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Swiss voters on Sunday approved a measure to tighten the Alpine nation's gun laws, bringing the country in line with many of its European partners despite the objections of local gun owners, Swiss media reported, citing official results.
Switzerland's public broadcaster said more than 63% of voters nationwide agreed to align with European Union firearms rules adopted two years ago after deadly attacks in France, Belgium, Germany and Britain.
The vote Sunday was part of Switzerland's regular referendums that give citizens a direct say in policymaking. It had stoked passions in a country with long, proud traditions of gun ownership and sport and target shooting. Switzerland, unlike many other European nations, allows veterans of its obligatory military service for men to take home their service weapons after tours of duty.
The Swiss proposal, among other things, requires regular training on the use of firearms, special waivers to own some semi-automatic weapons and serial number tracking system for key parts of some guns. Gun owners would have to register any weapons not already registered within three years, and keep a registry of their gun collections.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Arik on Friday May 24 2019, @01:34AM
If you want to talk about what gun policy has been created around historically, well you're talking about taking a tour of the proverbial sausage factory.
I'm not going to even attempt anything like a comprehensive treatment in this reply, but I'll boil it down to the three largest factors, while not admitting but warning that there are lots of others if you want to do a thorough treatment.
1. The militia concept. Many of the founders were firmly opposed to having a standing army of any size or shape whatsoever. Even those that were in favor of one envisioned it as a professional core which would 'stiffen' the militia in time of trouble. The militia is every able bodied free man in the jurisdiction, and they're all expected to report carrying their own weapon and ammunition in case of emergency.
And before you poo-poo that as an outmoded concept, consider that as recently as WWII a large and very professional army, the Dai-Nippon Teikoku Rikugun or Imperial Japanese Army, did a thorough study and concluded that invading the US mainland was suicidal specifically because of the armed citizenry which they believed would render occupation absurdly expensive and ultimate unsustainable. Even an invasion which was initially successful and managed to destroy the organized army and air force would ultimately have ended in the destruction of the Empire, in their professional estimation.
And since then, how many times have we seen lightly armed guerillas do just that, hmm?
2. Self defense. It's a fundamental notion of any liberal society that everyone deserves to be defended, and in extremis everyone deserves to be allowed to prepare for that. And don't tell me to carry pepper spray when the gangs have AK-47s.
This is second to the militia, but it goes way back.
So there's two, but I promised three, remember?
Those two work in favor of human rights. The third works against it.
3. Racism. Specifically, the worry that the lesser folk are arming themselves. This is the origin of virtually every piece of gun control legislation in US history, going all the way back to the laws prohibiting FMOCs (POCs in todays politically correct language) from owning weapons at all, to later laws outlawing first the least expensive weapons (so-called "Saturday Night Special" laws which prohibited inexpensive weapons favored by minorities.)
Go on man, think for yourself for a moment and quit being a tool.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?