Shotguns are legal in war. No treaty prohibits them, and armed forces have carried them into every major conflict since World War I without violating international humanitarian law. The confusion usually traces to the Hague Conventions and their ban on weapons that cause “unnecessary suffering,” but that principle has never been successfully applied to the shotgun itself. What can create a legal problem is the ammunition loaded into the weapon, not the weapon.
What International Law Actually Prohibits
The rule people reach for when they assume shotguns are banned comes from Article 23(e) of the 1907 Hague Regulations, which forbids combatants from employing “arms, projectiles, or material of a nature to cause superfluous injury.” The principle goes back further, to the 1868 St. Petersburg Declaration, which held that the only legitimate purpose of war is weakening enemy military forces and that weapons uselessly aggravating suffering are contrary to the laws of humanity.1Yale Law School Avalon Project. Laws of War – Declaration of St. Petersburg, November 29, 1868 The International Committee of the Red Cross restates the same idea in customary international humanitarian law as Rule 70, applying it to both international and non-international armed conflicts.2ICRC. Annex: List of Customary Rules of International Humanitarian Law
The prohibition targets weapons engineered to inflict harm beyond what is needed to put a combatant out of action. A weapon that incapacitates without inflicting gratuitous damage beyond that goal passes the test. A standard military shotgun firing buckshot does not clear the threshold for a ban: buckshot pellets create wounds comparable to those from rifle bullets or pistol rounds, both universally accepted. The pellets do not fragment in ways designed to resist medical treatment, and they carry no chemicals or mechanisms intended to aggravate injury.
International humanitarian law also requires that weapons be capable of being directed at specific military objectives and that their effects can be controlled.3Legal Information Institute. International Humanitarian Law A shotgun’s spread is sometimes raised as a concern, but at typical combat engagement distances of 50 yards or less, buckshot patterns stay tight enough to discriminate between targets. The weapon is used in the close-range roles it was designed for, and inside those bounds it satisfies the distinction principle.
The 1918 German Protest That Settled the Question
The strongest evidence that shotguns are legal in warfare is the single serious attempt to have them declared otherwise, and how it ended. On September 15, 1918, the German government filed a formal diplomatic protest against the American military’s use of pump-action shotguns in the trenches of the Western Front. Germany invoked Article 23(e) and argued that shotguns caused excessive injury. The protest carried a threat: any prisoner captured with a shotgun or shotgun ammunition would be executed.4Committee on Public Information. U.S. to Retain Shotgun as Weapon in Warfare Defying German Threat to Institute Reprisals
Secretary of State Robert Lansing delivered the American reply. The Hague Convention’s prohibition on weapons causing unnecessary suffering, he wrote, “does not in its opinion forbid the use of this kind of weapon.” The United States rested its position on three grounds: the long history of the shotgun as a weapon of warfare, the well-known effects of its present use, and a direct comparison with other weapons already accepted for combat. The response concluded that the shotgun would not be abandoned and warned that if Germany carried out its threat to execute prisoners, the United States would “make such reprisals as will best protect the American forces.”4Committee on Public Information. U.S. to Retain Shotgun as Weapon in Warfare Defying German Threat to Institute Reprisals
Germany dropped the issue. No international body picked it up, no treaty followed, and no subsequent Hague or Geneva instrument added shotguns to any list of prohibited weapons. That exchange is the closest thing there is to a definitive international ruling, and it went the other way.
Ammunition That Can Cross the Legal Line
The live legal question for anyone using a shotgun in armed conflict is what goes in the chamber. Certain rounds do run into treaty restrictions.
Expanding Slugs
The 1899 Hague Declaration concerning expanding bullets commits signatory nations to “abstain from the use of bullets which expand or flatten easily in the human body, such as bullets with a hard envelope which does not entirely cover the core or is pierced with incisions.”5IHL Databases. Hague Declaration (IV,3) Concerning Expanding Bullets, 1899 The ICRC treats this as customary international humanitarian law under Rule 77, binding in both international and non-international armed conflicts.2ICRC. Annex: List of Customary Rules of International Humanitarian Law A hollow-point shotgun slug engineered to mushroom on impact could fall inside this prohibition. Standard lead buckshot pellets do not, because they lack the engineered expansion mechanism the declaration targets; deforming on impact the way any soft lead projectile does is not the same as being designed to expand.
Incendiary Rounds
Incendiary shotgun shells such as Dragon’s Breath rounds fall under Protocol III of the 1980 Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons, which restricts weapons “primarily designed to set fire to objects or to cause burn injury to persons through the action of flame, heat, or combination thereof.”6IHL Databases. Protocol on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Incendiary Weapons (Protocol III) – Article 1 – Definitions Standard ammunition with only incidental heat or flash effects, such as tracer rounds, is not covered; the protocol explicitly excludes munitions with “incidental incendiary effects.”
Flechettes
Flechette rounds fire dozens of small steel darts instead of round pellets. The 1980 Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons did not include them in any specific protocol despite concerns raised during the 1970s, and their legality is assessed under the general principles of distinction and unnecessary suffering rather than a categorical ban. The 2009 Goldstone Report concluded that flechettes are “an area weapon incapable of discriminating between objectives after detonation” and found them “particularly unsuitable for use in urban settings where there is reason to believe civilians may be present.”
How Modern Militaries Use Shotguns Lawfully
Contemporary armed forces treat the shotgun as a specialized tool, and the roles it fills fit comfortably inside international humanitarian law.
In close-quarters battle, the shotgun’s ability to deliver a heavy payload at room distances gives it an edge for building clearance and ship boarding. A single trigger pull sends multiple projectiles into a tight cone at ranges where discrimination between targets is achievable. Special operations units keep shotguns in their armories for these scenarios. The U.S. Marine Corps adopted the M1014, a semi-automatic 12-gauge based on the Benelli M4 platform, and the Mossberg 590A1 serves across multiple branches.
Breaching is probably the most common modern military use. Frangible breaching rounds use a slug of compressed metallic powder that disintegrates into fine dust on impact with a hard surface, letting a breacher blow hinges and locks without endangering people on the other side of the door. High-speed camera testing found debris passing through a breached door traveled only 20 to 30 feet per second, far safer than conventional slugs or buckshot.
Shotguns also serve as delivery platforms for less-lethal munitions. Bean bag rounds, rubber pellets, and polymer rounds that flatten on impact can be fired from a standard 12-gauge in scenarios like checkpoint control, crowd management, or subduing an individual when the rules of engagement call for graduated force.7JMVH: Journal of Military and Veterans’ Health. Less Lethal Projectiles – An Investigation Less-lethal is not non-lethal: these rounds can still cause serious injury or death at close range or with a head strike, which is why training protocols emphasize center-mass targeting of the torso and lower extremities.
The Bottom Line
The legal status of shotguns in warfare has been settled for more than a century. The weapon itself is lawful. The ammunition loaded into it, and the way it is used, determines whether any specific engagement complies with international humanitarian law, exactly as with any other weapon system. A soldier who follows the rules of engagement, uses appropriate ammunition, and employs the shotgun within its effective range for legitimate military purposes faces no legal exposure for choosing a shotgun over a rifle.