Gun Politics in Switzerland - Gun Crime

Gun Crime

Further information: Gun violence and Crime in Switzerland

Police statistics for the year 2006 records 34 killings or attempted killings involving firearms, compared to 69 cases involving bladed weapons and 16 cases of unarmed assault. Cases of assault resulting in bodily harm numbered 89 (firearms) and 526 (bladed weapons). As of 2007, Switzerland had a population of about 7,600,000. This would put the rate of killings or attempted killings with firearms at about one for every quarter million residents yearly. This represents a decline of aggravated assaults involving firearms since the early 1990s. The majority of gun crimes involving domestic violence are perpetrated with army ordnance weapons, while the majority of gun crime outside the domestic sphere involves illegally held firearms.

The low incidence of gun crime in Switzerland is sometimes attributed to the fact that Switzerland is wealthy but also isolated. Social problems associated with gun crime in other industrialised countries, such as drugs or urban deprivation, are not widespread. Swiss men and women learn from an early age to associate firearms with defense of their country. While Switzerland has a strong 'Gun Culture', and hunting is popular, the high level of support for guns in the home is largely based around the fact that Militia service is such a strong part of Swiss society. In Switzerland the vast majority of gun related deaths are from suicide rather than homicide.