weapon whose perforating, slitting or breaking action is solely due to human force or a device through which it has been propelled, excluding explosion.
Chemical weapons: The following elements, considered together or separately:
- Toxic chemicals and their precursors, except where intended for purposes not prohibited under this law, as long as the types and quantities concerned are consistent with such purposes;
- Munitions and devices, specifically designed to cause death or other harm through the toxic properties of those toxic chemicals;
- Any equipment specifically designed for use directly in connection with the use of munitions and devices.
Hunting gun: a firearm used for game and sport hunting, and not classified as a weapon of war or a defensive firearm.
Defensive firearm: any industrially manufactured small-calibre personal weapon that uses live ammunition intended by nature to kill, injure, neutralize or cause disability.
Weapon of war: any weapon, munitions or component of conventional weapons designed or intended for warfare.
Special weapons of war: any weapon used in or as part of the three dimensional surface-air-sea combined military manoeuvres.
Armoury: a place where weapons, weapon components and ammunition are manufactured, traded, exchanged, leased, repaired or converted.
Certificate of final destination and of non-re-exportation: a document used to know, monitor and ascertain the end-user and end use of a product before the import or export licence is issued by the competent authorities.
Visitor’s pass: a document that gives temporary authorization to a visitor and for the duration of his stay in a State, to bring in or transit with and, where necessary, to use his or her weapons for purposes determined by the competent national body.
Paramilitary corps: a group of agents made up of customs, forestry and prison administration staff.
Brokering: any intermediary activity intended to establish a relation between parties organize or facilitate the conclusion of arms and ammunition deals, in exchange for a financial or other form of consideration.
Destruction: the process whereby a weapon, ammunition or an explosive device is permanently disabled such that it can no longer work as it was designed.
Radiological dispersal device: any device which, by detonation, causes radioactive material to be disseminated as dust from an explosion.
Weapon component: part of a weapon that is essential for its functioning, including the barrel, frame, cylinder head, locking system, cylinder, conversion, and their related power systems.
Ammunition part: an essential part of ammunition such as projectile, primer, primed socket, loaded socket, primed and loaded socket.
Supplier State: a State that manufactures, or supplies weapons and ammunition to the purchasing State or which, after having taken over ownership thereof in accordance with international agreements, transfers them to a new purchasing State.
Production of a chemical: formation of a product through chemical reaction.
Purposes not prohibited (under this law):
- Industrial, agricultural, research, medical, pharmaceutical or other peaceful purposes;
- Protective purposes, namely those purposes directly related to protection against toxic chemicals and to protection against chemical weapons;
- Military purposes not connected with the use of chemical weapons and not dependent on the use of the toxic properties of chemicals as a method of warfare;
- Law enforcement, including domestic riot control, purposes.
Asphyxiating gas: a gas that causes pulmonary oedema, which suffocates the victim.
Toxic gas: a gas whose toxic properties are used as war weapon, or against a civilian population.
Chemical weapons production facility: any equipment, as well as any building housing such equipment, that was designed, constructed or used for the production of chemical weapons.
Nuclear facilities: facilities used for the irradiation, extraction and processing of raw materials, in particular, mines, radioactive substances, radioactive waste management facilities and any other place where radioactive material is produced, processed, used, handled, stored or disposed of, at such a scale that protection and security are taken into account.
Marking: an inscription on a weapon or ammunition permitting the identification thereof.
Nuclear material: any element that can be used directly or indirectly to produce a nuclear weapon, namely plutonium, uranium enriched into uranium 235, uranium 233 and thorium.
Ammunition: the whole set of cartridge and its components, including cartridge cases, primers, propellant powder, bullets or projectiles used in firearms.
Competent national body: the agency responsible for overseeing and monitoring the implementation of international conventions as well as national laws and regulations relating to weapons and ammunition.
Bear or carry a weapon: to be in physical possession of a weapon.
Powder: mixture of deflagrating powdered potassium nitrate, also known as saltpetre, charcoal and sulphur, used as explosives.
Precursor: any chemical reactant which takes part at any stage in the production by whatever method of a toxic chemical.
Discrete organic chemical: means any chemical belonging to the class of chemical compounds consisting of all compounds of carbon except for its oxides, sulphides and metal carbonates, excluding:
- oligomers, whether or not containing phosphorus, sulphur or fluorine;
- chemicals that contain only carbon and metal.
Toxic chemical: any chemical which through its chemical action on life processes can cause death, temporary incapacitation or permanent harm to humans or animals.
Special fissionable material: any product containing plutonium-239, uranium-233 and uranium enriched in the isotope 235 or 233 with the exception of source materials.
Cluster munitions remnants: failed cluster munitions, abandoned cluster munitions, unexploded submunitions and unexploded bomblets.
Explosive submunitions: conventional munitions that, in order to perform its task, is shot from or released by a cluster weapon and is designed to function by detonating an explosive charge prior to impact, at the time of impact, or after impact.
Unexploded submunitions: explosive submunition that has been shot from or released by a cluster weapon, or has broken away from it in any other way and should have exploded but did not.
Explosive substance: a substance or mixture of substances which is in itself capable, by chemical reaction, of producing gas at such a temperature and pressure and at such a speed as to cause damage to the surroundings.
Traceability: the possibility to track a firearm and its numbered items, by identifying its successive holders, from its manufacture to its destruction or neutralization.
Processing of a chemical: a physical process such as formulation, extraction and purification, in which the chemical is not converted into another chemical.
Transfer: the importation, exportation, transit, transhipment and transportation or any other form of movement, whatsoever, of arms, their ammunition and of any part and component that can be used in manufacturing, repairing and assembling arms into, on and from the national territory.
Transfer of cluster weapons: removal or introduction of cluster weapons from or into the national territory. It also means the transfer of the right of ownership and control over cluster weapons.
Toxin: a toxic plant by-product or microorganism capable of causing disability or death of humans, and which can be used as a biological agent.
Vector: an organism used to transmit pathogens and biological agents into its target.