Israel and Switzerland and their gun control practices

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: It has been stated that Israel and Switzerland have handgun licensing and registration. It is true that Israel has a licensing system, as such was imposed by the colonial Government during the governance of Palestine, and this system continues in present day Israel. It should be noted however that the system is far more open than in most Commonwealth countries, as machineguns may be licensed, and it is relatively straightforward to obtain a license to carry a concealed handgun. : It is however completely untrue to state that Switzerland has such a system – nothing could be further from the truth. Switzerland has a permit to purchase system, which in practice is similar to the DROS requirements in California. A person wishing to buy a handgun or most types of repeating long gun has to apply to the local police for a permit to acquire a firearm, which is usually approved or denied in about a week. This is presented to the dealer who retains the permit and notifies the police of the transaction. However, the purchaser does not need to be licensed and there is no central firearms register, only the dealer has a record of these details. Private transfers are subject to even less restrictions than in California – a private seller of a firearm need only keep the name and address of the purchaser and details of the firearm sold, the police are not notified. : It should also be noted that the Swiss Army comprises 450,000 part-time soldiers who are required to keep their service weapons at home. In the main these are selective-fire assault rifles not dissimilar to the US service rifle. Thus in a population of 7 million people it can be seen that there are a large proportion of homes that contain automatic weapons. Also it should be noted that firearms classed as “semi-automatic assault weapons” in California are perfectly lawful in Switzerland and are subject to no special restrictions. : Yet according to the official Swiss statistics compiled by the Federal Office of Police the total rate of unlawful homicide and attempted homicide (the published figure is a combined total) with firearms at its highest rate (1993) was 0.7/100,000. In comparison the figure for homicide excluding attempted homicide in the United States is usually in the region of 5 or 6/100,000 according to the FBI figures. : However, too much should not be written into this comparison as it is a comparison of only two countries with wildly different cultures. The committee should beware of reading too much into international comparisons as it is relatively easy to prove anything with such comparisons. For example, both Brazil and Jamaica have vastly higher firearm-related homicide rates than the United States, although they both have handgun owner licensing and registration of handguns (according to 1994 UN figures, the US, Jamaica and Brazil had firearm-related homicide rates of 6.25, 18.23 and 25.78 per 100,000, respectively). : Indeed during the 1970s Jamaica went much further than that, requiring mandatory detention on summary judgement for possession of any firearms or ammunition under the provisions of the infamous Gun Courts Act. This Act was later repealed and replaced with a licensing system after it was apparent that total prohibition was not working, and was merely depriving many people of the ability to defend themselves from criminal gangs.

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