It depends on the street, yes.
It is not a real law, it is an order by the local county, called
"OrdnungsbehĂśrdliche Verordnung zur Aufrechterhaltung der Ăśffentlichen Sicherheit und Ordnung"
Notice how order is there three times! The translation is way less fun:
"Regulatory ordinance for the maintenance of public safety and order"
I needed it once, as I was doing archery in the forest, and someone came and said it was not allowed there, got some trouble with the police, but in the end, I was the winner. Because a Bow is not considered as a Weapon in Germany, because it is not a firearm. Because a firearm shoots a projectile through a barrel and uses ammunition with a blowing set. The law about (waffengesetz) also sais that a bow isn´t a weapon which is similar to a firearm, which would be a crossbow for example, because in a crossbow, you can safe the kinetic energy without muscular power, and you can´t do this with a bow. For this reason, a bow isn´t a weapon in germany.
So when I want to go shot a bow in the forest, I was looking up three more laws which could say âno!â
- Hunting law: You need to have a hunting licence to go for a hunt, but hunting means go for a hunt for animals. I wasn´t doing that, so the hunting law can´t prohibit me to go and shot my bow.
- The Forest law: This law sais I can go into the forest for relaxation and it sais nothing about archery at all.
- the local law of the city, the "Regulatory ordinance for the maintenance of public safety and order"
Yepp⌠nothing about archery there⌠fine.
BUT! i would not be allowed to do this in cologne, they have a rule that you are not allowed to use âthrowing and centrifugal devicesâ on public grounds.
In the area of the city of Cologne you are not allowed to play with a ball or a frisbee on public ground.
Nobody will lock you up, but techically, they could give you a warning and you would have to pay a fine for throwing a ball in a park. Maybe⌠but maybe a ball isn´t a device but an object. I don´t know. A bow shooting arrows definetely is a device! So I don´t go to shoot my arrows there.