In Switzerland most men who serve in military have a weapon and some ammunition in their home. Whenever the Swiss talk about those weapons, the consensus is, that those weapons cause far less dammage than you might think.
Well, think again. As reported by the NZZ newspaper a study by Martin Killias of the University of Lausanne found that 300 people die a year because of those army weapons. I was not able to find the study on the UNIL web site unfortunately.
Compare the numbers:
- 300 people by army weapons
- 409 people in traffic (Year 2005, BFS)
There is a full program called Via Sicura to reduce the number of people who die in traffic accidents. The federal council has confirmed the wish to significantly reduce that number. So why don’t we start with army weapons first and just remove them from people’s homes? That would be a lot easier.