This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
Firearms regulation in Switzerland article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
Article policies
|
Find sources: Google ( books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL |
The
contentious topics procedure applies to this page. This page is related to governmental regulation of firearm ownership; the social, historical and political context of such regulation; and the people and organizations associated with these issues, which has been
designated as a contentious topic. Editors who repeatedly or seriously fail to adhere to the purpose of Wikipedia, any expected standards of behaviour, or any normal editorial process may be blocked or restricted by an administrator. Editors are advised to familiarise themselves with the contentious topics procedures before editing this page. |
This article is rated C-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
... period of service in the Auszug (the active-duty field army), after.... What the hell is "Auszug"??? I'm a Swiss and I've been in the Army, but I've never ever heard of this word in context with the army. Can anyone give proof that this word is used properly here?
And advocates of
victim disarmament persist in efforts to attribute the relative dearth of firearms-related crime in Switzerland to laws and regulations when in fact it is the cultural and individual attitude toward weapons (and their role in the preservation of Swiss independence as a nation and Swiss citizens' rights as individuals) that is the true controlling factor.
Between universal military service (including decades of personal obligation to the militia following initial training and active duty) and direct voter control of civil government via frequent referenda, the Swiss are continuously reminded that the source of sovereignity in their democracy is the individual citizen, and they do not fear that citizen being armed and capable. The fact that Swiss society is a gun culture is merely a consequence of historical and social factors that have long fostered a prevailing sense of civic authority and personal responsibility that has become part of the Swiss national character.
The hoplophobe, by contrast, has no such trust in the moral or civic validity of the individual citizen, and persists in an unreasoned terror of firearms in the hands of anyone other than an officer of government. This fear is such that the victim disarmament fanatic is not only willing but eager to do away with democracy and the principles of government limited by law in order to secure an illusory "social peace."
Interesting choices of pompous capitalization ("Duty" and "State" and "People" and "Powers"), don't you think? And if "having a weapon is a Duty, an annoying one at that," what accounts for the high rates of private ownership - at each individual's own cost and upon such an individual's own voluntary election - of military battle rifles, modified assault rifles, service pistols, and semi-automatic carbines in Switzerland? These are not sporting firearms (such as shotguns or hunting rifles), and yet their owners take pains to acquire them and to maintain proficiency in their use (which last effectively defines a member of a gun culture).
And where have I drawn a similarity between the American situation and circumstances prevailing in Switzerland? Except for the fact that human nature is a universal constant, there need be no presumption of deliberate correspondence between civil society in the Confœderatio Helvetica and that which predominates in these United States of America.
Admittedly, the American Founding Fathers purposefully drew upon the Swiss experience when drawing up the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and the U.S. Constitution, and the Swiss relied heavily upon the U.S. Constitution when undertaking revision of their own federal constitution in 1891, but it would be a mistake to conclude that the circumstances coloring the histories of these two nations are in any way identical. Austrians and Burgundians coming across the borders to murder, rape, and loot are not Mohawk and Abenaki tribesmen coming across the frontier to murder, rape, and loot.
With regard to a Swiss citizen's use of a firearm in self-defense, please provide references proving that such utilization in extremis is prosecuted in the Swiss cantons so vigorously and so harshly as to effectively foreclose all exercise of such an option. The " social contract" is not a suicide pact.
As for the Swiss federal constitution, initially adopted in 1848 following the Sonderbundskrieg and subsequently revised to keep the government of the Confederation under the control of direct democracy, you would do well yourself to review this charter. [2] Your statements thus far cast into grave doubt your appreciation of Swiss history and law - not to mention human nature itself.
Addressing the arguments of contending commentators - as opposed to succumbing to the fallacy of argumentum ad hominem - can only be considered "making personal attacks" by someone unfamiliar with the principles and practices of debate.
As for your perception of racism on my part, I hope you will join me in lamenting the fact that it is currently politically popular in many circles to obliterate the memory of certain historical conflicts, particularly with regard to those in which Native Americans fought against European settlers and the governments of nations in North and South America. Would you consider it similarly "racist" if I were to discuss just as egregiously vicious struggles between other ethnic groups and conquering nation-states, such as the Zaporozhie Cossacks' wars with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the 17th Century? How about the Ottoman Empire's conquest (and religious subjugation) of the Balkans and their recurring assaults upon Vienna?
Political correctness is properly viewed as a form of self-inflicted psychological wounding. Is it inappropriate to say so? Or do you consider it "tendentious" or "ill-informed" simply to offer a point of view contrary to your own personal prejudices? Pertinent to your risible ad hominem effort to condemn as monomania my focus upon the subject presently at hand (hardly a "constructive" notion, I should think), do you please consider your own fixations herewith demonstrated. Were you not acting upon baseless bigotries, you would not so casually and sloppily speak of my writings as "racist" or "ill-informed" without adequate proof of your accusations.
If I am "ill-informed," by all means inform me. If it is "racist" to speak of the bloody raids and the battles between Native Americans and European settlers that occurred up and down the Mohawk Valley in the 18th Century, by all means provide logical proof thereof. I'm perfectly willing to do you such a service. Reciprocity would merely serve as a manifest of your willingness to participate in civil discourse. Much obliged.
I have moved the debate on the chambering of the SIG SG550, adopted by the CH as Gw.90, here. The argument is unnecessary: 5.6x45mm, currently Swiss GP90, is the same cartridge case as 5.56 x 45 mm NATO. It was adopted under the name 5.6x45mm for political reasons; namely, that Switzerland did not want to appear to be adopting a NATO standard caliber in the 1980s. 208.40.64.2 15:21, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
I take note of the article's revision to restore much of the previous erroneous content (including the gormless notion that the
SIG 550
assault rifle is chambered in 5.6 mm rather than 5.56 mm, said error having been freely admitted by
CyrilleDunant above). Such censorship is a stark and wonderfully clear manifest of the moral and intellectual bankruptcy behind
gun control, isn't it? When factual
reality gets in your way, by all means obliterate every thought of factual reality.
Quod erat demonstrandum.
Regarding the physical characteristics of the SIG 550, please see the manufacturer's branded Web site. [5] Regarding the Gw Pat 90 round, please see that manufacturer's branded Web site. [6] By Rama's lights, of course, this note is a "rant."
Regarding the moral and intellectual bankruptcy implicit in gun control and repeatedly demonstrated by its advocates, there is the observation that simple ignorance is always perfectly excusible (and is eminently remediable; one simply has to seek reliable verification of the facts pertinent to any particular matter). People who repeatedly deny readily verifiable factual information, however (absent the demonstration of diagnostic criteria reliably congruent with the diagnosis of a psychotic condition), are simply lying.
On the basis of repeated examination of gun control literature (including the self-admittedly flawed publications authored by Kellerman et al in The New England Journal of Medicine and in J Trauma as well as the utterances of such gun control advocates as Bellesiles on the subject), I have yet to be presented with reliably supported evidence-based assertions that justify government interference with the individual right to acquire, maintain, and carry firearms as effective means whereby one may exercise that right to self-defense which is an inescapable corollary to the right to life itself. To say the least, I would expect persuasive fact-based assertions on such a pervasive public policy issue at least as robust and thorough as those supporting an antiretroviral regimen or a surgical technique. Regrettably, there appears to be nothing underlying the gun control argument other than ill-informed wishful thinking fumbling in search of something that can masquerade in lieu of fact.
If I come to the subject with a natural and entirely explainable tendency to view the "default state" - i.e., that it is not only personally but politically desirable that the private citizen be held involate in the exercise of his/her right to keep and bear arms - it is simply that the burden of proof regarding the efficacy (indeed, the viability) of victim disarmament is entirely upon the shoulders of those advancing this radically new and historically hazardous proposition.
And in this forum, thus far, none of those voicing opinions in contention with my own have even made a serious attempt to provide support on that central point. In this light (and with the intent "to improve the article Gun politics in Switzerland on Wikipedia"), would it not appropriate for those insisting upon censorship to publish at the head of this Web page a notification to the effect that the neutrality of this article is disputed?
Indeed, the factuality of at least one the assertions upon which you insist is most certainly - as I have demonstrated here - such that neither of you appear to know as much as I do about firearms. And my principal proximal experience with such weapons is almost exclusively confined to the assessment and emergency management of gunshot wounds. You don't make a very credible showing.
With regard to the Gw Pat.90, you're citing an RUAG press release while I have previously cited (via the company's online index [9] page) the actual Web site describing the specific product. [10] The manufacturer's English-language product brochures on their "P" ammunition line [11] and their .223 Rem ordnance ammunition [12] are immediately available to you in PDF. Congratulations. You've caught the RUAG public relations department in a factual error.
You might be interested to know that RUAG has done a substantial update of their Web site (available here [13], whence you can find both English [14] and German [15] language Web pages describing the GP90 ammunition produced for the Swiss military.
It's 5.56 mm (or .223 Remington), not 5.6 mm. If you were a "shooter" (or actually knew anything about which end of the weapon whence the pointy end of the bullet exits), you'd know that a cartridge containing a slug of 5.6 mm in diameter cannot be fed into a firearm chambered to accept 5.56 mm x 45 mm cartridges, and you might pursue factual verification far more vigorously (and with far less stubborn blindness) than you persist in demonstrating.
Pertinent to your other reference, [16], you're citing a page from a private individual's Web site, [17] not the more reliably branded Internet promulgation of the manufacturer. [18]
Are you even familiar with the concept of branding as it pertains to online research? When I use the Web to cite an article from a medical journal, I make use of reliably branded Internet information sources, such as the National Library of Medicine's Medline service and/or the journal's own World Wide Web site to verify the content and citation data pertinent to that article. When dealing with the intellectual property of a specific manufacturer - such as Swiss Arms AG or RUAG - it is critically important to rely on the accurate citation of that manufacturer's own statements regarding their product or service. In this case, I've applied the same standard of caution and responsibility I would exercise in the citation of a pharmaceutical manufacturer's current product labeling in a particular government jurisdiction.
You, by contrast, demonstrate a lack of fastidiousness and intellectual rigor combined with precisely the sort of pig-headed refusal to seek (or acknowledge) objective verification in a point of argument that so consistently marks the advocate of gun control and other government policies breaching the exercise of individual rights. You do nothing whatsoever to shore up even the illusion of credibility upon which your position in this exchange relies.
Now that's a good idea (what was I saying a gazillon lines above ?) Rama 09:52, 12 September 2005 (UTC)
Geez, some pretty angry people here. Although I have never been able to get ahold of any 5.6 ammo, the bullet is most likely a simple .224 caliber projectile as seen in most small bores in that range. Why would Switzerland manufacture something else? I personally do not know if the actual cartridge case dimensions of 5.6 and 5.56 are identical, but, the argument that the "bullet won't fit down the bore" is ridiculous. I've been shoving .224s down .22-250s, .311s down .303s, .224s down .223s/5.56s, and keep in mind that .30-06 and .308 have an entirely interchangeable projectile, even if the designations would make you think otherwise. What do you think goes into a 218 bee, or .219 Zipper? Also, the 5.7X28 uses a .224, the 5.6 Savage high power uses a .224, and many older surplus rounds show large deviation in size- reportedly, much Pakistani .303 ammo can vary as much as .007 inches. .45s (Of many different types) can handle several sizes- I've used from .452 to .454. Very rarely, it seems, do the actual designations of the cartridge match up perfectly with the size of the bullet. I think it's pretty obvious that the 5.6 Swiss bullet, if not the case, is interchangeable with that of the 5.56. Also, I'll be pushing some nice .308 (7.62, mind you) bullets down the bore of a 7.5 Swiss before long, if my dies will show up sometime soon. None of my like minded friends have had any problem with such.
To anyone who waded through all this stuff some of it very accurate and some extreamly argumentative and technically clueless. An Army's military designations of it's own ammunition may not agree with civilian designations of the same cartridge. i.e. US designation of cartridges for older M-16, M-16A1 rifles was "Cartridge, Ball, 5.56 mm, M-193". Note that there is NO mention of the cartridge length in millimeters. That 5.56 x 45 stuff is for technical comparison and is very nice to have in a list, but doesn't denote actual commonly used designations -- military or civilian in every country. If the Swiss want to round off the designation to 5,6 mm who's to question that? Besides that, it's common in German speaking countries to round off some measurements to one decimal place. They aren't a member of NATO, nor the NATO military standards. It's not changing the actual dimensions of the cartridge, the weapon's chamber or bore.-- TGC55 08:29, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
There are several differing loadings of 5.56mm ammo. Over a dozen between various nations in fact from 55gr to 77gr. Ball to tracer to specialty AP and open-tipped match rounds. Swiss 5.6mm ammo meets SAMMI specifications for case length and diamter and projectile diameter (.224 inch in diameter). Several years ago, a large quantity of Swiss 5.6mm ammo was sold in the United States. Other than being a guilding metal plated steel jacket projectile instead of an all copper one, there was nothing unusual about the ammo compared to the plethora of other 5.56mm loadings. It was noted amongst shooters for its exceptional accuracy. The whole 5.56 vs 5.6 thing is nomenclature minutia. It's design falls entirely within the scope of various 5.56mm ammo loadings. The two are readily interchangable. It is the same caliber. 107.4.166.57 ( talk)
The introduction should be re-worked a little bit; it goes too quickly, too deep and too specifically into the subject of military weapons.
It think that the plethora of German words here and there should simply go. German is not the only language of Switzerland, and since I think it impractical to label all terms in German, French, Italian and Romanche, I would suggest simply dropping them, possibly linking from the English wording for terms like Landwehr. Rama 06:43, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
The accuracy of the intro could be improved in my opinion:
The section "army-related arms" mentions that Swiss conscripts stay in the Landwehr/Landsturm until 42 or 52. Now I am by no means an expert in the field, but nonetheless Swiss of military age, and this assertion strikes me as odd at the very least. I was under the impression that these reserve denominations were done with ages ago, and I have certainly never been told that I shall serve until 52! Does anyone have more information on this? JREL 20:58, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
There was a modification called Army 21, also there were some modifications to the law, i'm no expert either but some of the facts in the article are old and irrelevant by now.
The Terms Auszug, Landwehr and Landsturm were used in the Swiss Army till 1995, when the Army Organisation dating from 1961 was replaced with a TO from 1995 (called Armee 95). In the Model 61 army, Auszug were soldiers aged 18-32, Landerwehr aged aged 32-42 and Landsturm 43-52. There were both "pure" age class units and age mixed units, so the system is not easily to describe. And as noted, the used of any of these terms in a concurrent wiki article is inappropriate. -- Nik
Corrected spelling of word: 'issuance' (previously incorrectly shown as 'issueance')-- Dano1125
I have a hard time believing that switzerland is the only country in which it is legal to produce one's own black powder. First of all, using 'country' in this context is slightly problematic. 'State' would probably be better. Take Somalia a few years ago: lacking a government, or any apparatus of state, the country of Somalia was a place where it was not illegal to manufacture black powder. There were no laws. Perhaps the author meant Switzerland was the the only EU state to allow black powder manufacture? There should at least be a cite on this.
Gun "control", so to say, has been a much-discussed topic in Switzerland as of late. This past week the parliament approved of new regulations which "require" that army ammunition be stored at the barracks and not at home -- a major change from past policy. The law itself seems to be rather complex, but this was still treated in the Swiss media as a major alteration of the law.
I wasn't sure if this belonged in this entry or not. Here is a link to news stories in German from Zürich's two main newspapers (Tages Anzeiger and Neue Zürcher Zeitung). [ [23]] [ [24]] For those who cannot speak German, here is an English article from the NZZ. [ [25]] Ami in der Schweiz 17:54, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
Police statistics for the year 2006 records 34 killings or attempted killings involving firearms, ... Some 300 deaths per year are due to legally held army ordonnance weapons, the large majority of these being suicides.
I can't say that the 300 figure is wrong, but if true, it means that "large majority" is a gross understatement. If one includes suicides in "killings", then the figure is flat wrong, unless 2006 was a *very* abnormal year. Can anyone confirm the 300 deaths per year figure? -- 23:49, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
True, but suicides are always a misleading statistic. If someone was going to kill themselves, the way they did it shouldn't be used by anti-gun lobbies in stats. "Gun deaths" are different from "gun killings,"but people hear some 11,000 killed a year in some country by guns. They don't report on what percentage is suicide. That's the important part of the statistic. A person killing himself with a gun he owns and has registered is technically illegal (you can be arrested for attempted suicide,) but not a gun "killing" per say. I just want to make this article fair. Sometimes it takes one point of view to notice the other point of view's POV pushing. I want the "gun killings" statistic there, not the "gun deaths." I know how liberals use stats to con people in the anti-gun lobby. I saw "Bowling for Columbine" (forced to for school.) PokeHomsar ( talk) 07:01, 27 December 2008 (UTC)
Hello
I was interested to read about this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics_in_Switzerland
It included 'airsoft'as well. Can someone tell me in what way airsoft will be affected?
( 86.169.247.19 ( talk) 00:35, 6 June 2009 (UTC))
Airsoft guns are subject to gun laws and regulations due to high similarity to real guns (since Waffengesetz of 2008). Therefore they may not be carried nor used in public. Airsoft games must be organised in restricted area and police must be advised. The purchase is free to adults (18yo) (must provide a copy of their ID) except for a few nationalities (citizen of countries ongoing armed conflicts, so they can't buy a gun and send it to their relatives as it is in the US-Mexico). Schalabaladindong ( talk) 04:39, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
This article has a lot of outdated material. 75.236.238.77 ( talk) 15:40, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
Agreed. The first paragraph states that all soldiers are issued 50 rounds of ammo, and ref. 9 indicates that is no longer the case except for 2000 special forces. Unless someone posts an objection, I intend to correct this. John Comeau ( talk) 02:02, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
Not only unstable but a little biased--"The American style 'Gun Culture' is not in evidence in Switzerland" is one clear example — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.113.22.35 ( talk) 22:10, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
Some sort of editing/pre-processing? Might be distracting.. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Firing_range_HDR.jpg 88.159.72.240 ( talk) 18:09, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
It is stated in the article twice that according to Kopel that although legally the ammo bought at a range must be used at the range, "the rule is barely known and almost never obeyed." This is a bare assertion made in a magazine article from 1990. If this was and remains true a better citation should be used to provide the details of to what degree the rule on ammunition use at the range is followed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.140.32.239 ( talk) 15:25, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
Should the article maybe have a section for crime rate vs other countries? I've seen it mentioned on the web that "switzerland has the lowest crime rate in the world due to it's unique stance on gun control".
I couldn't get a grip on the truth of that position at all by reading the article. -- Meepdeedoo ( talk) 21:54, 5 December 2011 (UTC)
I deleted this picture:
The article correctly states: "the transport has to be direct". Doing errands while transporting your army rifle is illegal. Therefore the picture shouldn't be used in the article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by BenjaminKay ( talk • contribs) 11:38, 26 July 2012 (UTC)
The article discusses laws and regulations concerning firearm ownership, trading and use and abuse but doesn't even mention actual politics - does a significant anti-gun lobby even exist? It should be titled Firearm law in Switzerland or something similar but not include the deceptive term "politics". Roger ( talk) 08:57, 10 September 2012 (UTC)
Yes such a lobby exists:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_for_a_Switzerland_Without_an_Army
BenjaminKay (
talk) 11:15, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
The article is liberally sprinkled with German words giving an impression of expertise, but Switzerland has a multitude of languages and Swiss citizens (and recruits) not talking German neither use nor know these words. In addition to being gratuitous and possibly plain wrong, the affectation of using German words in the English-language article is insulting to them.
Given how the intention of the article can't help but being entangled with the debate on US gun control (see the rants below), one thing needs to be stressed further: to the overwhelming majority of army-incorporated Swiss citizens - who aren't volunteers but are drafted - the care of a firearm imposed on them outside the days of service is a nuisance rather that an asset. This of course contrasts with the case of purchased guns and makes the comparison/statistics quite misleading.
178.238.167.236 ( talk) 10:21, 16 December 2012 (UTC)
See: Bearing arms in Switzerland. Quote from that page:
Strict legislation in Switzerland has made it extremely difficult to obtain a license to bear arms, and the trend is moving towards even stricter laws. For information purposes only, 400 people had a license to bear arms in the canton of Geneva in 1998. Only eight "survivors" still have authorization today. Understandable when you realize how little violent crime there is in Switzerland. |
The following source indicates 10.3% of households in Switzerland possessed handguns in 2004 or 2005. Is there more recent info? The quote higher up seems to indicate that handgun ownership may be falling. The percentages in table 18 linked below are by household.
People also want reliable stats in order to compare household handgun stats by country with homicide rates by country. See chart to the right and List of countries by intentional homicide rate.
In 2011, 72% of the 8,583 homicides committed using firearms in the United States were committed using handguns. Source: Expanded Homicide Data Table 8 - Murder Victims by Weapon, 2007-2011. By the FBI ( U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation). -- Timeshifter ( talk) 08:41, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
I request this be removed as Switzerland does in fact have a free standing army. They do not rely on a national militia, that is a terrible rumor. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.78.181.159 ( talk) 04:10, 1 September 2013 (UTC)
I'm changing where it says "hunters do not need one [a gun permit] for buying typical hunting rifles" to read "hunters do not need one for buying typical bolt-action hunting rifles". Hunters still need a permit for semi-auto hunting rifles. Freddiefreelance ( talk) 21:16, 7 June 2014 (UTC)
moved from my talk page, since it more suitably placed here -- ZH8000 ( talk) 02:38, 23 June 2015 (UTC)
"I was considering leaving an
edit warring warning here, for your recent edits to
Gun politics in Switzerland. While I think you broke the
WP:3RR, I don't think that was your intention.
I added a
reliable source, as you requested, and slightly altered the wording of the info in question
[26] to comply with the source. I would encourage you to restore this info to the article, and take it to the
talk page if you wish to pursue removal (where I'd gladly discuss it with you). Since it was in the article, it should remain until
consensus is reached to remove it, as there is disagreement.
—
Godsy(
TALK
CONT) 23:00, 22 June 2015 (UTC)"
So, I found it very odd that someone edited the article to add the 75% gun homicide rate compared to overall homicide rate and decided to check the official website of the Swiss goverment.
I found this:
http://www.bfs.admin.ch/bfs/portal/de/index/themen/19/03/02/key/02/10.html
There you can download an excel document where the crime and gun crime from 2009 until 2014 is stated. If you downloaded it and check it out, you will notice that the rates are completely wrong.
The real rates are:
15 gun homicides out of 53 homicides. The 40 figure is including attempted gun homicide. So it's certainly not 75% of all homicides!
Also, why not update the statistic with the rates for 2014 since these are already included?
The rates for 2014 are as follow:
All this information is freely available in that link that I provided. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Zorthianator ( talk • contribs) 06:30, 18 August 2015 (UTC)
In the 'prohibited weapons' section of this entry there is a reference to 'Skidding with armrest'. This is pretty obscure — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.107.195.230 ( talk) 08:02, 14 September 2015 (UTC)
Hi, can you explain how removing stats from 2012, and replacing them with stats from 2001, constitutes 'removing outdated stats'? Thanks. Anastrophe ( talk) 18:22, 22 August 2016 (UTC)
moved from my personal talk page -- ZH8000 ( talk) 18:56, 22 August 2016 (UTC)
The Blick article is journalism, not a "reliable source". It is, however, surprisingly good journalism, the trick here is in reporting accurately what the journalist is saying. The article distinguishes perfectly well between statistics collected from authorities (i.e. the journalist did some actual research, collecting figures from the various cantonal register, which means their figure of "800,000 known privately registered firearms" is a quotable synthesis). They are also aware that the "800,000" figure, although "official", is compeltely useless, because cantons do not have a unified approach to registers. Some cantons have registers going back decades, while others only have records for the past couple of years. This means that there are reliable statistics on (legal) gun purchase but no remotely reliable statistics on gun ownership. The journalist (Meyer) is perfectly aware of this:
The article then goes on to quote the gun expert of the Social Democratic party, who comes up with the "2 million" estimate, which Meyer reasonably translates to "about 25%". This is not an estimate with a two-digit accuracy as suggested by the figure "25". It has single-digit accuracy "yeah, it's probably close to two million". This is a low ballpark estimate explicitly attributed to the political left. (which is actually surprising, because usually the left tends to go for high estimates in order to emphasize gun ownership is an endemic problem). This single-digit "about 2 million" estimate in no way supersedes the older (2005/7) estimates of "between 2.3 and 4.4 million". Nobody is saying "the number of guns declined from 3.4 to 2.0 million in the period 2005‐2014". The 2005/7 estimate is "about 2.3 to 4.4 million", and the 2014 estimate goes with the low figure and rounds it to two million, at best implying a slight decrease over the late 2000s to early 2010s. The lower estimate is explained by suggesting that other estimates have underestimated the number of old guns that have (a) been destroyed and (b) sold abroad.
Tl;dr, the Blick article is decent, but it's just a random journalistic offering from 2014, do not use it as a reliable source for anything. -- dab (𒁳) 11:34, 25 August 2016 (UTC)
I think that term is overused in this article, and I am not even sure if the German term "Milliz" could really be translated with the word "militia". In the anglo-saxon sphere, militia likely infers the brave soldiers under George Washington or other political leaders, when soldiers were quickly recruited, some of them with their own arms to serve. But that is not really how the Swiss Army works, they are drafted, and swear a code to the nation, and not to any sub-group. They obey orders from a centralistic type system and the Swiss Army also employs professional instructors. Maybe because (some) Swiss soldiers have their weapons at home, but in essence it's more a people's army (Volksarmee) than a militia. Again, there are no militia units there that would act on their own or something, and private gun ownership does not always overlap with military rank or position. Occasionally, these terms are taken up by political groups, mostly to the right, outside of Switzerland, and it makes it look like the Swiss are armed to be part of some vigilanti force, nothing is further from the truth ( Osterluzei ( talk) 21:50, 10 April 2017 (UTC))
Probably the new version is better on the new EU directive, however, limitations will also be placed, not only on blank firing magazines, but on all firearms that can be converted. So the term "firearm" has been expanded. Secondly, there will also be restrictions on the size of magazines, and some semi-automatic guns that load more than 20 bullet cartridges, in general. Also, there are still exemptions for historical arms etc. but more restrictions on Internet sales, that have not been mentioned. Furthermore, pro-gun groups in CH, as far as I know, threatened with a referendum, but no plans really. ( Osterluzei ( talk) 03:04, 24 April 2017 (UTC))
My edit was recently reverted, under the belief that I had not read the applicable laws. I had, but I and the reverter took into consideration different areas.
In my edit, I considered 514.54 art. 27 abs. 1, the French version of which reads:
To me, the wording "To carry a loaded firearm in public or outdoors" implies that it is perfectly legal in Switzerland to carry an unloaded gun on your hip wherever you wish, which is not the case according to the above section. There is nothing about the gun being loaded or unloaded, so I sought to correct it. But I grant that such correction does not take into account the law's allowances for regular transport of firearms, which I have incorporated into my newest edit. Pokajanje| Talk 07:06, 7 September 2017 (UTC)
The latest estimate by the SAS says there 47 guns per 100 people in Switzerland: http://www.smallarmssurvey.org/about-us/highlights/highlight-research-note-9-estimating-civilian-owned-firearms.html
The "25 guns per 100 people" estimate comes from Peter Hug of the SP political party (a known anti-gun party in Switzerland): https://www.blick.ch/news/schweiz/waffenkammer-schweiz-so-viele-waffen-liegen-bei-schweizern-zu-hause-id2676118.html
Please revise the article with the correct and truthful information, not passive-aggressiveness against the liberal gun laws in the CH. 72.200.118.40 ( talk) 21:57, 12 September 2017 (UTC)
Buying guns: According to the article, SR 514.541 art. 12, passed in 2008, amended in 2014, explicitly prohibits the purchase or ownership of weapons to nationals of eight states: Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Macedonia, Turkey, Sri Lanka, Algeria and Albania. I checked the law in German as it stood on 1 July 2016 and there was no mention of any of those countries. https://www.admin.ch/opc/de/classified-compilation/19983208/index.html 514.54 Bundesgesetz über Waffen, Waffenzubehör und Munition (Waffengesetz, WG) vom 20. Juni 1997 (Stand am 1. Juli 2016) Mumbo-jumbophobe ( talk) 01:19, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
"Firearms legislation in Switzerland is comparatively liberal, more similar to gun politics in the United States"
Legislation is not politics. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Chrisca123 ( talk • contribs) 22:41, 17 February 2018 (UTC)
The English in parts of this article is something appalling. It has clearly been edited by non native English speaker(s) who clearly do not have the competence to edit the English Wikipedia. I have made a start it improving it (but only a start), but have neither the time nor the familiarity with Switzerland's gun laws to do the job justice. 86.149.136.154 ( talk) 12:35, 3 June 2018 (UTC)
This is regarding this revert and previous edits.
@ Abatementyogin: Hello again. There are several problems with these changes which will need to be addressed.
Nowhere in the article is it explained that The
SG 550 is the most commonly held firearm in Switzerland.
It doesn't matter if you know that this is true, it will still need a
reliable source. If a source is cited at another article,
verify that it is accurate, and then copy it over to this one.
There are at least two problems with the statement There are no "
assault weapon" or magazine bans in Switzerland.
First, do not use scare-quotes, per
MOS:SCAREQUOTES. Either there is a ban on assault weapons (however they are defined) or there isn't. Using quotation marks implies skepticism of the concept, which is not appropriate for a neutral encyclopedia. Second, this is phrased in a leading way, and the relevance of this information to the photo is
not neutral. Using a caption to imply something is a form of editorializing. A neutral caption would be something like The
SG 550 assault rifle is the most commonly held firearm in Switzerland.
This would convey the point clearly enough without bludgeoning the reader's head with this point. Again, this would still require a source. Ideally that source would also mention that it is an assault rifle.
Finally, WP:PRIMARY statistics, like this link, should be avoided in favor of secondary sources. Using a primary source to imply some comparative conclusion is a form of editorializing, as it risks WP:SYNTH. In this case, I think the point is non-controversial enough that this can stand.
Grayfell ( talk) 05:01, 2 November 2019 (UTC)
This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
Firearms regulation in Switzerland article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
Article policies
|
Find sources: Google ( books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL |
The
contentious topics procedure applies to this page. This page is related to governmental regulation of firearm ownership; the social, historical and political context of such regulation; and the people and organizations associated with these issues, which has been
designated as a contentious topic. Editors who repeatedly or seriously fail to adhere to the purpose of Wikipedia, any expected standards of behaviour, or any normal editorial process may be blocked or restricted by an administrator. Editors are advised to familiarise themselves with the contentious topics procedures before editing this page. |
This article is rated C-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
... period of service in the Auszug (the active-duty field army), after.... What the hell is "Auszug"??? I'm a Swiss and I've been in the Army, but I've never ever heard of this word in context with the army. Can anyone give proof that this word is used properly here?
And advocates of
victim disarmament persist in efforts to attribute the relative dearth of firearms-related crime in Switzerland to laws and regulations when in fact it is the cultural and individual attitude toward weapons (and their role in the preservation of Swiss independence as a nation and Swiss citizens' rights as individuals) that is the true controlling factor.
Between universal military service (including decades of personal obligation to the militia following initial training and active duty) and direct voter control of civil government via frequent referenda, the Swiss are continuously reminded that the source of sovereignity in their democracy is the individual citizen, and they do not fear that citizen being armed and capable. The fact that Swiss society is a gun culture is merely a consequence of historical and social factors that have long fostered a prevailing sense of civic authority and personal responsibility that has become part of the Swiss national character.
The hoplophobe, by contrast, has no such trust in the moral or civic validity of the individual citizen, and persists in an unreasoned terror of firearms in the hands of anyone other than an officer of government. This fear is such that the victim disarmament fanatic is not only willing but eager to do away with democracy and the principles of government limited by law in order to secure an illusory "social peace."
Interesting choices of pompous capitalization ("Duty" and "State" and "People" and "Powers"), don't you think? And if "having a weapon is a Duty, an annoying one at that," what accounts for the high rates of private ownership - at each individual's own cost and upon such an individual's own voluntary election - of military battle rifles, modified assault rifles, service pistols, and semi-automatic carbines in Switzerland? These are not sporting firearms (such as shotguns or hunting rifles), and yet their owners take pains to acquire them and to maintain proficiency in their use (which last effectively defines a member of a gun culture).
And where have I drawn a similarity between the American situation and circumstances prevailing in Switzerland? Except for the fact that human nature is a universal constant, there need be no presumption of deliberate correspondence between civil society in the Confœderatio Helvetica and that which predominates in these United States of America.
Admittedly, the American Founding Fathers purposefully drew upon the Swiss experience when drawing up the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and the U.S. Constitution, and the Swiss relied heavily upon the U.S. Constitution when undertaking revision of their own federal constitution in 1891, but it would be a mistake to conclude that the circumstances coloring the histories of these two nations are in any way identical. Austrians and Burgundians coming across the borders to murder, rape, and loot are not Mohawk and Abenaki tribesmen coming across the frontier to murder, rape, and loot.
With regard to a Swiss citizen's use of a firearm in self-defense, please provide references proving that such utilization in extremis is prosecuted in the Swiss cantons so vigorously and so harshly as to effectively foreclose all exercise of such an option. The " social contract" is not a suicide pact.
As for the Swiss federal constitution, initially adopted in 1848 following the Sonderbundskrieg and subsequently revised to keep the government of the Confederation under the control of direct democracy, you would do well yourself to review this charter. [2] Your statements thus far cast into grave doubt your appreciation of Swiss history and law - not to mention human nature itself.
Addressing the arguments of contending commentators - as opposed to succumbing to the fallacy of argumentum ad hominem - can only be considered "making personal attacks" by someone unfamiliar with the principles and practices of debate.
As for your perception of racism on my part, I hope you will join me in lamenting the fact that it is currently politically popular in many circles to obliterate the memory of certain historical conflicts, particularly with regard to those in which Native Americans fought against European settlers and the governments of nations in North and South America. Would you consider it similarly "racist" if I were to discuss just as egregiously vicious struggles between other ethnic groups and conquering nation-states, such as the Zaporozhie Cossacks' wars with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the 17th Century? How about the Ottoman Empire's conquest (and religious subjugation) of the Balkans and their recurring assaults upon Vienna?
Political correctness is properly viewed as a form of self-inflicted psychological wounding. Is it inappropriate to say so? Or do you consider it "tendentious" or "ill-informed" simply to offer a point of view contrary to your own personal prejudices? Pertinent to your risible ad hominem effort to condemn as monomania my focus upon the subject presently at hand (hardly a "constructive" notion, I should think), do you please consider your own fixations herewith demonstrated. Were you not acting upon baseless bigotries, you would not so casually and sloppily speak of my writings as "racist" or "ill-informed" without adequate proof of your accusations.
If I am "ill-informed," by all means inform me. If it is "racist" to speak of the bloody raids and the battles between Native Americans and European settlers that occurred up and down the Mohawk Valley in the 18th Century, by all means provide logical proof thereof. I'm perfectly willing to do you such a service. Reciprocity would merely serve as a manifest of your willingness to participate in civil discourse. Much obliged.
I have moved the debate on the chambering of the SIG SG550, adopted by the CH as Gw.90, here. The argument is unnecessary: 5.6x45mm, currently Swiss GP90, is the same cartridge case as 5.56 x 45 mm NATO. It was adopted under the name 5.6x45mm for political reasons; namely, that Switzerland did not want to appear to be adopting a NATO standard caliber in the 1980s. 208.40.64.2 15:21, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
I take note of the article's revision to restore much of the previous erroneous content (including the gormless notion that the
SIG 550
assault rifle is chambered in 5.6 mm rather than 5.56 mm, said error having been freely admitted by
CyrilleDunant above). Such censorship is a stark and wonderfully clear manifest of the moral and intellectual bankruptcy behind
gun control, isn't it? When factual
reality gets in your way, by all means obliterate every thought of factual reality.
Quod erat demonstrandum.
Regarding the physical characteristics of the SIG 550, please see the manufacturer's branded Web site. [5] Regarding the Gw Pat 90 round, please see that manufacturer's branded Web site. [6] By Rama's lights, of course, this note is a "rant."
Regarding the moral and intellectual bankruptcy implicit in gun control and repeatedly demonstrated by its advocates, there is the observation that simple ignorance is always perfectly excusible (and is eminently remediable; one simply has to seek reliable verification of the facts pertinent to any particular matter). People who repeatedly deny readily verifiable factual information, however (absent the demonstration of diagnostic criteria reliably congruent with the diagnosis of a psychotic condition), are simply lying.
On the basis of repeated examination of gun control literature (including the self-admittedly flawed publications authored by Kellerman et al in The New England Journal of Medicine and in J Trauma as well as the utterances of such gun control advocates as Bellesiles on the subject), I have yet to be presented with reliably supported evidence-based assertions that justify government interference with the individual right to acquire, maintain, and carry firearms as effective means whereby one may exercise that right to self-defense which is an inescapable corollary to the right to life itself. To say the least, I would expect persuasive fact-based assertions on such a pervasive public policy issue at least as robust and thorough as those supporting an antiretroviral regimen or a surgical technique. Regrettably, there appears to be nothing underlying the gun control argument other than ill-informed wishful thinking fumbling in search of something that can masquerade in lieu of fact.
If I come to the subject with a natural and entirely explainable tendency to view the "default state" - i.e., that it is not only personally but politically desirable that the private citizen be held involate in the exercise of his/her right to keep and bear arms - it is simply that the burden of proof regarding the efficacy (indeed, the viability) of victim disarmament is entirely upon the shoulders of those advancing this radically new and historically hazardous proposition.
And in this forum, thus far, none of those voicing opinions in contention with my own have even made a serious attempt to provide support on that central point. In this light (and with the intent "to improve the article Gun politics in Switzerland on Wikipedia"), would it not appropriate for those insisting upon censorship to publish at the head of this Web page a notification to the effect that the neutrality of this article is disputed?
Indeed, the factuality of at least one the assertions upon which you insist is most certainly - as I have demonstrated here - such that neither of you appear to know as much as I do about firearms. And my principal proximal experience with such weapons is almost exclusively confined to the assessment and emergency management of gunshot wounds. You don't make a very credible showing.
With regard to the Gw Pat.90, you're citing an RUAG press release while I have previously cited (via the company's online index [9] page) the actual Web site describing the specific product. [10] The manufacturer's English-language product brochures on their "P" ammunition line [11] and their .223 Rem ordnance ammunition [12] are immediately available to you in PDF. Congratulations. You've caught the RUAG public relations department in a factual error.
You might be interested to know that RUAG has done a substantial update of their Web site (available here [13], whence you can find both English [14] and German [15] language Web pages describing the GP90 ammunition produced for the Swiss military.
It's 5.56 mm (or .223 Remington), not 5.6 mm. If you were a "shooter" (or actually knew anything about which end of the weapon whence the pointy end of the bullet exits), you'd know that a cartridge containing a slug of 5.6 mm in diameter cannot be fed into a firearm chambered to accept 5.56 mm x 45 mm cartridges, and you might pursue factual verification far more vigorously (and with far less stubborn blindness) than you persist in demonstrating.
Pertinent to your other reference, [16], you're citing a page from a private individual's Web site, [17] not the more reliably branded Internet promulgation of the manufacturer. [18]
Are you even familiar with the concept of branding as it pertains to online research? When I use the Web to cite an article from a medical journal, I make use of reliably branded Internet information sources, such as the National Library of Medicine's Medline service and/or the journal's own World Wide Web site to verify the content and citation data pertinent to that article. When dealing with the intellectual property of a specific manufacturer - such as Swiss Arms AG or RUAG - it is critically important to rely on the accurate citation of that manufacturer's own statements regarding their product or service. In this case, I've applied the same standard of caution and responsibility I would exercise in the citation of a pharmaceutical manufacturer's current product labeling in a particular government jurisdiction.
You, by contrast, demonstrate a lack of fastidiousness and intellectual rigor combined with precisely the sort of pig-headed refusal to seek (or acknowledge) objective verification in a point of argument that so consistently marks the advocate of gun control and other government policies breaching the exercise of individual rights. You do nothing whatsoever to shore up even the illusion of credibility upon which your position in this exchange relies.
Now that's a good idea (what was I saying a gazillon lines above ?) Rama 09:52, 12 September 2005 (UTC)
Geez, some pretty angry people here. Although I have never been able to get ahold of any 5.6 ammo, the bullet is most likely a simple .224 caliber projectile as seen in most small bores in that range. Why would Switzerland manufacture something else? I personally do not know if the actual cartridge case dimensions of 5.6 and 5.56 are identical, but, the argument that the "bullet won't fit down the bore" is ridiculous. I've been shoving .224s down .22-250s, .311s down .303s, .224s down .223s/5.56s, and keep in mind that .30-06 and .308 have an entirely interchangeable projectile, even if the designations would make you think otherwise. What do you think goes into a 218 bee, or .219 Zipper? Also, the 5.7X28 uses a .224, the 5.6 Savage high power uses a .224, and many older surplus rounds show large deviation in size- reportedly, much Pakistani .303 ammo can vary as much as .007 inches. .45s (Of many different types) can handle several sizes- I've used from .452 to .454. Very rarely, it seems, do the actual designations of the cartridge match up perfectly with the size of the bullet. I think it's pretty obvious that the 5.6 Swiss bullet, if not the case, is interchangeable with that of the 5.56. Also, I'll be pushing some nice .308 (7.62, mind you) bullets down the bore of a 7.5 Swiss before long, if my dies will show up sometime soon. None of my like minded friends have had any problem with such.
To anyone who waded through all this stuff some of it very accurate and some extreamly argumentative and technically clueless. An Army's military designations of it's own ammunition may not agree with civilian designations of the same cartridge. i.e. US designation of cartridges for older M-16, M-16A1 rifles was "Cartridge, Ball, 5.56 mm, M-193". Note that there is NO mention of the cartridge length in millimeters. That 5.56 x 45 stuff is for technical comparison and is very nice to have in a list, but doesn't denote actual commonly used designations -- military or civilian in every country. If the Swiss want to round off the designation to 5,6 mm who's to question that? Besides that, it's common in German speaking countries to round off some measurements to one decimal place. They aren't a member of NATO, nor the NATO military standards. It's not changing the actual dimensions of the cartridge, the weapon's chamber or bore.-- TGC55 08:29, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
There are several differing loadings of 5.56mm ammo. Over a dozen between various nations in fact from 55gr to 77gr. Ball to tracer to specialty AP and open-tipped match rounds. Swiss 5.6mm ammo meets SAMMI specifications for case length and diamter and projectile diameter (.224 inch in diameter). Several years ago, a large quantity of Swiss 5.6mm ammo was sold in the United States. Other than being a guilding metal plated steel jacket projectile instead of an all copper one, there was nothing unusual about the ammo compared to the plethora of other 5.56mm loadings. It was noted amongst shooters for its exceptional accuracy. The whole 5.56 vs 5.6 thing is nomenclature minutia. It's design falls entirely within the scope of various 5.56mm ammo loadings. The two are readily interchangable. It is the same caliber. 107.4.166.57 ( talk)
The introduction should be re-worked a little bit; it goes too quickly, too deep and too specifically into the subject of military weapons.
It think that the plethora of German words here and there should simply go. German is not the only language of Switzerland, and since I think it impractical to label all terms in German, French, Italian and Romanche, I would suggest simply dropping them, possibly linking from the English wording for terms like Landwehr. Rama 06:43, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
The accuracy of the intro could be improved in my opinion:
The section "army-related arms" mentions that Swiss conscripts stay in the Landwehr/Landsturm until 42 or 52. Now I am by no means an expert in the field, but nonetheless Swiss of military age, and this assertion strikes me as odd at the very least. I was under the impression that these reserve denominations were done with ages ago, and I have certainly never been told that I shall serve until 52! Does anyone have more information on this? JREL 20:58, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
There was a modification called Army 21, also there were some modifications to the law, i'm no expert either but some of the facts in the article are old and irrelevant by now.
The Terms Auszug, Landwehr and Landsturm were used in the Swiss Army till 1995, when the Army Organisation dating from 1961 was replaced with a TO from 1995 (called Armee 95). In the Model 61 army, Auszug were soldiers aged 18-32, Landerwehr aged aged 32-42 and Landsturm 43-52. There were both "pure" age class units and age mixed units, so the system is not easily to describe. And as noted, the used of any of these terms in a concurrent wiki article is inappropriate. -- Nik
Corrected spelling of word: 'issuance' (previously incorrectly shown as 'issueance')-- Dano1125
I have a hard time believing that switzerland is the only country in which it is legal to produce one's own black powder. First of all, using 'country' in this context is slightly problematic. 'State' would probably be better. Take Somalia a few years ago: lacking a government, or any apparatus of state, the country of Somalia was a place where it was not illegal to manufacture black powder. There were no laws. Perhaps the author meant Switzerland was the the only EU state to allow black powder manufacture? There should at least be a cite on this.
Gun "control", so to say, has been a much-discussed topic in Switzerland as of late. This past week the parliament approved of new regulations which "require" that army ammunition be stored at the barracks and not at home -- a major change from past policy. The law itself seems to be rather complex, but this was still treated in the Swiss media as a major alteration of the law.
I wasn't sure if this belonged in this entry or not. Here is a link to news stories in German from Zürich's two main newspapers (Tages Anzeiger and Neue Zürcher Zeitung). [ [23]] [ [24]] For those who cannot speak German, here is an English article from the NZZ. [ [25]] Ami in der Schweiz 17:54, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
Police statistics for the year 2006 records 34 killings or attempted killings involving firearms, ... Some 300 deaths per year are due to legally held army ordonnance weapons, the large majority of these being suicides.
I can't say that the 300 figure is wrong, but if true, it means that "large majority" is a gross understatement. If one includes suicides in "killings", then the figure is flat wrong, unless 2006 was a *very* abnormal year. Can anyone confirm the 300 deaths per year figure? -- 23:49, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
True, but suicides are always a misleading statistic. If someone was going to kill themselves, the way they did it shouldn't be used by anti-gun lobbies in stats. "Gun deaths" are different from "gun killings,"but people hear some 11,000 killed a year in some country by guns. They don't report on what percentage is suicide. That's the important part of the statistic. A person killing himself with a gun he owns and has registered is technically illegal (you can be arrested for attempted suicide,) but not a gun "killing" per say. I just want to make this article fair. Sometimes it takes one point of view to notice the other point of view's POV pushing. I want the "gun killings" statistic there, not the "gun deaths." I know how liberals use stats to con people in the anti-gun lobby. I saw "Bowling for Columbine" (forced to for school.) PokeHomsar ( talk) 07:01, 27 December 2008 (UTC)
Hello
I was interested to read about this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics_in_Switzerland
It included 'airsoft'as well. Can someone tell me in what way airsoft will be affected?
( 86.169.247.19 ( talk) 00:35, 6 June 2009 (UTC))
Airsoft guns are subject to gun laws and regulations due to high similarity to real guns (since Waffengesetz of 2008). Therefore they may not be carried nor used in public. Airsoft games must be organised in restricted area and police must be advised. The purchase is free to adults (18yo) (must provide a copy of their ID) except for a few nationalities (citizen of countries ongoing armed conflicts, so they can't buy a gun and send it to their relatives as it is in the US-Mexico). Schalabaladindong ( talk) 04:39, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
This article has a lot of outdated material. 75.236.238.77 ( talk) 15:40, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
Agreed. The first paragraph states that all soldiers are issued 50 rounds of ammo, and ref. 9 indicates that is no longer the case except for 2000 special forces. Unless someone posts an objection, I intend to correct this. John Comeau ( talk) 02:02, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
Not only unstable but a little biased--"The American style 'Gun Culture' is not in evidence in Switzerland" is one clear example — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.113.22.35 ( talk) 22:10, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
Some sort of editing/pre-processing? Might be distracting.. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Firing_range_HDR.jpg 88.159.72.240 ( talk) 18:09, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
It is stated in the article twice that according to Kopel that although legally the ammo bought at a range must be used at the range, "the rule is barely known and almost never obeyed." This is a bare assertion made in a magazine article from 1990. If this was and remains true a better citation should be used to provide the details of to what degree the rule on ammunition use at the range is followed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.140.32.239 ( talk) 15:25, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
Should the article maybe have a section for crime rate vs other countries? I've seen it mentioned on the web that "switzerland has the lowest crime rate in the world due to it's unique stance on gun control".
I couldn't get a grip on the truth of that position at all by reading the article. -- Meepdeedoo ( talk) 21:54, 5 December 2011 (UTC)
I deleted this picture:
The article correctly states: "the transport has to be direct". Doing errands while transporting your army rifle is illegal. Therefore the picture shouldn't be used in the article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by BenjaminKay ( talk • contribs) 11:38, 26 July 2012 (UTC)
The article discusses laws and regulations concerning firearm ownership, trading and use and abuse but doesn't even mention actual politics - does a significant anti-gun lobby even exist? It should be titled Firearm law in Switzerland or something similar but not include the deceptive term "politics". Roger ( talk) 08:57, 10 September 2012 (UTC)
Yes such a lobby exists:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_for_a_Switzerland_Without_an_Army
BenjaminKay (
talk) 11:15, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
The article is liberally sprinkled with German words giving an impression of expertise, but Switzerland has a multitude of languages and Swiss citizens (and recruits) not talking German neither use nor know these words. In addition to being gratuitous and possibly plain wrong, the affectation of using German words in the English-language article is insulting to them.
Given how the intention of the article can't help but being entangled with the debate on US gun control (see the rants below), one thing needs to be stressed further: to the overwhelming majority of army-incorporated Swiss citizens - who aren't volunteers but are drafted - the care of a firearm imposed on them outside the days of service is a nuisance rather that an asset. This of course contrasts with the case of purchased guns and makes the comparison/statistics quite misleading.
178.238.167.236 ( talk) 10:21, 16 December 2012 (UTC)
See: Bearing arms in Switzerland. Quote from that page:
Strict legislation in Switzerland has made it extremely difficult to obtain a license to bear arms, and the trend is moving towards even stricter laws. For information purposes only, 400 people had a license to bear arms in the canton of Geneva in 1998. Only eight "survivors" still have authorization today. Understandable when you realize how little violent crime there is in Switzerland. |
The following source indicates 10.3% of households in Switzerland possessed handguns in 2004 or 2005. Is there more recent info? The quote higher up seems to indicate that handgun ownership may be falling. The percentages in table 18 linked below are by household.
People also want reliable stats in order to compare household handgun stats by country with homicide rates by country. See chart to the right and List of countries by intentional homicide rate.
In 2011, 72% of the 8,583 homicides committed using firearms in the United States were committed using handguns. Source: Expanded Homicide Data Table 8 - Murder Victims by Weapon, 2007-2011. By the FBI ( U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation). -- Timeshifter ( talk) 08:41, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
I request this be removed as Switzerland does in fact have a free standing army. They do not rely on a national militia, that is a terrible rumor. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.78.181.159 ( talk) 04:10, 1 September 2013 (UTC)
I'm changing where it says "hunters do not need one [a gun permit] for buying typical hunting rifles" to read "hunters do not need one for buying typical bolt-action hunting rifles". Hunters still need a permit for semi-auto hunting rifles. Freddiefreelance ( talk) 21:16, 7 June 2014 (UTC)
moved from my talk page, since it more suitably placed here -- ZH8000 ( talk) 02:38, 23 June 2015 (UTC)
"I was considering leaving an
edit warring warning here, for your recent edits to
Gun politics in Switzerland. While I think you broke the
WP:3RR, I don't think that was your intention.
I added a
reliable source, as you requested, and slightly altered the wording of the info in question
[26] to comply with the source. I would encourage you to restore this info to the article, and take it to the
talk page if you wish to pursue removal (where I'd gladly discuss it with you). Since it was in the article, it should remain until
consensus is reached to remove it, as there is disagreement.
—
Godsy(
TALK
CONT) 23:00, 22 June 2015 (UTC)"
So, I found it very odd that someone edited the article to add the 75% gun homicide rate compared to overall homicide rate and decided to check the official website of the Swiss goverment.
I found this:
http://www.bfs.admin.ch/bfs/portal/de/index/themen/19/03/02/key/02/10.html
There you can download an excel document where the crime and gun crime from 2009 until 2014 is stated. If you downloaded it and check it out, you will notice that the rates are completely wrong.
The real rates are:
15 gun homicides out of 53 homicides. The 40 figure is including attempted gun homicide. So it's certainly not 75% of all homicides!
Also, why not update the statistic with the rates for 2014 since these are already included?
The rates for 2014 are as follow:
All this information is freely available in that link that I provided. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Zorthianator ( talk • contribs) 06:30, 18 August 2015 (UTC)
In the 'prohibited weapons' section of this entry there is a reference to 'Skidding with armrest'. This is pretty obscure — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.107.195.230 ( talk) 08:02, 14 September 2015 (UTC)
Hi, can you explain how removing stats from 2012, and replacing them with stats from 2001, constitutes 'removing outdated stats'? Thanks. Anastrophe ( talk) 18:22, 22 August 2016 (UTC)
moved from my personal talk page -- ZH8000 ( talk) 18:56, 22 August 2016 (UTC)
The Blick article is journalism, not a "reliable source". It is, however, surprisingly good journalism, the trick here is in reporting accurately what the journalist is saying. The article distinguishes perfectly well between statistics collected from authorities (i.e. the journalist did some actual research, collecting figures from the various cantonal register, which means their figure of "800,000 known privately registered firearms" is a quotable synthesis). They are also aware that the "800,000" figure, although "official", is compeltely useless, because cantons do not have a unified approach to registers. Some cantons have registers going back decades, while others only have records for the past couple of years. This means that there are reliable statistics on (legal) gun purchase but no remotely reliable statistics on gun ownership. The journalist (Meyer) is perfectly aware of this:
The article then goes on to quote the gun expert of the Social Democratic party, who comes up with the "2 million" estimate, which Meyer reasonably translates to "about 25%". This is not an estimate with a two-digit accuracy as suggested by the figure "25". It has single-digit accuracy "yeah, it's probably close to two million". This is a low ballpark estimate explicitly attributed to the political left. (which is actually surprising, because usually the left tends to go for high estimates in order to emphasize gun ownership is an endemic problem). This single-digit "about 2 million" estimate in no way supersedes the older (2005/7) estimates of "between 2.3 and 4.4 million". Nobody is saying "the number of guns declined from 3.4 to 2.0 million in the period 2005‐2014". The 2005/7 estimate is "about 2.3 to 4.4 million", and the 2014 estimate goes with the low figure and rounds it to two million, at best implying a slight decrease over the late 2000s to early 2010s. The lower estimate is explained by suggesting that other estimates have underestimated the number of old guns that have (a) been destroyed and (b) sold abroad.
Tl;dr, the Blick article is decent, but it's just a random journalistic offering from 2014, do not use it as a reliable source for anything. -- dab (𒁳) 11:34, 25 August 2016 (UTC)
I think that term is overused in this article, and I am not even sure if the German term "Milliz" could really be translated with the word "militia". In the anglo-saxon sphere, militia likely infers the brave soldiers under George Washington or other political leaders, when soldiers were quickly recruited, some of them with their own arms to serve. But that is not really how the Swiss Army works, they are drafted, and swear a code to the nation, and not to any sub-group. They obey orders from a centralistic type system and the Swiss Army also employs professional instructors. Maybe because (some) Swiss soldiers have their weapons at home, but in essence it's more a people's army (Volksarmee) than a militia. Again, there are no militia units there that would act on their own or something, and private gun ownership does not always overlap with military rank or position. Occasionally, these terms are taken up by political groups, mostly to the right, outside of Switzerland, and it makes it look like the Swiss are armed to be part of some vigilanti force, nothing is further from the truth ( Osterluzei ( talk) 21:50, 10 April 2017 (UTC))
Probably the new version is better on the new EU directive, however, limitations will also be placed, not only on blank firing magazines, but on all firearms that can be converted. So the term "firearm" has been expanded. Secondly, there will also be restrictions on the size of magazines, and some semi-automatic guns that load more than 20 bullet cartridges, in general. Also, there are still exemptions for historical arms etc. but more restrictions on Internet sales, that have not been mentioned. Furthermore, pro-gun groups in CH, as far as I know, threatened with a referendum, but no plans really. ( Osterluzei ( talk) 03:04, 24 April 2017 (UTC))
My edit was recently reverted, under the belief that I had not read the applicable laws. I had, but I and the reverter took into consideration different areas.
In my edit, I considered 514.54 art. 27 abs. 1, the French version of which reads:
To me, the wording "To carry a loaded firearm in public or outdoors" implies that it is perfectly legal in Switzerland to carry an unloaded gun on your hip wherever you wish, which is not the case according to the above section. There is nothing about the gun being loaded or unloaded, so I sought to correct it. But I grant that such correction does not take into account the law's allowances for regular transport of firearms, which I have incorporated into my newest edit. Pokajanje| Talk 07:06, 7 September 2017 (UTC)
The latest estimate by the SAS says there 47 guns per 100 people in Switzerland: http://www.smallarmssurvey.org/about-us/highlights/highlight-research-note-9-estimating-civilian-owned-firearms.html
The "25 guns per 100 people" estimate comes from Peter Hug of the SP political party (a known anti-gun party in Switzerland): https://www.blick.ch/news/schweiz/waffenkammer-schweiz-so-viele-waffen-liegen-bei-schweizern-zu-hause-id2676118.html
Please revise the article with the correct and truthful information, not passive-aggressiveness against the liberal gun laws in the CH. 72.200.118.40 ( talk) 21:57, 12 September 2017 (UTC)
Buying guns: According to the article, SR 514.541 art. 12, passed in 2008, amended in 2014, explicitly prohibits the purchase or ownership of weapons to nationals of eight states: Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Macedonia, Turkey, Sri Lanka, Algeria and Albania. I checked the law in German as it stood on 1 July 2016 and there was no mention of any of those countries. https://www.admin.ch/opc/de/classified-compilation/19983208/index.html 514.54 Bundesgesetz über Waffen, Waffenzubehör und Munition (Waffengesetz, WG) vom 20. Juni 1997 (Stand am 1. Juli 2016) Mumbo-jumbophobe ( talk) 01:19, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
"Firearms legislation in Switzerland is comparatively liberal, more similar to gun politics in the United States"
Legislation is not politics. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Chrisca123 ( talk • contribs) 22:41, 17 February 2018 (UTC)
The English in parts of this article is something appalling. It has clearly been edited by non native English speaker(s) who clearly do not have the competence to edit the English Wikipedia. I have made a start it improving it (but only a start), but have neither the time nor the familiarity with Switzerland's gun laws to do the job justice. 86.149.136.154 ( talk) 12:35, 3 June 2018 (UTC)
This is regarding this revert and previous edits.
@ Abatementyogin: Hello again. There are several problems with these changes which will need to be addressed.
Nowhere in the article is it explained that The
SG 550 is the most commonly held firearm in Switzerland.
It doesn't matter if you know that this is true, it will still need a
reliable source. If a source is cited at another article,
verify that it is accurate, and then copy it over to this one.
There are at least two problems with the statement There are no "
assault weapon" or magazine bans in Switzerland.
First, do not use scare-quotes, per
MOS:SCAREQUOTES. Either there is a ban on assault weapons (however they are defined) or there isn't. Using quotation marks implies skepticism of the concept, which is not appropriate for a neutral encyclopedia. Second, this is phrased in a leading way, and the relevance of this information to the photo is
not neutral. Using a caption to imply something is a form of editorializing. A neutral caption would be something like The
SG 550 assault rifle is the most commonly held firearm in Switzerland.
This would convey the point clearly enough without bludgeoning the reader's head with this point. Again, this would still require a source. Ideally that source would also mention that it is an assault rifle.
Finally, WP:PRIMARY statistics, like this link, should be avoided in favor of secondary sources. Using a primary source to imply some comparative conclusion is a form of editorializing, as it risks WP:SYNTH. In this case, I think the point is non-controversial enough that this can stand.
Grayfell ( talk) 05:01, 2 November 2019 (UTC)