Indians For Guns

Switzeland 'rejects tighter gun controls'

Swiss voters have rejected proposed tighter controls on gun ownership, exit polls and partial results suggest.

If confirmed, it means that the voters decided during the referendum to retain the current system, which allows army-issued weapons to be kept at home.

Supporters of the tighter controls want to have weapons kept in armouries and demand stricter check on gun owners.

Opponents say the move would undermine trust in the army. The final result of the vote is expected soon.

Exit polls indicate that about 57% of the Swiss voters rejected the proposal in Sunday's vote, while 43% backed it.

Five out 26 cantons are reported to have voted against, according to early results.

But Geneva and Basel both bucked the trend by approving it, according to the Swissinfo website.

For the proposal to be passed, it requires the support of the majority of Swiss citizens and the cantons.

There are an estimated two to three million guns circulating in Switzerland, but no-one knows the exact number because there is no national firearms register, says the BBC's Imogen Foulkes in Geneva.

In addition to the semi-automatic assault rifle that all those serving in the army store at home, there are thousands of hunting rifles and pistols.

Serving and former soldiers have been allowed to keep their weapons at home since World War II.
National institution

The proposal to end that custom is backed by a coalition of doctors, women's groups and police associations.
Continue reading the main story
“Start Quote

If the "Yes" goes through, it really risks destroying the country”

End Quote Xavier Schwitzguebel Swiss army officer

Although Switzerland's overall crime rate is low by European standards, the country has the highest rate of gun suicide in Europe.

The proposal's backers say keeping soldiers' firearms locked up in armouries would reduce the suicide rate.

A number of high-profile killings in recent years - such as the shooting of ski star Corinne Rey-Bellet by her estranged husband in 2006 - have also lent support for greater gun control.

But the Swiss army is a national institution, and changing anything about it is controversial, says our correspondent.

Opponents of the proposals say taking soldiers' guns away would undermine the military and could open the door to abolishing Switzerland's citizen army all together.

"If the "Yes" goes through, it really risks destroying the country," Xavier Schwitzguebel, an army reservist officer, was earlier quoted as saying by the AFP news agency.

"If we take away the weapon, which represents this trust, that means that we are breaking the sacred union between democracy and citizen."

More on it here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-12441834

Hmmmm...Everywhere but India, sometimes I wonder why articles like this remain hidden in newspapers whereas reports of a simple butter knife are cast as lethal, deadly and as WMD's appear on the front page

switzerland has some great gun laws for a gun lover ,for us maybe the supreme court if they get their eyes on the issue might be of help.

Swiss voters have rejected a proposal to tighten the country’s liberal firearms laws.
Early results from a referendum Sunday show at least 14 of the Alpine nation’s 26 cantons (states) voting against proposals to ban army rifles from homes and impose new requirements for buying firearms.
Popular referenda in Switzerland require a majority of votes in a majority of cantons to pass.
A coalition of non-governmental groups, religious organizations and center-left parties backed the measure as a way to reduce domestic violence and suicide by firearms.
But the government argued existing laws were sufficient to prevent the misuse of more than 2 million mostly military weapons in a country of 7.8 million residents.
Members of Switzerland’s militia are allowed to keep their military weapons at home, so they can mobilize quickly in response to any threat.

http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/Home/Archiv ... d=29484482



Voters have thrown out a controversial initiative on restricting access to firearms in a nationwide ballot on Sunday.
Near-final results showed 57 per cent of votes had been cast against the initiative which sought to ban army-issue guns from the home.

A majority of cantons voted against the initiative. Support came from several, mainly urban regions including Geneva, Basel and Zurich. Opposition was strongest in rural areas in eastern and central Switzerland as well as in the southern Italian-speaking canton of Ticino.

The result is a blow for supporters - a broad coalition of NGOs, trade unions, churches, pacifists and centre-left parties.

But Alliance F, a leading women's organisation behind the vote, said progress had been made and the campaign had sensitised society to the gun control issue.

The "no" committee and Swiss army officers society welcomed the clear failure of the initiative saying the people would not allow themselves to be disarmed. It was a clear vote for the army and protection, they said.

Gun violence
Launched four years ago, the initiative sought to introduce stricter rules for gun possession, notably a nationwide database and a more comprehensive licensing system.

It hoped to reduce the number of suicides and incidents of domestic violence.

Parliament and the gun lobby opposed the proposal, arguing tighter laws would undermine trusted Swiss values and cherished traditions, in particular the militia army.

The government said current laws were sufficient to protect against misuse.

Early opinion polls in January showed the anti-gun initiative enjoying widespread support, but the 13 per cent margin dwindled to just two per cent in the space of three weeks.

The nationwide ballot – the first this year - was preceded by a relatively short but intense campaign by both sides.

Attention-grabbing posters, heated public debates, spats over controversial statistics and a flood of readers’ letters in newspapers were evidence of strong emotions in the run-up to the vote.

Morven McLean, swissinfo.ch
(With input from Urs Geiser)

Hooray - another shot in the arm for the Right to Bear Arms!


Swiss stick to their guns in weapons vote
By Tony Paterson
Monday, 14 February 2011

A pro-gun campaign poster in Switzerland reads 'Weapons Monopoly for Criminals?'

Switzerland upheld its reputation for having one of the most liberal yet lethal firearms laws in Europe yesterday after voters overwhelmingly rejected proposals that would have obliged some two million gun owners in the country to keep their weapons in public arsenals rather than at home.

Official results from a national referendum on gun control showed that more than half of Switzerland's 26 cantons voted against an initiative which aimed to ban army rifles from households in an attempt to reduce domestic shootings and a record number of suicides involving firearms.

Swiss soldiers have been encouraged to keep their rifles at home after leaving the forces under a national defence policy introduced during the Second World War. The practice is seen as a symbol of the trust the state invests in the Alpine country's largely conscript army.

Yesterday Switzerland's conservative politicians welcomed the outcome, saying it demonstrated the nation's reluctance to end a practice that upheld the traditions of its folk hero, William Tell. "This is an important sign of confidence in our soldiers," said Pius Segmüller, a Christian Democrat MP and a former member of the Swiss Vatican Guard.

A gun ban was strongly opposed by the populist, right-wing Swiss People's Party, which organised a referendum last year banning minaret building at mosques. Shooting club owners had complained that the law would have destroyed many of the country's 3,000 gun clubs, which function as key social centres in hundreds of villages.

The result amounted to a serious blow to Switzerland's nascent gun control lobby. It had banked on a high turnout by women voters to get its initiative approved. But results showed that only the cities of Basel and Geneva and a few French-speaking cantons bucked the national trend.

Social Democrat and Green women MPs said that they were disappointed by the low turnout among women. "Women in Switzerland have only had the vote for the past 40 years, but they aren't getting involved in politics even when it concerns them," complained Martine Brunschwig-Graf, a Social Democrat politician.

The gun control lobby, which includes doctors, churches and suicide prevention groups, launched their "weapons initiative" campaign four years ago in an attempt to make it illegal for ex-soldiers and reservists to keep guns at home. Their aim was to ensure that the weapons were kept in arsenals and retrievable only for training or in case of war.

Switzerland has the highest rate of gun suicide in Europe, with around 300 self-inflicted deaths each year involving a firearm. There have also been a number of high-profile killings. Swiss skiing star Corinne Rey-Bellet was shot dead by her estranged husband in 2006. One mass shooting involved a commercial version of the Swiss army's SG 550 semi-automatic assault rifle.

There is no national firearms register in Switzerland. However unofficial estimates suggest there are between 2 million and 3 million guns kept in Swiss households.

Gun-control campaigners had argued that a ban on guns in the home would lead to a dramatic reduction in gun suicides and in the number of guns being used in domestic disputes. "If you make guns less accessible, then there will be fewer suicides involving guns, it is as simple as that," said Elsa Kurz, spokeswoman for Switzerland's Stop Suicide campaign.

The government banned gun owners from keeping live ammunition at home in 2008. In the run up to the vote it argued that in a country with a population of eight million, existing laws were sufficient to ensure that military weapons were not misused.

Source: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... 13880.html

A pro-gun campaign poster in Switzerland reads 'Weapons Monopoly for Criminals?'

It is a fact which Swiss people have recognized.

a broad coalition of NGOs, trade unions, churches, pacifists and centre-left parties.

These ignorant are the real nuisance and indirect helpers of criminals.

Early opinion polls in January showed the anti-gun initiative enjoying widespread support, but the 13 per cent margin dwindled to just two per cent in the space of three weeks.

This clearly shows how these antis manage fabricate these opinion "polls".

true about the antis fabrication, although here i havent seen any political party go for gun rights.

just out of curiosity have had any of these anti gun jokers on IFG anytime.

This is the older article look at what it has to say:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-12414841

More on the anti gun side if you agree

And look at some of the comments on this one : http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/haveyoursay/ ... s_gun.html

i saw some of the comments on these links some are good,some are crap.

there are people here too who agree to those comments i will give you two egs:

1) sabina lall sister of late jessica lall who said no guns for civilians at all ,i can understand her tragic loss but you dont decide arms acts on emotions.

2) a friend who is a major in the special forces who said good that we have tight gun laws,he said do you know what damage a 7.65 round can cause.I could understand a policeman saying this but it proved armymen have the same thinking for civilian gun laws as other govt. officers.

i do respect the likes of shri naveen jindal,digvijay singh who say that our arms acts need to be amended,i can understand china's take they are a communist govt same for japan,UK they are not complete democracy's due monarchy system but we who take pride in "we are the largest democracy" shoving off amongst the basic rights of defence of arming ourselves is dissapointing, but what is worse is law is different for different people -dhoni got a PB license in 3 months flat i wont be surprised if he has a 9mm glock with him which he might have bought on some trip/tour of his,same for the babus and politicos who buy the seized imported weapons from gangsters,illegals etc. where does equality of law figure here.

funnier is that an attack like 26/11 lead to the proving of grave and imminent threat as mandatory for a permit is obnoxious ,it was a terrorist attack how does tightening an already very tight law help in reducing such attacks.

@ MODS - thank you very much for merging the threads, gentlemen. I wasn't aware I was putting up a duplicate post - my apologies.