According to the latest official data, the citizens of BiH have more than 370,000 legal weapons, and when, in addition, it is known that many are hiding illegal weapons, it can rightly be said that the population is armed to the teeth, because the number of barrels, apparently, has exceeded a million, they write Independent newspaper.
It is enough, for example, to recall the research according to which there are 750,000 to 800,000 pieces of illegal weapons in Bosnia and Herzegovina, while some claim that the number is even higher than 800,000.
Drastic differences compared to five years earlier
During 2025, the Coordination Committee for the Control of Small Arms and Light Weapons in BiH collected statistical data on legally registered weapons in BiH, where as many as 12 laws on weapons are in force.
They determined that last year there were 236,844 legal weapons in the FBiH, 130,380 in the Republika Srpska, and 4,919 in the Brčko District.
These figures are drastically different from the figures from five years earlier, i.e. 2020, when there were 182,338 registered weapons in the FBiH, 94,653 in the Republika Srpska, and 3,828 in the Brčko District.
Therefore, when the line is drawn, in BiH from 2020 to 2025 the number of legal weapons increased from 280,819 to 372,143.
According to official data, 365,679 weapons were registered to men last year, and the remaining 6,464 to women.
Problematic figures
Security expert Safet Mušić told Nezavisne novine that it is colloquial to say that citizens in Bosnia and Herzegovina are “armed to the teeth”. Namely, he adds, the combination of a large number of legal and estimated illegal weapons indicates an extremely high availability of firearms.
“Even 15 years ago, when I dealt with this topic in detail, the conclusion was that the mass proliferation of weapons represents one of the biggest long-term security risks in the country. These figures are problematic because they increase the likelihood of daily conflicts, even harmless ones, escalating into violent incidents with fatal consequences,” says Mušić.
Examples, he adds, range from inter-criminal confrontations, through armed robberies and smuggling to family violence.
“The aforementioned factors make the work of police and judicial institutions difficult. A special challenge is that illegal weapons remain outside of institutional control, which creates a ‘gray zone’ of security. That is why the issue of controlling and reducing illegal weapons must be seen as a strategic security priority, not just a police problem,” Mušić told Nezavisne Novine.
Time to tighten up the legal regulations
Sociologist Vladimir Vasić says that we are a post-conflict community, which after the war did not have a systematic response to the possession of illegal weapons.
“If we take into account the fact that we have an increased number of crimes that are committed with the use of firearms, I think it is high time to tighten the legal regulations related to this segment. I think that this is first of all a security risk and a danger for the community in general,” says Vasić.
According to him, these figures speak volumes about the extent to which society does not have adequate answers to such great challenges.
“It is also one of the indicators that perhaps individuals do not even believe enough in the functionality of institutions, in the sense that someone protects their integrity and property. Certainly, these data are devastating for the society we live in. I have called on the authorities several times so far to take action to confiscate illegal weapons and to tighten the legal measures, but obviously there is no hearing for that,” Vasić emphasized in a statement to Nezavisne Novine.
