ZURICH – Swiss voters, upholding their national tradition of an ever-ready citizen army, on Sunday rejected a proposal to ban army firearms from their homes, following an emotional debate on the subject. Provisional results of Sunday’s vote showed that 57 percent voted against tightening the rules on army firearms in a country where many see keeping a weapon at home as a crucial element of national identity.
The vast majority of Swiss men liable for military service store their guns at home and often keep them after leaving the army. Occasional shootings, such as a massacre in 2001 in a cantonal parliament, have prompted calls for tighter controls. “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, said on Swiss television.
Supporters of the initiative, which also aimed to restrict purchases of new guns and set up a central register of all gun owners, used posters featuring a teddy bear with a bleeding bullet wound in its torso.
