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Title: Swiss Vote to Keep Guns at Home (Militia defeats gun grabing socialists)
Source:
The Wall Street Journal
URL Source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB100 ... 3515504576142190857662716.html
Published: Feb 13, 2011
Author: DEBORAH BALL
Post Date: 2011-02-13 14:48:44 by Hondo68
Keywords: men between 18 and 30, three months military training, Swiss militiamen
Views: 48178
Comments: 55
ZURICH—Following an emotional debate over gun control, Swiss voters firmly rejected a referendum that would have forced soldiers to end the longstanding practice of keeping army-issue firearms at home and tightened restrictions over civilian gun ownership. According to exit polls, 57% of voters rejected the initiative. The referendum sparked a heated debate over the right to bear arms in a country that has one of the highest rates of gun ownership in the world. Between 1.2 million and 4.5 million firearms are estimated to be in circulation in Switzerland, putting the Alpine country behind only the U.S. and Yemen in guns per capita. The number is particularly high because members of the Swiss militia have traditionally keep their army-issued rifles or pistols at home, to be ready to defend the nation at a moment's notice. Switzerland has virtually no standing army, relying instead on conscripted militia for national defense. All Swiss men between 18 and 30 years old are called up to do three months' military training, followed by regular refresher courses. The notion of the citizen-soldier is a cornerstone of Switzerland's armed neutrality policy. For decades, Swiss militiamen kept their army-issued firearms stashed in closets or under beds at home. But support for keeping so many guns at home has eroded, with opposition led by women, doctors and police, who claim that the easy availability of arms facilitates domestic violence, suicides and homicides. They contested the need to keep guns at home given that Switzerland hasn't come under threat since World War II. Opponents of the referendum argued that the initiative was tantamount to a vote of no confidence in the Swiss army. Each side used stark images to sway voters. The referendum's supporters used a teddy bear with blood dripping from a hole in its chest, brandishing the motto, "Protect your family." A right-wing group's posters featured a man with dark glasses pointing a gun at the viewer, a play on anti-immigrant sentiment. The Swiss government opposed the referendum, arguing that soldiers are now allowed to store their weapons on base and that civilian gun possession laws—once very liberal—are now tight enough. The "no" vote exceeded 70% in some rural cantons, which are more conservative and are the home to many shooting clubs. The Swiss people won't let themselves "be disarmed," said Jakob Buchler, a leader of the conservative Democratic People's Party.
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Swiss Militiaman Shopping
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#16. To: hondo68 (#15)
I agree. I'll only pull it to use it to give me room to escape a bad situation or kill someone intent on harming me. Whe I was a teenager in Boston at age 16 I had a guy pull a revolver on me on the street and with teenage speedy reflexes I grabbed hold of the gun and the falling trigget pinched the web of my hand between the thumb and index finger and I yanked it out of his hand and ran. Talk about being a lucky kid. The cops took that away from me when my aunt reported the attempt at mugging me near Fenway Park (I was there to see baseball's best team). But I found out later in training that I grabbed for it in the right spot. That one was an S&W too, a model 10. This was in 1970.
Only people living in America and Somalia fear a UN invasion of peace keepers it seems. I don't know why Americans are so paranoid...my guess is years of Cold War mind fucking from the American govt to keep the people afraid and in favor of ever increasing military budgets as well as the mixing in of Protestant end time kooks like Hal Lindsey who used the UN as a stand in for the Antichrist. All I know is when Black Panthers showed up to a town hall meeting, armed, Ronald Reagan and right wingers could not ban fire arms fast enough (Mulford Act in 1967).
"Keep Your Goddamn Government Hands Off My Medicare!" - Various Tea Party signs.
During the unrest on California Campuses, then Governor Reagan shocked his staff by calling for the killing of protesters. He quickly reversed himself, and the news stories are seldom quoted and referred to, but they are still in the archives and I won a bet on this once. We need guns because the government should fear it's people, not the people their government. And tyranny and oppression can come from a right wing or left wing government out of control. Either part of the spectrum have shown they can go insane if given power. Gun ownership is not a right or left wing issue if one understands it, it is a check and balance element the Founding Fathers wisely wrote the Second Amendment to empower.
I don't disagree that the govt needs to be in fear of its people but Gandhi and the Egyptian and Tunisian people - as well as the people of the Eastern Soviet Block did not need arms to bring down their govt. And I prefer that non violent model when the people who are doing the oppressing are your own countrymen who are misguided (not wanting to kill your own countrymen that is). And the Swiss arms in this article were never meant to be used on their own people's govt but on foreign invaders.
"Keep Your Goddamn Government Hands Off My Medicare!" - Various Tea Party signs.
Egypt dose not have FEMA emergency confinement centers, did not train troops how to do a shock and awe surprise sweep up of 'troublemakers,' or some of the more sophisticated crowd control devices we now have. Peaceful means toward change is preferable. But if there are not people out there who know how to organize insurgency actions and know how to marshal people with tools like weapons and handguns, often the peaceful efforts are not taken seriously and they are more prone to default to just sweeping non- violence actions aside as one would kick then club a barking dog that offends. I am a peaceful man. One who can go to the hardware and drug store and buy what I need to use knowledge kept from most people to blow thing up and make a mess out of things. And all this knowledge I got freely and legally while in a unit that deals with low intensity conflict. If things gets bad enough I will teach it and use what I know as will many others. I prefer the peaceful change options be used, but I am no fool. And people like me will fuck shit up if no option for peaceful change is left us.
If the Confederacy fielding the finest of armies led by the most brilliant of generals could not defeat the Union army I doubt any rag tag militia will either.
"Keep Your Goddamn Government Hands Off My Medicare!" - Various Tea Party signs.
Heh, which is why all our billions and war dead and wounded kept Saigon from falling in 1975, right? Who's talking rag tag militias trying conventional armed conflict? We have SOCOM and Low Intensity Conflict has it's own branch in the U.S. Army for a good reason. I know what I'm talking about. And I know what sort of efforts in the worst case scenario get results, because they have a history of accomplishing the mission.
The Vietcong and the North Vietnamese were a seasoned professional army fighting the Japanese and the French before that was supplied with top line weapons from the Eastern Block nations (and with their money as well). To say the VC were rag tag primitives is bunk.
"Keep Your Goddamn Government Hands Off My Medicare!" - Various Tea Party signs.
I'm not saying they were rag tag primatives. You miss the point. I'm saying we can do the same thing here and will if we have to.
That kind of asymmetric warfare would destroy the American character:
"Keep Your Goddamn Government Hands Off My Medicare!" - Various Tea Party signs.
LOL! BOY are YOU ever misnamed. You craven libTURD pussy.
Living in mouth breather's empty noggins 24/7/365 totally rent free!
Yep. Btw, I wonder how many of these gun grabbing libTURD pussies even have the basic knowledge of Swiss history? LOL! Ah heck, we all know none of them has even a clue about it. Let me give em a hint. The Swiss and the Tibetians have this in common.
Living in mouth breather's empty noggins 24/7/365 totally rent free!
LOL! They certainly are. They are solid pro GOOBERMENT having firearms. They don't consider the mere people to be capable of having them however. You are a gibbering fool.
Living in mouth breather's empty noggins 24/7/365 totally rent free!
All the best handgun manufacturers are European socialists.
"Keep Your Goddamn Government Hands Off My Medicare!" - Various Tea Party signs.
LOL! You know as much about handguns as you know about life, which is ZERO. COLT, RUGER, SPRINGFIELD, KIMBER, FREEDOM ARMS, ... etc are "european socialists"? LMAO!!!!!!!!! You really are a stupid libTURD butthole.
Living in mouth breather's empty noggins 24/7/365 totally rent free!
You mean the obsolete scrubs? "Glock now controls an estimated 60 percent of the police market today with SIG and Beretta taking sizeable chunks from Smith's pie." SOCIALIST EUROPEANS FOR THE WIN!!!!!
"Keep Your Goddamn Government Hands Off My Medicare!" - Various Tea Party signs.
You mean Remington Arms Company, Inc., not Springfield. Other than that, you are correct that the United States has very quality oriented firearms companies that do a booming business. Naturally as I am originally from Connecticut, I am very familiar with this industry as it is a huge one there. I also used to own a Mossberg bicycle, which was made by that particular Connecticut manufacturer of rifles in the 1970s.
Many of the companies he mentioned have profitable niche markets and still do government contracts for firearms, though some European firms have been successfully bidding on some of those contracts. I have a glock and like it well enough, bit I still much prefer a well machined firearm made completely of metal than a light plastic rich wonder like my old choice for a sidearm was when I was a helicopter crewchief in the 82nd Airborne Division.
And lots more, including Kahr Arms and S&W, both in "Gun Valley" in the NE.
Americans still make OK guns designed a hundred years ago.....
"Keep Your Goddamn Government Hands Off My Medicare!" - Various Tea Party signs.
LOL! As I have already stated libTURD, you know nothing about handguns. "Obsolete"! LOL! YOU are a gibbering fool.
Living in mouth breather's empty noggins 24/7/365 totally rent free!
I did not mean the list to be all inclusive. Also, I was thinking about good pistols mostly. IMO Mossberg is under rated gear. Just ask almost 30% of all police depts. The 500 series is awesome and the current issue 12ga is the Mossberg 590 and it's variants and it was the ONLY shotgun to qualify under the new requirements.
Living in mouth breather's empty noggins 24/7/365 totally rent free!
My apologies to all quality American firearms companies. I did not mean the list to be all inclusive. I was thinking about good pistols which I have owned and/or had personal experience with mostly. I wasn't sure of what S&W's current ownership is which is why I left it out.
Living in mouth breather's empty noggins 24/7/365 totally rent free!
LOL! You are a deeply ignorant libTURD fool g wizz! ROTFLMAOAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Living in mouth breather's empty noggins 24/7/365 totally rent free!
Get lost drunky
Hitler invaded the largely German speaking Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia. He invaded the German speaking Austria. However, he never invaded the largely German speaking Switzerland. Why? Because they all had guns in their closet. This is the lesson from history that we must understand.
LOL! Talking to yourself again yabba dabba do? Eat shit and die creep.
Living in mouth breather's empty noggins 24/7/365 totally rent free!
Why? Because they all had guns in their closet. That's a myth. Hitler nor any German general or statesment ever said that or thought that. Hitler never wanted war with the West. He wanted to move eastward and attack the USSR and take their land. Germany did not declare war on France or the British. It is was those nations that declared war on Germany, which suprised Hitler that they did so on behalf of Poland. All other western battles (from Norway to the Balkans) were a result of Germany securing their flanks. The Allies were planning to invade Norway to block Swedish iron ore. Germany invaded the Balkans because Italy was losing her war against Greece and the English were landing there while he was preparing to invade the USSR. When Hitler thought the war with France and England was almost over he invaded his real target - the USSR. Hitler did not want to rule over all Germans like the Swiss. He wanted to expand eastwards and gain land. Hitler wanting to "liberate" the Sudetenland was racially motivated - the Nazis did not like the idea of so called Aryans ruled by what he thought were sub-human Slavs.
"Keep Your Goddamn Government Hands Off My Medicare!" - Various Tea Party signs.
The Armistice is signed on June 22. Under its terms, two thirds of France is to be occupied by the Germans. The French army is to be disbanded. In addition, France must bear the cost of the German invasion. (Hitler's face) "is afire with scorn, anger, hate, revenge, triumph." http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/francesurrenders.htm Hitler knew them treaty obligations that would compel France and Britain to join in. And he was insane, greedy, a megalomaniac and didn't think he would have the trouble he did in trying to conquer Great Britain. I do not agree with you. He made a deal with Stalin to split up Poland, and always planned to betray him. He was also insanely grudgeful about the way WW I went, and had France surrender in the same rail car used to secure surrender signatures of the Germans at the end of that war.
That's what I said - hello - Hitler was only interested in Russia not France. Hitler was spiteful against France but he did not want to wage war in the West.
"Keep Your Goddamn Government Hands Off My Medicare!" - Various Tea Party signs.
...It is now three twenty-three p.m. and the Germans stride over to the armistice car. For a moment or two they stand in the sunlight outside the car, chatting. Then Hitler steps up into the car, followed by the others. We can see nicely through the car windows. Hitler takes the place occupied by Marshal Foch when the 1918 armistice terms were signed. The others spread themselves around him. Four chairs on the opposite side of the table from Hitler remain empty. The French have not yet appeared. But we do not wait long. Exactly at three thirty p.m. they alight from a car. They have flown up from Bordeaux to a near-by landing field. ...Then they walk down the avenue flanked by three German officers. We see them now as they come into the sunlight of the clearing. Hitler celebrates before the ceremony ...It is a grave hour in the life of France. The Frenchmen keep their eyes straight ahead. Their faces are solemn, drawn. They are the picture of tragic dignity. They walk stiffly to the car, where they are met by two German officers, Lieutenant-General Tippelskirch, Quartermaster General, and Colonel Thomas, chief of the Fuhrer's headquarters. The Germans salute. The French salute. The atmosphere is what Europeans call "correct." There are salutes, but no handshakes. Now we get our picture through the dusty windows of that old wagon-lit car. Hitler and the other German leaders rise as the French enter the drawing-room. Hitler gives the Nazi salute, the arm raised. Ribbentrop and Hess do the same. I cannot see M. Noel to notice whether he salutes or not. Hitler, as far as we can see through the windows, does not say a word to the French or to anybody else. He nods to General Keitel at his side. We see General Keitel adjusting his papers. Then he starts to read. He is reading the preamble to the German armistice terms. The French sit there with marble-like faces and listen intently. Hitler and Goring glance at the green table-top. The reading of the preamble lasts but a few minutes. Hitler, we soon observe, has no intention of remaining very long, of listening to the reading of the armistice terms themselves. At three forty-two p.m., twelve minutes after the French arrive, we see Hitler stand up, salute stiffly, and then stride out of the drawing-room, followed by Goring, Brauchitsch, Raeder, Hess, and Ribbentrop. The French, like figures of stone, remain at the green-topped table. General Keitel remains with them. He starts to read them the detailed conditions of the armistice. Hitler and his aides stride down the avenue towards the Alsace-Lorraine monument, where their cars are waiting. As they pass the guard of honour, the German band strikes up the two national anthems, Deutschland, Deutschland uber Alles and the Horst Wessel song. The whole ceremony in which Hitler has reached a new pinnacle in his meteoric career and Germany avenged the 1918 defeat is over in a quarter of an hour." http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/francesurrenders.htm Hitler was obsessively interested in France. When he lay in the hospital a wounded corporal, he cried bitter tears in extreme anger and humiliation at how he percieved France treated Germany in surrender.
Hitler cried because the war was lost not because of any perceived ill treatment of Germany by France - the Versailles treaty came after. Hitler was not planning a war in the West with France and England and did all he could to avoid it. He made his moves in the east.
"Keep Your Goddamn Government Hands Off My Medicare!" - Various Tea Party signs.
He made his move in the east to get those who had signed a mutual defense treaty with Poland to fight. He fully intended to take out France and England fast, and in the case of France he did, and he chased the English off the continent at Dunkirk. He then immediately started the aerial Battle of Britain and fully intended on taking England out before we repeated what we did in WW I in supplying England with enough material support to keep that from happening. Hitler never, ever intended on just moving East. His game plan was to move quickly taking everything as fast as possible. He moved into Africa quickly too, and because he failed to secure a stable supply of oil for fuel, this became the major choking point that throttled his war effort to death. Had he secured an oil supply, he had the weapons and equipment to fight the West to a standstill and at worse have to cease combat operations and hold until he could make war again.
False.
"Keep Your Goddamn Government Hands Off My Medicare!" - Various Tea Party signs.
I do not concur. Not even Hitler was dumb enough to assume anyone would be fooled by seeding the battlefield with corpses dressed in Polish uniforms. That might be fodder for internal propaganda fare, but he well knew as soon as he attacked Poland, France and England as per treaty obligation would be coming into the fight. ,p>He didn't expect the Poles to put up as strong a fight as they did though. It gave the French and British a wee bit more breathing room to get ready to scrap, which didn't help Hitler's plans at all.
Germany did not declare war on France or the British. You've entirely missed the point as usual. I never mentioned anything about the U.K. or France one. Here is what I DID say: It was Hitler's goal to unify all of the ethnic German in Europe into a "greater-Germany. Hitler DID marched into German-speaking Austria. Hitler DID march into the German-speaking Sudetenland. Hitler never marched into German speaking Switzerland. Why? Because the population was well armed. Those are called facts.
That part of my comment was aimed at FerretMike, in that Hitler did not want war with France or England and invading Poland was not a trick that he did to force France and England to declare war on Germany. I frankly have no clue where FM pulled that from. As for you, jw, your assertion Hitler was held back by Swiss force of arms is false. We don't know what Hitler would have done if he defeated the USSR but I am sure after that threat was eliminated the Swiss may have been rolled over but that is speculation. The Swiss, serving as a neutral financial center at this time was much more important to Germany while war was being waged and she was denied access to foreign financial markets (Germany funded her embassies via Swiss bank transfers for example and did this with payments of gold - German Marks were no longer accepted internationally).
"Keep Your Goddamn Government Hands Off My Medicare!" - Various Tea Party signs.
he Swiss, serving as a neutral financial center at this time was much more important to Germany while war was being waged Textbooks in Germany included Holland, Belgium, Austria, Bohemia-Moravia, the German-speaking parts of Switzerland, and western Poland from Danzig to Krakow in maps of Greater Germany... Germany started planning the invasion of Switzerland on 25 June 1940, the day France surrendered. The third of these plans was called Operation Tannenbaum. The plan was submitted by 12th Army on 6 September 1940 to Army Group C. There are several possible reasons that the Germans did not execute the plan... ...While the Swiss military was markedly inferior to German forces in artillery and aircraft, to control the nation the Germans would have had to destroy a large and well-trained infantry force drawn directly from the Swiss population. The small arms of the Swiss, including the Schmidt-Rubin repeating rifle, were equal or superior to the best German small arms of the early war period, and Swiss marksmanship was well established. The example of the Winter War showed how a similar force of trained riflemen could stop a much larger, better equipped army. While revisionists have questioned the notion that Swiss rifles stopped the invasion, there can be no doubt that an invasion would have cost the Germans troops and resources needed elsewhere because of those rifles. Had there been no meaningful Swiss military force, the potential invasion would have been considerably less costly.
LOL - you post some war geek's ramblings as authoritative history? In June of 1940, all that remained, surrounded by enemies, was the Swiss Confederation. Riiiiiiiiiiiiight. Because Hitler had no plans to invade the USSR - his obsession since he became politically aware............ What next, nimrod? Posting Wikipedia as your source? The real reason Hitler did not invade the Swiss? Why bother at that time? The Swiss were more valuable to the German war effort as an neutral independent nation. I know you want to make it a pro-gun and pro-militia thing but that had zero to do with anything.
"Keep Your Goddamn Government Hands Off My Medicare!" - Various Tea Party signs.
#17. To: Murron (#13)
(Edited)
I believe it is the socialists who trust the UN that don't care if our weapons are confiscated, they honestly (ignorantly) believe it is the right thing to do to save lives.
#18. To: Godwinson (#17)
#19. To: Ferret Mike (#18)
(Edited)
We need guns because the government should fear it's people, not the people their government.
#20. To: Godwinson (#19)
(Edited)
#21. To: Ferret Mike (#20)
#22. To: Godwinson (#21)
#23. To: Ferret Mike (#22)
Heh, which is why all our billions and war dead and wounded kept Saigon from falling in 1975, right?
#24. To: Godwinson (#23)
#25. To: Ferret Mike (#24)
#26. To: John Hancock (#6)
#27. To: hondo68 (#5)
#28. To: Godwinson (#12)
Socialists are pro gun ownership.
#29. To: Mad Dog (#28)
#30. To: Ferret Mike, Mad Dog (#29)
(Edited)
#31. To: Godwinson (#30)
All the best handgun manufacturers are European socialists.
#32. To: Mad Dog (#31)
COLT, RUGER, SPRINGFIELD, KIMBER, FREEDOM ARMS, ... etc are "european socialists"?
#33. To: Mad Dog (#31)
#34. To: Godwinson (#32)
#35. To: Mad Dog (#31)
COLT, RUGER, SPRINGFIELD, KIMBER, FREEDOM ARMS
#36. To: Ferret Mike, hondo68 (#34)
"Glock now controls an estimated 60 percent of the police market today with SIG and Beretta taking sizeable chunks from Smith's pie."
#37. To: Godwinson (#32)
#38. To: Ferret Mike (#33)
#39. To: hondo68 (#35)
#40. To: Godwinson, hondo68 (#36)
Americans still make OK guns designed a hundred years ago.....
#41. To: Mad Dog (#27)
#42. To: hondo68 (#0)
"Everything that can be invented has been invented."-- Charles Duell, Commissioner of US Patent Office, 1899
#43. To: Abu el Banat (#41)
#44. To: jwpegler, hondo68 (#42)
(Edited)
Hitler invaded the largely German speaking Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia. He invaded the German speaking Austria. However, he never invaded the largely German speaking Switzerland.
#45. To: Godwinson (#44)
(Edited)
Hitler dictates that the French capitulation take place at Compiegne, a forest north of Paris. This is the same spot where twenty-two years earlier the Germans had signed the Armistice ending World War I. Hitler intends to disgrace the French and avenge the German defeat. To further deepen the humiliation, he orders that the signing ceremony take place in the same railroad car that hosted the earlier surrender.
#46. To: Ferret Mike (#45)
I do not agree with you. He made a deal with Stalin to split up Poland, and always planned to betray him.
#47. To: Godwinson (#46)
Hitler reads it and Goring reads it. They all read it, standing there in the June sun and the silence. I look for the expression on Hitler's face. I am but fifty yards from him and see him through my glasses as though he were directly in front of me. I have seen that face many times at the great moments of his life. But today! It is afire with scorn, anger, hate, revenge, triumph. He steps off the monument and contrives to make even this gesture a masterpiece of contempt. He glances back at it, contemptuous, angry - angry, you almost feel, because he cannot wipe out the awful, provoking lettering with one sweep of his high Prussian boot. He glances slowly around the clearing, and now, as his eyes meet ours, you grasp the depth of his hatred. But there is triumph there too - revengeful, triumphant hate. Suddenly, as though his face were not giving quite complete expression to his feelings, he throws his whole body into harmony with his mood. He swiftly snaps his hands on his hips, arches his shoulders, plants his feet wide apart. It is a magnificent gesture of defiance, of burning contempt for this place now and all that it has stood for in the twenty-two years since it witnessed the humbling of the German Empire.
#48. To: Ferret Mike (#47)
#49. To: Godwinson (#48)
#50. To: Ferret Mike (#49)
He made his move in the east to get those who had signed a mutual defense treaty with Poland to fight.
#51. To: Godwinson (#50)
(Edited)
#52. To: Godwinson (#44)
Hitler never wanted war with the West. He wanted to move eastward and attack the USSR and take their land.
"Everything that can be invented has been invented."-- Charles Duell, Commissioner of US Patent Office, 1899
#53. To: jwpegler, Ferret Mike (#52)
Here is what I DID say: It was Hitler's goal to unify all of the ethnic German in Europe into a "greater-Germany. Hitler DID marched into German-speaking Austria. Hitler DID march into the German-speaking Sudetenland. Hitler never marched into German speaking Switzerland. Why? Because the population was well armed.
#54. To: Godwinson (#53)
your assertion Hitler was held back by Swiss force of arms is false
"Everything that can be invented has been invented."-- Charles Duell, Commissioner of US Patent Office, 1899
#55. To: jwpegler (#54)
(Edited)
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