Swiss vote on Sunday "Pro Tell"

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Washington Times Article on Swiss Vote Tomorrow

And a second article on the Swiss

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/feb/10/arms-friendly-swiss-to-vote-on-gun-curbs/

Relevant issues:

"If approved, the referendum would force military reservists to store their government-issued weapons in secure public arsenals. It also would create a national registry for all guns and ban private ownership of weapons defined as highly dangerous, such as pump-action and fully automatic weapons."--article
 
"Highly dangerous, such as pump-action" I see some people in Switzerland watch too much Hollywood, too.
 
Pump-action shotgun bans are a common European thing. Austria bans them IIRC, despite having pretty decent firearm laws for a European nation.

I think the message to take away from this is that anti-gun orgs will initally go after whichever guns are looked down upon by the elites (pump shotguns there, EBRs here, handguns everywhere), but eventually they want us to give them all up.
 
Pump action shotguns? Ooooh. The UK probably has the worst firearms laws in Europe. Getting anything other than a shotgun is near impossible, and for the shotgun license you need to explain why you 'need' it to a policeman in an interview.

Of course gun crime and violent crime generally is skyrocketing there which points up the abject failure of this 'ban them all!' mentality...

I met some British cops who fully supported this blanket ban. Interestingly they worked in very safe rural areas. The one I met who worked in a terrible part of London wanted everyone armed and resented that when he responded to any incident that might involve a gun, he had to call their super-dooper special gun unit (SO-19, and they're not exactly spec ops) because *he* wasn't allowed to carry a gun. As a policeman.

Madness.

/rant off

;)
 
Pump action shotguns? Ooooh.
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In Europe, hunting is a rich person's sport. The rich people look down their noses at pump guns (because they are snobs and prefer their side by sides). As a result, pump guns are not associated with hunting which in several corners of Europe makes it very difficult to justify allowing the gun to be kept in the home.
 
Congrats to the Swiss for fighting this atrocity. Europe is really becoming an autocratic dictatorship ruled by a small elite who wishes to drain the masses of any liberties or freedoms. Personally, I think it's better to die with a gun in your hand then with your children in your hands. The latter case was how many of my ancestors were murdered in Europe by Nazis after they had their God-given rights of gun ownership taken from them.

Considering that all young Swiss men are part of the military, maybe there is an advantage, since the Swiss government cannot use the military to enforce its rules. Am I correct about this? It seems the laws were aimed particularly towards Swiss militiamen, who always had the freedom to keep their weapons even after they left the military. I assume that a good portion of the Swiss military would be dismayed at such legislation and could pose quite a confrontation in return, politically or physically for that matter.

Considering Switzerland has one of the lowest crime rates in the country, I just don't know what is going through the heads of these bloodsucking liberals in the country. Japan has the highest rate of suicide in the world and does not have access to guns. They claim the guns make suicide too easy, yet Switzerland's suicide rate is about average for Europe. This is just another excuse to weaken and incriminate the people to increase the power of the ruling elite.
 
It seems that a majority of Swiss voters recognize that the gun control agenda mistrusts ordinary citizens.

Indeed, the gun control agenda is based on the view that ordinary citizens can not be trusted to use the physical power of arms responsibly. But a people that can not be trusted with guns can not be trusted with the much more dangerous powers of self-government. The gun control agenda is thus an implicit denial of the human capacity for self-government and is tyrannical in principle.
 
52grain said:
In Europe, hunting is a rich person's sport. The rich people look down their noses at pump guns (because they are snobs and prefer their side by sides). As a result, pump guns are not associated with hunting which in several corners of Europe makes it very difficult to justify allowing the gun to be kept in the home.
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In Europe, hunting is a rich person's sport. The rich people look down their noses at pump guns (because they are snobs and prefer their side by sides). As a result, pump guns are not associated with hunting which in several corners of Europe makes it very difficult to justify allowing the gun to be kept in the home.
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Correct on rich people and 'hunting' (there is very little actual hunting in Europe, period).

The idea that a $180 pump action needs to be justified where a $20,000 Purdey does not is simply stupid. It is akin to the banning of high-cap magazines in certain communist states like MA. It kind of misses the point.
 
The idea that a $180 pump action needs to be justified where a $20,000 Purdey does not is simply stupid.
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Not at all, you simply have to look at it from thier point of view. That superexpensive Purdy must belong to a member of the powerful and rich elite, one of the Alpha predators at the apex of society, so of course it is just fine.
That $180 pump gun could concievably be purchased by some member of the great unwashed, Leona Helmsly's "little people", who might decide to go Egyptian and force change on the elite, therefore that must not be allowed.
 
Alex23:
The point is that few can afford a Purdy, so the proposed law:
a) Limits the number of shooters through cost- think of it as a 'saturday night special' law for long arms.
b) Restricts ownership to types of firearms that are less suitable for resisting tyranny.
c) Limits the type of firearm to those that are popular with the ruling class - note that gun control advocates in the USA never campaign against Beretta trap guns.

d)Based on Australian experience, half of the current firearms owners would turn in their firearms and not purchase new ones, so the culture of firearms ownership as a norm would within a generation have died out.

It was a well thought out plan. Luckily it failed, but even then the fact is that a third of Cantons voted to give up a basic right. Swiss gun owners have a lot of work ahead of them over the years as the anti-gunners are an international movement and well funded. They will be back.
 
Rad and Armored, I take your points and you are sadly correct. It is elitist.

I did have the pleasure of attending a pheasant 'hunt' in Berkshire / Wiltshire once. I brought an 870 and wore ACUs. Everyone else was wearing tweed suits from Gieves & Hawkes, waistcoats, ties, and sporting $3000 Berettas at the cheap end.

Said 'hunt' involved 'beaters' (people who go through the woods with sticks making noise to rouse the birds). This produced a sizable cloud of birds flying over in close formation. A Baghdad Salute would have got you a couple.

It is possible I reacted to this inappropriately when I said to my host you cannot be serious.

I wasn't invited back but hey, it was a freebie. :p
 
Rad and Armored, I take your points and you are sadly correct. It is elitist.

I did have the pleasure of attending a pheasant 'hunt' in Berkshire / Wiltshire once. I brought an 870 and wore ACUs. Everyone else was wearing tweed suits from Gieves & Hawkes, waistcoats, ties, and sporting $3000 Berettas at the cheap end.

Said 'hunt' involved 'beaters' (people who go through the woods with sticks making noise to rouse the birds). This produced a sizable cloud of birds flying over in close formation. A Baghdad Salute would have got you a couple.

It is possible I reacted to this inappropriately when I said to my host you cannot be serious.

I wasn't invited back but hey, it was a freebie.
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ROTFLMAO! Where in the world did you get an 870 in the middle of England?
 
nice to see good news on a monday morining

The anti-gunners campaigned with ads of bloody teddy bears?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110213/ap_on_re_eu/eu_switzerland_firearms_vote_7

Frank Jordans, "Swiss vote to keep their guns at home", Associated Press, Sun Feb 13, 9:18 am ET

GENEVA -- Swiss voters came out strongly in favor of their right to bear arms Sunday, with a clear majority rejecting a plan by churches and women's groups to tighten the Alpine nation's liberal gun laws. ....
"This is an important sign of confidence in our soldiers," said Pius Segmueller, a lawmaker with the Christian People's Party and former commander of the Vatican's Swiss Guard.....
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Please hit the link to the rest of the article.

I notice that Switzerland's "liberal gun laws" mentioned in the article include: if you are eligible for military service you are issued an army rifle, when you have completed militia service you can keep your service rifle, and at any time you can buy commercial guns and ammo (including ammo for practice with your service rifle, but you must keep the seal on your gov't issue battle pack of ammo intact for emergency use only). That's liberal gun laws most folks here could get behind. (Of course Schumer and Feinstein and NY Times would not agree with that definition of "liberal gun laws" :) .)
 
Good news for the Swiss, and good job by Pro-Tell and the other Swiss gun rights groups.

On my part, I'm doing the best I can to save Switzerland's youth from a violent death at the hands of a gun by buying up as many K31 carbines as I can afford. If anyone wants to help me save them from SIG 556 rifles as well, I accept donations.
 
If anyone wants to help me save them from SIG 556 rifles as well, I accept donations.
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The Swiss do not have 556 rifles. The 556 is only made in the U.S. in Exeter, N.H. at SIG SAUER USA. It is a U.S. civilian gun. The Swiss use the better made and better quality 550/551/552 rifles that are actual military issue rifles.
 
I know that the Swiss use the 550 series rather than the 556, but the 556 is that closest available in the US and I've been coveting one for a while now. The Swiss ex-military rifles can't be imported into the US because they were manufactured as select-fire, so the ATF considers them to be machineguns even if converted to semiauto only as the Swiss do when the guns are privatized.
 
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