Switzerland Holds Referendum on Guns

While the assassination attempt on Gabrielle Giffords in Arizona revived a predictable and unchanging round of gun control debate in the U.S., a referendum in Switzerland — Europe’s best-armed nation — is showing a shift of opinion away from private gun ownership.

Every third household in Switzerland has a firearm, normally government-issued, because every male citizen under about 50 is also a reserve soldier. Instead of a standing professional army, the government maintains a well-armed militia to be called up in case of war.

The tradition goes back to at least 1291, when several regions of what’s now Switzerland rose up against the Austrian empire, starting a war of liberation with citizen-soldiers like William Tell (who may be mythical) wielding private crossbows and hunting bows to defeat a more professional Habsburg army. Legends of Swiss independence have an almost American ring of under-doggedness.

But a referendum on Feb. 13 will decide whether the Swiss should go on keeping their guns at home or store them in public arsenals. Lately, yes votes for the arsenal bill have led public opinion — 45 percent support it versus 34 percent who oppose, plus a wide undecided margin, according to a poll from early January.