Meaning of this street sign

Question

A couple of years ago, a few friends and myself went on a trip from the UK to Bremen. A great time was had by all, even though none of us speak much German, beyond a few words learned many years before in school.

Walking around Bremen, we encountered this street sign - I'm sure it was near the Werder Bremen football stadium.

We've talked about this several times since - in our ignorant English-only minds, it appears to say

No shooting

No use of baseball bats

No stabbing

• only between the hours of 8pm and 8am

... and therefore it's fine to use them at any other time!

Can someone put us out of our misery and tell us what the sign really means? I'll be disappointed to learn that random violence isn't permitted in Bremen during daylight hours :)

Answer 1

The sign is displaying a warning about Bremen's so-called „Waffenverbotszone“ / "weapon prohibition zone". In 2008, the Bremen municipality decided to define a particular zone surrounding the so-called „Disko-Meile“. There, it is prohibited even to carry certain objects at night that are potentially dangerous, even when they aren't prohibited by the federal weapons law („Waffengesetz“).

The background to this is that in the area covered by that zone, many crimes were previously committed using objects like knives that are ordinarily allowed to be carried without breaking the weapons law.

The „Verordnung über das Verbot des Führens von Waffen“ ("ordinance on the prohibition against the carrying of weapons") covers a wide range of objects that are potentially dangerous, including pocket knives and weighted-knuckle gloves.

The Bremen municipality has published a leaflet concerning the „Waffenverbotszone“ (PDF, in German). Here's another article (Press Release of the Bremen municipality, in German) concerning that zone.