Chile Forum

I found some more succinct info on Chilean gun laws <LINK REMOVED BY ADMIN, NEW USER 10 POST RULE>.

To summarize the useful post:

"in order to buy a gun you are required to:

1.- psychiatrist examination, saying you are fit to own a gun.
2.- A clean criminal record
3.- a certificate to register your home address

Once you have all this, you go to buy a gun, and with the papers from the store you have to go to the military to get a permit. After that you can go and take your gun home.
Also, if you want to take your gun to the range, you have to go to the military and ask for a permit, which is valid for 1 day and only to carry between your home and the range.

I also learned today that if you own a shotgun, it is illegal to fire it inside city limits...

The gun was around $1000. It was a bit pricey, since in our capital city one can find them for 850-900, but I bought it in a reputable store in my city.
For 100 rounds I paid $55.
For permits, it costs around $100.
Also you must pay the psychiatrist evaluation, but my health insurance covers that.

Max permited ammo to buy for home use is 100 rounds a year, but you can buy more in shooting ranges, to use them there.

You can have max 2 guns registered to your name."

Some legal citations would be helpful to confirm this all.

Thanks for that post. I have a few questions about firearms laws in Chile I'd love for someone to answer if they could (the previous threads I read were not very informative).

-What restrictions are there on the type of guns a person can own? For example, would it be permitted to own an AR-15 or SIG battle rifle, similar to what the Chilean military uses?

-Are there magazine capacity restrictions?

-What are the residency requirements to own a gun? Do you have to be a citizen, or can a "permenant resident" own one? What about someone that say, lives there for half the year?

-What's this about restricting the amount of ammo you can buy for "home use"? Is it literally true that someone can only purchase and take home 100 rounds of ammo per year? Is this per gun or per person? What about hunting? You could go through 100 rounds of .22 shooting at rabbits or ground hogs in an hour, let alone a year. Is there any provision for this?

-Does membership in a gun club change the ammount of guns one is allowed to own or the ammount of ammo they can purchace?

Thanks to anyone that can help me out.

I can't answer your questions with any authority . But my Dad was an avid bird hunter and certainly hunted in Chile often even after moving back to the US. Google hunting in Chile and you may find better info, there are tour operators that would be familiar with the rules.

Danger ape, I am reliably informed that ARs are available for purchase by eligible persons, despite the UN.
Matt, I was unaware of the 2 weapon restriction, but with the amount of buddy favors available it wouldn't surprise me if this were to be elasticized.

Hi all.
Sorry for re-activating this old thread, but I found it accidentally while I was googling for something else, and I had to register to this forum and comment.
You see, I'm the one who wrote that original post in <LINK REMOVED BY ADMIN, NEW USER 10 POST RULE>
I wrote that post a year ago, when I was in the process of buying my first gun, and some facts are a bit inaccurate, so I feel I have to set things straight.

So here is the real deal if you want to buy a gun in Chile.

You can't just go and buy a firearm. There is a lot of paperwork and money involved. First of all, you go to the store and "buy" your gun. They give you a purchase order, and they usually ask you to pay upfront.

Then you have to go to the local office of the "Registro Civil" (I don't know if you have something like that in other countries, every city here has this office where they issue birth certificates, passports, etc). At this office you must get a criminal records certificate, which obviuosly must be clean.
Next step is going to the nearest police station and get a residence certificate, where they state your home adress.
Then you have to get a doctor's certificate saying you are fit to have a firearm (i.e. you have good eyesight, good balance and eye-hand coordination, etc).
And also you need to go to a psychiatrist (be carefull, not all psychiatrists are authorized to issue this certificate), to prove that you are no nutjob who will go on a killing rampage.

With all those certificates and the P.O., you head to the military office in your city (called DGMN, website <LINKS REMOVED BY ADMIN, NEW USER 10 POST RULE>) and you have to take a test. The test is about gun knowledge and gun laws knowledge.

If you pass the test, they issue you a permit for owning the firearm you bought (and only that gun, serial number registered, etc), and a "transport permit" to take the gun home from the store. You also only can buy ammo for the caliber of that gun.

Now, there are 4 ways to register a gun, I'll list every one of them.

1.- Defense
You can only register 2 guns (but your wife can register 2 more) for defensive purposes. The gun cannot leave home. You can only buy 100 rounds a year for each gun.

Guns you can register for defensive purposes:
Semi-auto pistols
Revolvers
Rifles
Shotguns

2 (and 3).- Hunting or Sport
You can register up to 8 firearms for hunting and/or sport. In order to register a firearm for hunting purposes, you must have a hunters permit, issued by the Agricultural and Cattle Service (SAG). If you want to have a gun registered for sport you must be a member of a range (there are no public ranges here). Guns registered for any of these 2 purposes, are issued a "transport permit", which allows taking the gun to the range, to competitions o take it hunting.
This "transport permit" is NOT a carry license. The firearm must be unloaded, separated from the body and kept in it's case. Also you are only allowed to move from the registered adress to the range and back.
For hunting and sporting, you can buy up to 3000 rounds a year per gun (but ranges also sell ammunition so you don't throw away your ammo buying capacity).
A last detail. Children under 18 can only have a gun registered to their name if they are registered for sport.

Guns you can register for sport:
Semi-auto pistols
Revolvers
.22 Rifle (single shot, repeating action or semiauto)
Muzzleloaders
Semi-auto Shotguns, any caliber
Single shot and repeat action shotguns, any caliber
Rifle, single shot or repeat action

Guns you can register for hunting
Single shot and repeat action shotguns, any caliber
.22 Rifle (single shot or repeating action)

Guns you can register for big game hunting (require another special hunting permit)
Single shot and repeat action shotguns, any caliber
Rifle, single shot or repeat action, caliber over 7mm
Revolvers

4.- Collection
You can have unlimited guns registered as a collector, but you can't buy any ammo for them.

Firearm carrying in Chile:
It's very easy to carry ilegally in Chile. The police won't search you or your car unless they have probable cause and/or a warrant. However, if you have bad luck and end up in an accident or a fight or whatever, you can get caught. I see no point in ilegally carrying, since if you take out your gun, it's more likely that you end up in jail and the criminal walking away with a slap on the wrist. (I'm not joking here)
There is an option for legally carry in Chile, you have to apply for that special permit, writing a letter stating why do you need to carry and attending an interview with the military head of your city. To illustrate how difficult it is, nowadays they are 750 000 guns registered in Chile, to ~500 000 owners, and ONLY 69 of them have a carry permit (which you must renew every year).


I hope this was informative, any doubts, please let me know. If I've forgotten something I'll post it when I remember.

EDIT: a copy of Chilean Gun Law (in spanish) can be found <LINKS REMOVED BY ADMIN, NEW USER 10 POST RULE>

O.k. I am not even sure how this thread survived the first poster's spam, but it did. I am highly suspicious of all the new users involved in it with a couple of post, not to mention duplicate copied content from other sites. Being as it may, at least the last post was sufficiently informative to make it worth keeping around.

Still, I had to cut out all the links. As it definitely sets off all the spam red flags. Sorry.

OK.
Sorry about the links. Just finished reading the policy.