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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: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 24 2019, @02:17AM (7 children)
Oh, yes, please do explain what it is I am really asking. No, really. Please proceed.
Mean? Perhaps not. Patronizing? Yes, definitely. I think I understand well enough, thank you very much.
Extremely regulated? The National Shooting Sports Foundation has estimated that approximately 5 million to 10 million AR-15 style rifles exist in the U.S. within the broader total of the 300 million firearms owned by Americans. [wikipedia.org] It doesn't look to me like the taxes or the paperwork are all that prohibitive to the average American if there are 5 to 10 million in circulation. And, considering that these weapons end up in the hands of deranged nut cases with alarming regularity, it doesn't look like you need all that much of a clean record to get access to one.
A nothing? A demon conjured by some propagandist? Sandy Hook, [wikipedia.org] San Bernardino, [wikipedia.org] Las Vegas 2017, [wikipedia.org] Sutherland Springs, [wikipedia.org] and Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School [wikipedia.org] don't look to me to be mere "propaganda". Unfortunately, these "conjured demons" look to me to be all too objectively real.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Friday May 24 2019, @02:38AM (5 children)
Ah, here we go.
This is how they've been frightening you. Torturing you, one might say, with these phantasms.
Again, "AR-15 Style Rifles" != Assault Rifles
They simply aren't! It's nonsense.
They're regular autoloaders in a standard form modeled on the military rifle (so they look mean! and so they can interchange mods, much of the time at least.) Exactly as I explained to you, even if you found it patronizing it's the truth. Those are no more assault rifles than my model airplane is a real warbird. You've literally been wound up to a point of existential panic, by these news organizations, over something that isn't even true.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 24 2019, @02:59AM (4 children)
Frankly, "AR-15 Style Rifles" versus "Assault Rifles" seems to me to be a distinction with very little difference. According to this wiki page, [wikipedia.org] the primary distinction between civilian semi-automatic rifles and military assault rifles is select fire. [wikipedia.org] But if you feel the need to "educate" me further, go right ahead; seeing the emptiness of your argument would be amusing if it were not so sad.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Friday May 24 2019, @03:20AM (3 children)
Yes, the difference is selective fire. The difference is an automatic weapon versus an autoloading weapon. This is a huge difference, an order of magnitude difference, and it's not coincidentally exactly the line between weapons designed for 'sporting' uses and for military ones.
So you don't think that's an important difference, even though that difference is *literally the definition* of the difference.
But you do think that it's horribly important that AR 15 style rifles look scary, right?
Even though they work almost exactly like an antique hunting rifle, aside from the bling, that's far more important than the actual definition of the words you've chosen to make your argument with.
Such a logical argument.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 24 2019, @03:56AM (2 children)
The difference is that with an "AR-15 Style Rifle" for civilian use you are restricted to semi-automatic fire whereas with an "Assault Rifle" you have the option of burst mode or full automatic. While that is certainly good fodder for politicians to split hairs over it makes little difference when you find yourself on the business end of one of these weapons. You are making this out to be a much bigger deal than it is. You can drink the NRA's kool-aid if you want, but I'm not. And since you brought up the military, commanding officers really hate it when those under their command switch to full auto or burst mode; they (usually) consider it a waste of good ammunition.
I don't give a damn about how scary they look; that's a phantom inhabiting your own imagination. What I care about is what the rifles, whether they be <sarcasm>"AR 15 style rifles" or "assault rifles",</sarcasm> can actually do. And whether you have to pull the trigger once for each bullet or you can set to burst mode or full auto makes very little distinction in that calculation.
Misdirection is not going to help you any. Your "antique" bolt action hunting rifle is not a semi-automatic weapon. For someone who is trying to "educate" me, you aren't doing a very good job of it.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Friday May 24 2019, @10:46AM (1 child)
"Your "antique" bolt action hunting rifle is not a semi-automatic weapon."
I didn't say anything about bolt action and you know it.
The Remington Model 8 (on the market since 1905) is an antique, a hunting rifle no one confuses with an 'assault rifle' (because it doesn't look evil, having a wood stock instead of carbon fiber, which makes it a bit heavier to lug around) and it works just the same way.
"For someone who is trying to "educate" me, you aren't doing a very good job of it."
Casting pearls before swine, no doubt.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 27 2019, @06:51PM
Exactly. Take that same rifle, put on an adjustable polymer stock so the 6'2" guy and he 5'4" wife can both shoot it comfortably, a muzzle brake to help with recoil, and an extended mag so you can put more holes in the paper without reloading, and it's suddenly an illegal "assault weapon" (code for "scary looking gun").
And don't you dare put on a suppressor so you can use lighter hearing protection. What are you, a terrorist?
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 24 2019, @02:53AM
The taxes are for assault rifles. That means select fire OK? Full auto. Machine gun. While it has been illegal to make new assault rifles for the civilian market since 1986, it is still perfectly legal to own one that entered the market before that law went into effect (you'll probably need at minimum $10,000 and usually a lot more) providing you have the appropriate tax stamp which includes an intrusive background check and registration of the firearm in your name with the ATF. There are actually several types of devices regulated in that manner: https://www.atf.gov/firearms/qa/which-firearms-are-regulated-under-nfa [atf.gov]
An AR15 that you can go buy at a Cabellas is NOT an assault rifle because you cannot select "full auto" or "semi auto" with a switch mounted on the receiver. The one you by at Cabellas is semi auto only -- like a common double action revolver, it will fire once each time you pull the trigger but will not fire fully automatically.
This is one of the most informative movies on how firearms work that exists. It starts at zero -- just a pipe, a cartridge, a nail and a ball peen hammer and by the end, you will be familiar with the most common types of modern operation (well, bolt action and self-loading, and of self-loading, blowback, gas, and recoil operation, as well as SA trigger group, full auto trigger group, and select fire trigger group). If you want to see how semi automatic fire works, skip to 31:35, full auto: skip to 36:25, select fire at 38:30. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJzXG7MYX1c [youtube.com] (bonus, at 1:30 is an example of a "clip")