Swiss vs. EU Gun Control

I believe all the recent terrorists violated several existing European gun laws in acquiring their weapons.

Why does EU Brussels believe that imposing more gun laws on lawabiding Europeans would affect terrorists, other than give them more laws to ignore? <==<<< rhetorical question.

The Czech Republic will be affected too. From what I read, you can get carry permits there, own certain rifles and might be the closest country to the U.S. in gun rights.

I would imagine Switzerland would soon leave the EU than give up their long tradition of armed citizens. I guess The Czech Republic too.

I wonder what our European THR members have to say or add to this. I would interested in hearing their perspective and thoughts.
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Switzerland isn't in the EU, but they have other treaties, primarily the Schengen area. Czech unfortunately has less of a leg to stand on, but maybe they can get an exemption.

The Czechs can't afford to leave the EU, I feel for them....

mio said:

Looks like some of our friends in Switzerland are balking at some gun control that the EU wants them to adopt. Hopefully they Stick to their guns.

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2016/0...ontrol-could-disarm-law-abiding-citizens.html

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Irrelevant just like Norway and now Great Britain Switzerland is not member of the EU.

Brexit didn't leave the EU it was only the start of leaving. Norway is also a country with a strong hunting culture who nonetheless has to deal with the EU even if they are not members.

I know a gaggle of leftists who spent time in Switzerland. One was working on a cellular biology project* and another stayed there as an au pair. Other family member visited from time to time infesting the nation with their superannuated hippie-ness. None of these were aware that the Swiss were even allowed to own guns.

* The bug man approached Greenpeace wanting to go to work as a scientist when the cell work was done. He was Shocked when they informed him, "We don't hire Scientists. We hire Fundraisers!"

If its dangerous, its illegal in Europe (except sex and drugs of course).

Jackal said:

If its dangerous, its illegal in Europe (except sex and drugs of course).

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And it's oddly reversed here ... on both counts!

I'm understanding the Brexit vote more all the time.

"Snejdarek"--a THR member-- is a Czech citizen.

He is very fluent and effective in explaining not only issues in his country, but some disagreements between the Czech govt. and the aloof bureaucrats in Brussels.

Hi THR,

this is going to be a long post,...

First, as I often have to explain to my fellow Europeans, that there is nothing like an american gun law, only the second amendment, and the rest is state law and local law, maybe some explanation on how the EU works is in order.

On the Swiss part:
Switserland is not an EU member. That means they have no vote at all in EU lawmaking. They are a member of the Schengen zone, taht is a zone in wich people and goods can travel freely without border controls. As Switserland is "surrounded" by EU member states, this is important for their economy.
To become partner of the Schengen zone, the Swiss had to agree to certain messures to maintain safety in the EU. Some gun laws will be among them.

On the Brexit:
The UK is a EU member but not a member of the Schengen or the Euro-zone.
The UK government still has to start the procedure to leave the EU and they will do that at the earliest beginning 2017 (according to UK government) The procedure to leave then will take a maximun of two years (by law).

Now if the UK wants to stay in the free trade zone, they will have to accept some eu legislation without having in voice in them.

On the gun front: i'm glad the britisch will leave the EU because they have the strictest gun laws in all the eu (total prohibition of handguns and semi auto's) and they were working hard to impose their laws on the rest of us.
So for gun laws I say: good riddenes

On law making:
The EU commision, a non democratic organisation of burocrats wants to impose very strict gun laws, by all means. Luckily they are executive and have no actual law making autority.
The laws they proposed upheld total ban of semi-auto rifles, but that is out of the question.

The EU counsil, wich is a counsil of the state secretaries of the member states, has the initiatif to law-making. Last june they proposed some strict lawmaking, albeit lass strict then the commisions proposal, because they noticed an immense opposition from the public. They adressed each mayor objection by making exeptions (ie for militia and sportsshooters)
The EU counsil has a rotating presidency. Every six months the presidency changes. Last june was the last month of the dutch presidency and as Dutch is a synonym for bad, they pushed trough some gun law proposals that were bad, though not as bad as the ones from the commision. It was a last effort because sofar the dutch had nothing to show for their presidency.

Meanwhile, parliament has had some major discussion and made its own proposal, wich is not to different from existing Belgian laws.

Now parliament have to negotiate with the new presidency, Slovakia, on definitive laws.
We hope that the Slovacs, who are more or less indifferent to guns, will follow the advice of their former countrymen the chechs, who have the most liberal gun laws in the eu.

Meanwhile, lobbygroups within the EU are working the MEP's, after all they are the only ones in the process who will have to face the voter.

Meanwhile, more and more member states say that they can't protect their citizens and citizens across Europe or crying for more free gun laws to be able to defend themselves in view of terrorism and refugee problem.
This weekend in a local German election, AfD (alternative fur deutschland) had a very high score and they (being rather right wing, with some controversial stands) promote free gun laws, ..

Interesting times, we'll keep you posted.

A lot of info can be found in the thread on gun rights after paris.

here are the slovac presidency priorities: not a word on guns:
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides...rence=20160713IPR37009&language=NL&format=XML

for the legal eagles among you:
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides...XML&reference=A8-2016-0251&language=EN#title2

The obvious problem for Switzerland on this topic is, they are forced to adopt EU-"legislation" (technically EU passes a directive which the memberstates then have to follow by adopting their national laws, the directive itself does directly apply to the citizens) because of treaties surrounding the "Schengen"-agreement (which not only affects people traveling but more importantly trade!). Beeing surrounded by EU-countries and trading about 60% of their imports and exports with EU-contries, being part of the Schengen-agreement is absolutely vital for the swiss economy, so it is not as easy to call the whole thing off.

Because of the resistance of Czech Republic, Finnland etc., there likely will be some exception clauses for "militia members" in the new directive. Currently, the Commission seems to back down a little bit from their first proposal (total ban of semi-auto long-guns) and "only" wants to ban long-gun magazines with more than 10 and handgun magazines with more than 20 rounds, extended medical exams for obtaining a license etc. In the long run, most european gun owners think they also will propose licensing requirements for all guns (currently in some states, repeating arms and shotguns can be bought without any license).

We all hope, with the current economic problems because of the brexit and the rise of far-righ parties, maybe pressure on pushing through the directive will ease a bit - but the proposal is still pretty ugly and useless.

Swiss militia-members on the other hand likely don't have to worry about keeping their service guns at home, because these are considered duty weapons and the directive will only apply to privately owned guns.

It's is interesting to trace back the events that lead to this new gun law proposals. The hysteria started when investigators found out that a good part of the weapons used in the terrorist attacks were deactivated or converted to fire blank ammo guns, that were converted back to fire live ammo. They found out, much to their surprise, that first:

Some of the guns are very easy to convert back to original specs - deactivated to (old) German specs for example.

And second: Those guns, after conversion, did not require any license to own - one just have to be over 18 years of age to buy them.
And they freaked out! And because it needs real hard work to fight the illegal firearms business, they decided to go to the rote of least resistance - new, more restrictive, law.

And one last thing - sadly more and more people in the EU are actually anti-gun. They just enjoy somebody else (the state) to look after them - they just don't like to take responsibilities. That's it. Even gun owners sometimes act anti - for example, in my country many of the sport shooters are against concealed carry of firearms... They think that it's not necessary to carry a gun for self protection. So, we have "rotten apples" in our own basket and act surprised that such restrictive laws are so easily passed. Shame on us!

The crazy thing is, the loophole allowing for easy "reactivation" of deactivated weapons in some countries (mostly Slovenia I think) already was closed when the Paris attacks happened. The commission just wanted to use the emotional situation to push in their proposal, because in the aftermath of such an attack they thought it would be easier (and sadly it seems, they were right).

In my country, it is very much alike with some gun owners themselves not caring for their rights. "What would you need a semi-auto for, are you going to war?" is a thing I have heard on numerous occasions from gun owners. The first time they woke up was when the commission talked about continuous medical examination - because that would require them to pay about 350€ every 5 years...

I believe all the recent terrorists violated several existing European gun laws in acquiring their weapons.

Why does EU Brussels believe that imposing more gun laws on lawabiding Europeans would affect terrorists, other than give them more laws to ignore? <==<<< rhetorical question.

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Perhaps extraterrestrials have been influencing the EU Commission again -



http://katehon.com/news/jean-claude-juncker-declared-he-talked-extraterrestrials-about-brexit

Jean-Claude Juncker declared he talked with extraterrestrials about Brexit

...

mio said:

Looks like some of our friends in Switzerland are balking at some gun control that the EU wants them to adopt. Hopefully they Stick to their guns.

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2016/0...ontrol-could-disarm-law-abiding-citizens.html

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It should be noted that Swiss have just woken up to a nightmare with no map and no compass.

The Swiss guy behind the anti-EUGunBan push was quoted as saying that they will be looking to work with similar minded EU countries to fight the proposal, and stated that Scandinavian and Baltic countries will be those that he will focus on.

Never mind that all Scandinavian as well as Baltic countries supported the EU Gun Ban in the EU Council.

If he is so lazy that he doesn't do the basic research to know that only Prague and Warsaw are actively fighting this proposal, I would not expect him to be very effective in delivering.

Meanwhile...

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides...EP//TEXT+CRE+20071128+ITEM-021+DOC+XML+V0//EN

The Czech Republic will be affected too.

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Depends on which version will be adopted. If the strictest, the government is likely to refuse its implementation (EU Gun Ban is proposed via a Directive - EU Act of Law that tells nation states to enact national laws within the framework of the Directive, but the Directive does not have direct effect on the citizens).

If the "compromise" version, then the major issue would be pistol mags with 20+ rounds and rifles with 10+ mags. However as nobody in the EU realizes that there are actually countries (CZ + Estonia) with shall issue concealed carry, this is not really a matter that the EU Gun Ban would directly deal with.

There should be "militia" carve out and Czech politicians already suggested that everyone will be considered militia if the hardline Directive is adopted, thus frustrating its impact.

Because of the resistance of Czech Republic, Finnland etc.

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Last time I checked Finland voted for the EU Gun Ban in the EU Council.

The crazy thing is, the loophole allowing for easy "reactivation" of deactivated weapons in some countries (mostly Slovenia I think) already was closed when the Paris attacks happened

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It was Slovakia.

An interesting fact: gun decomissioned under Slovak rules were considered live under Czech law. In March, Czech police stopped a car in which two Belgian muslims were transporting several dozens "decomissioned" Slovak guns. So they slapped them with illegal arming charges (up to 2 years imprisonment) and tried to get cooperation from Belgian police in order to be able to slap them also with either organized crime group membership or terrorist organization membership/preparation of terror attack.

Czech authorities tried really hard and sent at least 3 official request for police cooperation and tried numerous other channels. The Belgians never replied.

If they can't do simple police work when given names of the suspects and clear set of questions that need to be answered, it is clear why Jihadis use Brussels as their main HQ.

(Offtopic: When my friend came to her Brussels appartment only to find out that the doors are kicked in and called police, they came after 30 minutes, only checked whether anyone's inside, and REFUSED to write a report stating that "this sort of thing happens all the time" and that they would be doing only paperwork if they had to write everything down. They'd be out of the job and likely face criminal charges with possible jail time if they did this in my country.)

I think the EU is committing bureaucratic suicide, and in fifth years will be a thing of the past as more and more nations exit from its grasp.

Oh, what a bother, what a bother; on the one hand, Schengen is so convenient and profitable for those involved, and on the other, Schengen is the noose by which the various super-national governing bodies seek to strangle any meaningful nationality or sovereignty from their member states (the Euro currency is an even stronger noose)

Actually, it doesn't really sound like such a difficult decision when you put it that way, just a painful but necessary one.

In the end, all that matters to the Swiss, is the Swiss; and all that matters to the EU, is power.

TCB

The EU is about control

Sent from my SM-S975L using Tapatalk

Jack44 - why should the EU be any different than the lib/socialists over here?
Those types have to control (micromanage) every facet of life.

It is very easy to bash EU. It is what local politics have done, for every unpopular yet necessary step.

Now you imagine a US with 50 different countries,
where every state has his own currency,
with border controls and custom (and burocracy) at every stateline, for every truckload,
with no police coöperation across the states,
with now environmental rules across states,
you get my point by now.
And all this in a global economic environment.

Living in Belgium (± 10 million people) , I could reach 4 countries within a 1 hour drive, ..
Imagine New York City as a souvereign state, with state borders and it's own currency.

The solution in not less EU, it is the United States of Europe.
And of course there are flaws in the system, as their are in any system, but it has prevented wars for over 70 years now and brought general welfare.
When Spain, Portugal and Greece entered Eu, those were poor countries, farmers still used horses, their were no industrial jobs.
When Poland entered EU, .....

EU has largely wiped-out the memory of communism.

On the other side of the spectre, nationalism has led (and leads) to no good.
It is the preferred tool for the power hungry.

What we need is an executive power that is chosen directly by the public, like your president.
And what we need even more is for people to get a Europe-feeling.
This will take another 2 to 4 generations, until all are gone that were ever poisoned in their minds by nationalism.

But young people are on their way. (As was shown in the Brexit thing: the young and the educated wanted to stay, the opportunists and the power hungry, like boris johnson and nigel farrage, used the uneducated and the old and poor, and created fear, an enemy,...)

Now the link-up to gun laws:

In central Europe, in the starting 6 countries and Scandinavia, people learned that when U work, you can get whealthy, when you have bad luck, state will take care of you and state will create equal opportunities for all by free education and (almost) free health care. In these countries every child with the ability can go to university, no person ever had to sell his home because of medical bills.
Equal opportunities and low poverty means low crime and state provided security for all and thus 90% of the people grew up with a 'you don't need guns' mentality.

In my and my wifes entire family, going back 2 generations, there are 4 in ± 50 families with guns. Hunters and weird people have guns. Our shooting clubs are 60% active or retired LEO or military.

So it is not just some politician who want to take our guns, it is a large part of the public to (in these 6 countries) and for the politicians it is an easy way to show they are adressing the problems , where actually they don't have a clue.

for example, in my country many of the sport shooters are against concealed carry of firearms... They think that it's not necessary to carry a gun for self protection. So, we have "rotten apples" in our own basket and act surprised that such restrictive laws are so easily passed. Shame on us!

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We have plenty of those in the US. We call them Fudds. Fortunately, though, things have been changing for the better over the last decade, and the Fudds are finding themselves on the fringe. The hunting and sports angle for "compromise", which had been used successfully to erode our rights for many years, is outmoded. The line between pro and anti is much clearer now, and the discourse has shifted more to who (should be disallowed ownership) than what (we can own).

Now you imagine a US with 50 different countries,
where every state has his own currency,
with border controls and custom (and burocracy) at every stateline, for every truckload,
with no police coöperation across the states,
with now environmental rules across states,
you get my point by now.

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A valid but oversimplified comparison. If you'll pardon the paradoxical statement, the US is a much more homogenized melting pot. What I mean is, while there are substantial differences between some states (more accurately regions that encompass parts of more than one state and ignore state lines), you still have states that have always (save for the brief confederacy) shared primary language, currency, free trade, open borders and existed under supreme federal laws. And while the customs and cultures definitely vary by region, the differences are far smaller than those between completely different nations.

The solution in not less EU, it is the United States of Europe.

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I appreciate the analogy and the sentiment, but cannot ever see the EU becoming anything like the US. No matter where you live in the US, we all have a common history, as we have always been one nation. I believe the member nations of the EU are too sectarian, too ingrained in their own history and customs, for that to happen.