- A firearms licence is personal. It ends with you and does not pass to your family.
- Your heirs inherit the guns as property, but usually not the right to hold them.
- The clock is short: from 30 days in Poland to six months in Australia.
- The first problem is practical: your family needs the location of the guns, the safe code, and who to call.
A shooting licence is personal. It ends when you do. Your family inherits the guns as property, but in most countries they don't inherit the right to hold them. So the moment you're gone, the people you love are left in a house with firearms they may not be allowed to touch, a deadline they don't know about, and no idea where the safe key is.
That gap looks the same in London, Texas, Berlin, Warsaw or Ljubljana. The details differ by country. The problem doesn't.
Wherever you shoot, the licence is personal and ends with you, there is a deadline measured in weeks or months, and someone has to secure the guns right away.
Inherited firearms: the rules, country by country
United Kingdom. The certificate ends when the holder passes away. The executor has to secure the firearms straight away and ask the police for a temporary permit under Section 7 of the Firearms Act. That usually buys 3 to 6 months to decide: sell through a registered dealer, pass them to someone licensed, or surrender them.
United States. It depends on the state. A normal rifle or shotgun can often pass to a family member in the same state, as long as that person isn't barred from owning guns. Cross state lines and it has to go through a licensed dealer. NFA items like suppressors and short barrels need an approved ATF Form 5 before anyone can take possession. California, New York, Illinois and a few others add permits or registration on top.
Germany. Heirs have one month from accepting the inheritance to report the guns to the weapons authority. If nobody in the family can show a genuine need, a hunter, a sport shooter, a collector, the inherited guns have to be fitted with a blocking device that makes them unusable, or handed in.
Poland. The permit does not pass to your heirs. They inherit the guns but cannot use them without their own permit. They have to notify the police, who move the firearms into storage at the family's cost. The heirs then sell or transfer them, and if that hasn't happened within 30 days the guns stay in the depot. It's a real Catch-22, the one we called paragraf 22 in a recent post: you legally own the guns and you legally cannot keep them.
Slovenia. The licence is a personal right and doesn't pass to the heir either. Whoever the guns are left with has to hand the firearms, ammunition and documents to the local administrative unit within three months. An heir who wants to keep them applies for their own licence within one month of the inheritance ruling. Otherwise the guns are disabled, sold, or surrendered for destruction at no cost.
Canada and Australia. The heir needs the right class of licence to keep anything: a PAL in Canada, the matching category in Australia. Until then the executor can only hold the guns to store or dispose of them. Australia sets a clock of six months from when the owner passes away.
The first problem isn't legal
The legal steps are hard enough. Before your family even gets there, they hit something simpler: they don't know what you own or where it is.
- Where is the safe, and what is the code?
- Where is the spare key, and who is allowed to hold it?
- Which guns are registered, and what are the serial numbers?
- Where are the permits and purchase papers?
- Which club, dealer, or lawyer should they call first?
If all of that lived only in your head, your family starts from zero, on a deadline, while grieving.
What to put in one place
You can close most of that gap in an afternoon. In one place, record:
- The location of every firearm and the safe.
- The code to the safe and where the spare key is.
- Make, model and serial number of each gun, with its permit or registration.
- Who to call first: your club, a trusted dealer, your lawyer.
- What you want done with each piece: sell, pass to a named person, or hand in.
Then make sure the right person can actually reach it when it matters. That last part is where most plans fall apart. The note exists, but it's in a drawer nobody finds, or a file nobody can open.
How LegacyApp makes it quick
This is what we built LegacyApp for. It's a private, encrypted notebook on your phone for exactly this: where things are, the codes, the documents, the contacts, and your instructions. The notes stay on your device and in an encrypted backup in your own Google Drive or iCloud. They are never on our servers, and we cannot read them.
You decide who receives them. The app checks in with you now and then. If something happens and you stop responding, the person you chose gets secure access to what you left for them, confirmed through your trusted contacts. No lawyer needed to open it, no searching the house.
The basic version is free, with no time limit and no card. You can add your first note in five minutes. The safe code and where the guns are is a good place to start.
LegacyApp doesn't replace a will or a firearms lawyer, and we say so plainly. It makes sure the practical information survives you, so the legal steps are even possible.
Start with the safe code and where the guns are. That single note already saves your family the worst of it.
If you shoot in Poland
We run this with the Polish shooting community as a campaign called B.L.O.S., with free printable templates and steps built around Polish law. If you shoot in Poland, start there: legacy.app/blos.
You already lock your guns away so they can't hurt anyone. This is the same instinct, one step further: making sure the people you leave behind aren't stuck with a locked safe, a running clock, and no way in.
Questions & answers
The short version, for people in a hurry.
Can my family just keep my guns when I'm gone?
In most countries, no. The licence is personal and ends with you. Your family inherits the guns as property, but they need their own permit or licence to keep them, and there is a deadline to sort it out.
How long does my family have to act?
It varies. 30 days in Poland, one month to apply in Germany and Slovenia, 3 to 6 months in the UK, six months in Australia. In the meantime, someone has to secure the guns straight away.
What is the "paragraf 22" for shooters?
It's the Catch-22. You legally own the inherited guns, but you legally cannot keep or use them without your own permit. So they often have to be sold, handed in, or stored at the family's cost.
What should I write down now?
Where the guns and the safe are, the safe code and spare key, make, model and serial with permits, who to call first, and what you want done with each gun.
Is it safe to keep gun details in LegacyApp?
Your notes are encrypted with AES-256, kept on your phone and in your own Google Drive or iCloud, never on our servers. Only the person you choose gets access, and only if something happens to you.
Does this replace a will?
No. LegacyApp doesn't replace a will or a firearms lawyer. It makes sure the practical information, the locations, codes, contacts and instructions, reaches your family so the legal steps are possible at all.
