Berlin police log 585 firearm offenses in first half of 2026, up from a year earlier
Police confirmed a Welt am Sonntag report: 324 threats and 261 shootings, with 118 people harmed, two of them killed. The same period last year saw 561 cases.
Symbolic image · Photo: Auge24.eu / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0 (cropped and resized)
Berlin police recorded 585 offenses involving the use of firearms in the first half of 2026, including 324 threats and 261 incidents in which shots were fired, up from 561 cases in the same period a year earlier. The figures were first reported by Welt am Sonntag and confirmed by police. They also include blank-firing, irritant-gas and signal weapons.
Live firearms were fired 65 times, and police treat 62 of those cases as crimes, according to the figures. A total of 118 people were registered as victims, two of whom died.
A special police unit called "Ferrum," set up in November 2025 to tackle gun use in organized crime, has since opened 708 investigations, obtained 77 arrest warrants and seized 73 live firearms. Among other cases, it is investigating shots fired at a bar in the Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf district on Saturday morning, in which no one was hurt.