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