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: 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")