Man jailed for keeping box of late father's ammunition

A man was sentenced to one year in jail for unlawful ammunition possession after he kept a box of more than 400 bullets left by his late father, who used to be a soldier, prosecutors in Qingpu District said.

According to the Qingpu District People's Procuratorate, the man, surnamed Jiang, found a box of bullets in 2014 as he was tidying up the belongings of his father who had passed away. Jiang's sister knew that it was illegal to keep bullets and asked Jiang to hand them in to the relevant authorities.

However, Jiang rejected his sister's advice and wanted to keep the box as a memorial to his father. He believed that the bullets must be ineffective because of how old they were — he kept them in a corner of the flat he rented in Qingpu.

In September last year, Jiang had a dispute with his landlord and moved from the flat in a hurry —  he left the box in his room. The landlord later mistook the box as garbage and threw it away.

Soon after, Qingpu police received a report from a garbage collector who found the box when sorting the garbage in the community. After a test, the bullets, 85 military and 325 non-military, were all found to be live.

Under Chinese law, one should be given a criminal penalty if he or she illegally owns more than 20 military bullets, 1,000 pellets for air guns or 200 non-military bullets.