Swiss vote to keep guns at home

GENEVA: An estimated 56.3 percent of Swiss voters on Sunday rejected a controversial proposal on tightening the country's liberal gun laws in a nationwide ballot, the Tribune de Genève newspaper reported.

More than 1.395 million people voted against the initiative which sought to ban army-issue guns from the home. Support came from mainly urban regions including Geneva, Basel and Zurich, while opposition was strongest in rural areas.


The result is a blow to gun-control groups and supporters, while the government and the majority in Parliament welcomed the results saying that the current legislation is sufficient to protect the public against misuse.

The initiative was launched four years ago in an attempt to propose tighter controls on gun ownership and reduce the number of suicides and incidents of domestic violence. The goal was to remove 1.7 million military weapons from circulation to reduce suicides and murders.

Switzerland has one of the world's most liberal gun license laws. The country's 8 million people own an estimated 2.5 million guns, with 1.2 million of them from the military.

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