Swiss voters have rejected a plan that would have greatly restricted firearms ownership.
“In Switzerland, where all able-bodied men are required to perform military duty,” the Canadian Press reported, “many choose to take their army-issued rifle home with them even after completing military service.
Gun clubs, too, remain a popular feature of village life in rural parts of the country, with children as young as 10 taking part in shooting competitions.” But a newly proposed law would have required, “military-issued firearms to be locked in secure army depots.”
It also would have established a national gun registry and made it much harder to buy a variety of firearms. This in a nation of 8 million people, who have an estimated 2.3 million firearms in their households, “more guns per capita than almost any other country except the U.S., Finland and Yemen.”
Just over 56 percent of Swiss voters rejected the proposal. “There was a clear division between cities where voters were more in favour of the initiative and the countryside where people were mobilised against it,” Claude Longchamp, head of research institute gfs.bern, told the Reuters news agency.
Resources for Military Gun Collectors
The Standard Catalog of Military Firearms
The Greatest Guns of Gun Digest
Flayderman's Guide to Antique American Firearms and Their Values
