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Switzerland's famous assault rifles are not kept with ammunition, and are mostly useless. (I suppose you could bludgeon a home invader with one.) Firearms are m

Switzerland's famous assault rifles are not kept with ammunition, and are mostly useless. (I suppose you could bludgeon a home invader with one.) Firearms are more heavily regulated there than in most of Europe. "He shakes out the gun holster. "And we don't get bullets any more," he adds. "The Army doesn't give ammunition now - it's all kept in a central arsenal." This measure was introduced by Switzerland's Federal Council in 2007." https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-21379912 https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-21379912

Throwawayaerlei 5y ago
Question I've never been able to get an answer to, although I haven't tried hard: is it illegal to keep your own supply of ammo for the rifle? Possibly confounding issue: with the new SIG 550 the ammo was changed to use lead free primers, just like the GP 11 1911 ammo was changed to use non-corrosive primers far ahead of other nations (in the US, our first example was for the WWII M1 carbine). I wonder if the Army discovered those primers didn't last as long as projected....
NoImmatureAdHom 5y ago
I think you're wrong. https://www.quora.com/How-hard-is-it-to-get-a-gun-in-Switzerland-vs-the-United-States?share=1 https://www.quora.com/How-hard-is-it-to-get-a-gun-in-Switzer... is a good discussion of Swiss law. TL,DR: Swiss law is different than U.S. law, and it's hard to generalize as each is more or less permissive given different areas (and the U.S. is really 51 or 52 little countries in most senses, as Switzerland is divided into Cantons). Concerning ammo specifically: https://www.reddit.com/r/askswitzerland/comments/7xug8k/question_about_ammunition_purchasing_in/ https://www.reddit.com/r/askswitzerland/comments/7xug8k/ques... TL,DR: One can buy ammo freely at ranges and with minimal permitting to take home. It sounds like maybe the Army wanted ammo stored centrally such that it would be in controlled environmental conditions, and not lost or accidentally used up at a Schützenfest.
natmaka 5y ago
As far as I know and saw in Switzerland the army doesn't give ammo anymore to militiamen (maybe because some over-used it, or maybe due to long-term storage issues) but they are able to buy it, and many do. Moreover there is a mandatory training programme (a few weeks each year), including shooting exercises. Security-related matters aren't neglected, lowering the accident rates. After his term a militiamen can buy the army-delivered weapon, and quite a few do so. This is financially clever as most on-duty militiamen take care of the gun (thinking he will buy it) and it reduces its cost for the community as he buys it, along as for him thanks to the massive buying programs of the army. Many, even among non-militiamen, are hunters or shooters (as a hobby) and a fair fraction of them reload used ammunition. In Switzerland a prominent argument (maybe the most prominent) of people willing to ban weapons is the amount of suicides by firearms. However suicide rates in heavily-armed Switzerland are at worst equal to those of not-heavily-armed nations such as the UK, Germany and France ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_r... ) As a related note: most firearm-related death rates are established while integrating suicides: in the US the apparent (and widely publicized) ratio of firearm-related death for 1e5 people in 2017 was 11.67, however suicides form 7.32 of it (4.46 being homicides). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-related_death_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-r... IMHO the Swiss context differs from the US one because the militia is the core of the defensive system, each citizen has to be involved and the local culture integrates it. Even more significantly the Swiss society isn't under lasting and major murder-triggering major pressure (ethnic tensions, extreme poverty...). Gun ownership doesn't put a stable society into jeopardy, and disarming haters won't transmogrify them into tolerant citizens. https://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/switzerland https://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/switzerland
- DanBC 5y ago
  > In Switzerland a prominent argument (maybe the most prominent) of people willing to ban weapons is the amount of suicides by firearms. However suicide rates in heavily-armed Switzerland are at worst equal to those of not-heavily-armed nations such as the UK, Germany and France ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_r https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_r... ) A note of gentle caution: you can't compare suicide rates across countries because there are big differences in methods of counting deaths.
  - natmaka 5y ago
    True, however AFAIK this is less distorted between similar nations such as (here) the UK, Germany, France and Switzerland Directly comparing data from Switzerland and Pakistan, Tuvalu or Rwanda is indeed too risky.

Throwawayaerlei 5y ago

Question I've never been able to get an answer to, although I haven't tried hard: is it illegal to keep your own supply of ammo for the rifle? Possibly confounding issue: with the new SIG 550 the ammo was changed to use lead free primers, just like the GP 11 1911 ammo was changed to use non-corrosive primers far ahead of other nations (in the US, our first example was for the WWII M1 carbine). I wonder if the Army discovered those primers didn't last as long as projected....

NoImmatureAdHom 5y ago

I think you're wrong. https://www.quora.com/How-hard-is-it-to-get-a-gun-in-Switzerland-vs-the-United-States?share=1 https://www.quora.com/How-hard-is-it-to-get-a-gun-in-Switzer... is a good discussion of Swiss law. TL,DR: Swiss law is different than U.S. law, and it's hard to generalize as each is more or less permissive given different areas (and the U.S. is really 51 or 52 little countries in most senses, as Switzerland is divided into Cantons). Concerning ammo specifically: https://www.reddit.com/r/askswitzerland/comments/7xug8k/question_about_ammunition_purchasing_in/ https://www.reddit.com/r/askswitzerland/comments/7xug8k/ques... TL,DR: One can buy ammo freely at ranges and with minimal permitting to take home. It sounds like maybe the Army wanted ammo stored centrally such that it would be in controlled environmental conditions, and not lost or accidentally used up at a Schützenfest.

natmaka 5y ago

As far as I know and saw in Switzerland the army doesn't give ammo anymore to militiamen (maybe because some over-used it, or maybe due to long-term storage issues) but they are able to buy it, and many do. Moreover there is a mandatory training programme (a few weeks each year), including shooting exercises. Security-related matters aren't neglected, lowering the accident rates. After his term a militiamen can buy the army-delivered weapon, and quite a few do so. This is financially clever as most on-duty militiamen take care of the gun (thinking he will buy it) and it reduces its cost for the community as he buys it, along as for him thanks to the massive buying programs of the army. Many, even among non-militiamen, are hunters or shooters (as a hobby) and a fair fraction of them reload used ammunition. In Switzerland a prominent argument (maybe the most prominent) of people willing to ban weapons is the amount of suicides by firearms. However suicide rates in heavily-armed Switzerland are at worst equal to those of not-heavily-armed nations such as the UK, Germany and France ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_r... ) As a related note: most firearm-related death rates are established while integrating suicides: in the US the apparent (and widely publicized) ratio of firearm-related death for 1e5 people in 2017 was 11.67, however suicides form 7.32 of it (4.46 being homicides). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-related_death_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-r... IMHO the Swiss context differs from the US one because the militia is the core of the defensive system, each citizen has to be involved and the local culture integrates it. Even more significantly the Swiss society isn't under lasting and major murder-triggering major pressure (ethnic tensions, extreme poverty...). Gun ownership doesn't put a stable society into jeopardy, and disarming haters won't transmogrify them into tolerant citizens. https://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/switzerland https://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/switzerland

DanBC 5y ago
> In Switzerland a prominent argument (maybe the most prominent) of people willing to ban weapons is the amount of suicides by firearms. However suicide rates in heavily-armed Switzerland are at worst equal to those of not-heavily-armed nations such as the UK, Germany and France ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_r https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_r... ) A note of gentle caution: you can't compare suicide rates across countries because there are big differences in methods of counting deaths.
- natmaka 5y ago
  True, however AFAIK this is less distorted between similar nations such as (here) the UK, Germany, France and Switzerland Directly comparing data from Switzerland and Pakistan, Tuvalu or Rwanda is indeed too risky.