The Swiss – a nation that long ago learned the hard way that yearning for peace isn’t enough, and sometimes you have to defend it – are arming themselves, and doing it fast:

Applications for gun permits in Switzerland increased by 20% between 2014 and 2015, according to a survey conducted in 12 cantons by Swiss public television, SRF.
The survey, published on Wednesday, showed that in the 12 (out of 26) cantons surveyed, the Swiss are increasingly interested in purchasing pistols, rifles and other firearms for private use.

The greatest increase – more than 70% – was measured in canton Vaud, with more than 4,200 applications in 2015, compared with 2,427 in 2014.

There is a general climate of uncertainty and an increased fear of intruders, said Pierre-Olivier Gaudard, head of crime prevention for canton Vaud.

But Martin Boess, director of Swiss crime prevention, warned against the false sense of security that guns bring.

“When there are more guns in circulation, there is a greater danger for society,” he said in an interview on the 10 vor 10 news programme. “That’s shown by experience in places like the United States. When there are more guns, there are more accidents with guns.”

Why?  Because the head of the Swiss Army (their equivalent to the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff) is warning that the Swiss military, after two decades of politically-motivated drawdowns, is not going to be sufficient in the event of an asymmetric war (the quote starts with a Google translation, fine-tuned via my own German):

[General André] Blattmann writes, the situation’s risks are considerable: The terrorist threat is rising, asymmetrical wars threaten the peace in the world. In addition, there is an economic crisis. Even in the big surge of refugees and migrants looks like a danger to Blattmann.

Blattmann: “Social unrest can not be ruled out”, the vocabulary in public discourse will “dangerously aggressive”: “. The mixture is increasingly unsavory” .

Blattmann sees the basis of Swiss prosperity, “has been once again called into question.” He recalls the situation before and during the two world wars in the last century and advises the Swiss to arm themselves.

Swiss politicians responded with incomprehension at the army chief’s statement, and said his warnings are exaggerated.

The Swiss Armed Forces held maneuvers many years ago , focused on social unrest in Europe. Even the Economist warned [about the potential for trouble for the Swiss] already some time ago, before [the current] social tensions.

The Swiss are among the most well-armed people in the world, especially Europe.  Eight million Swiss own 2.5 million guns – about half of which are service weapons related to the Swiss “national service”, from which Israel borrowed its own military model.

When you tell a gun-grabber that the Swiss – among the most peaceful, stable nations on earth – are heavily armed, and that most Swiss households have at least one selective-fire assault rifle in the closet, they’ll usually frump “that doesn’t count – those are military weapons!”.  They’re wrong on three counts.

For starters – there are still well over a million purely civilian weapons!

Second – so the gun in the closet is military.  So what?  You think that would stop a criminal, all by itself?  No – Switzerland adds a pretty significant sentencing enhancement for using a military gun for non-military purposes (even opening one’s “emergency” ammo container, kept with the serviceman’s rifle and uniform at home, is a criminal offense).  So go figure – sentencing prevents crime! Case in point; when a bunch of Swiss yahoos staged a re-enactment of Abu Ghraib, they went to jail – for using their service weapons in the re-enactment.

Third?  After a Swiss citizen completes their service in the reserve, they are eligible to purchase their longtime personal weapon for a fairly nominal price.

That means for servicepeople in the “baby boom” years, a SIG “StG 57” – AKA the “Rolls Royce of battle rifles”.

A twelve-pound beast of a rifle, capable of firing the full-powered 7.5mm Swiss round, fully-or semi-automatic, it still serves as a “designated marksman’s weapon” in the Swiss Army.  The semi-auto only civilian version ran for $5,000 a pop on the US civilian market, back when they were obtainable at all.   Swiss reservists of a certain age can have their long-time service weapons (with semi-auto only actions installed) for a couple hundred bucks – less than the price of an American video-game console.

The young’uns?  They get the pretty spiffy, thoroughly-modern SIG 550s, in the NATO-standard 5.56mm caliber.

It’s basically a Swiss version of the M16/AR15, although it uses a much more reliable gas-piston operating system borrowed from the AK47.    You can find ’em in the US; if you find ’em under $1,800, it’s a bargain.   Swiss vets get theirs for less than the price of a laptop computer.

If the vet is an officer or senior NCO?

The SIG220 service pistol, one of the most coveted handguns in America, is the pistola franca of the Swiss armed forces.  A Swiss service veteran can keep their 220 for a couple hundred bucks.  When they get down to $1,000 in the US, people go crazy.

The Swiss Shooting Sports Federation – which is sort of like the NRA, but it also sells ammo and runs shooting ranges – has 175,000 members.  That’s  a higher percentage of the Swiss population than the NRA has in the US; in proportion to population, it’s the equivalent of seven million Americans going to the range and buying ammo.

Oh, yeah – and the Swiss firearm murder rate is about one quarter of the murder rate.

In Minnesota.

Pardon the gearhead tangent.

Now – General Blattman may be right, and he may be wrong.  I have a hunch Switzerland will be the last place in Europe ISIS tries its luck.

This entry was posted by by Mitch Berg on Wednesday, January 6th, 2016 at 6:00 am and is filed under Victim Disarmament, War On Terror, World. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.