"The Swiss vote in a referendum this Sunday on a measure to collect military-issue weapons. The aim is to store guns in public arsenals, rather than at home -- and cut down on domestic violence. But it could end a tradition of gun ownership associated with Swiss independence and the legend of William Tell."

http://www.spiegel.de/international/eur ... 37,00.html

Yeah, the Swiss are a violent people...

Didn't you ever look closely at the crazed look on the face of the girl on a box of Swiss Miss hot chocolate?

"Switzerland upheld its reputation for having one of the most liberal yet lethal firearms laws in Europe yesterday after voters overwhelmingly rejected proposals that would have obliged some two million gun owners in the country to keep their weapons in public arsenals rather than at home."

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... 13880.html

57% against, rejected soundly.

Antiquus wrote:57% against, rejected soundly.

Damn those war loving, violent ...wait, nevermind

the comedian wrote:Yeah, the Swiss are a violent people...

Speaking as a 1st gen Swiss American, it's an odd little country.

Politically, the Swiss aren't violent, but not certainly not pacifist, either. "Belligerent isolationism" is what I would call it. They have a strong streak of the survivalist mentality that the rest of the world can blow itself to F#*% and they'll just carry on as they were. Oh, and they did shoot down both Nazi and Allied planes in WW II.

MtnMan wrote:

the comedian wrote:Yeah, the Swiss are a violent people...

Speaking as a 1st gen Swiss American, it's an odd little country.

Politically, the Swiss aren't violent, but not certainly not pacifist, either. "Belligerent isolationism" is what I would call it. They have a strong streak of the survivalist mentality that the rest of the world can blow itself to F#*% and they'll just carry on as they were. Oh, and they did shoot down both Nazi and Allied planes in WW II.

Are you old enough to remember the Stg 57? Did you get to play with it?

Just curious.

Xela

MtnMan wrote:

the comedian wrote:Yeah, the Swiss are a violent people...

Speaking as a 1st gen Swiss American, it's an odd little country.

Politically, the Swiss aren't violent, but not certainly not pacifist, either. "Belligerent isolationism" is what I would call it. They have a strong streak of the survivalist mentality that the rest of the world can blow itself to F#*% and they'll just carry on as they were. Oh, and they did shoot down both Nazi and Allied planes in WW II.

I didn't figure the Swiss as pacifists. Neutrality is not necessarily about pacifism as much as it is about the stupidity of war in terms of politics and economics.

The pathetic thing is you have people in the US, a young country that inherited violence and imperialism from momma Britain, once the largest empire in the world who kept that empire at the end of a gun barrel; telling people about the horrors of guns.

Sort of like Augustine of Hippo who was a perverted bastard, then converted on his mother's deathbed and became a zealot of sexual repression.

I do not like hypocrites.

Cali wrote:The pathetic thing is you have people in the US, a young country that inherited violence and imperialism from momma Britain, once the largest empire in the world who kept that empire at the end of a gun barrel; telling people about the horrors of guns.

And those same people, without the guns used in the Revolutionary War, would still be under the thumb of that same empire. You know what they say about those who fail to learn from history...

AmirMortal wrote:

Cali wrote:The pathetic thing is you have people in the US, a young country that inherited violence and imperialism from momma Britain, once the largest empire in the world who kept that empire at the end of a gun barrel; telling people about the horrors of guns.

And those same people, without the guns used in the Revolutionary War, would still be under the thumb of that same empire. You know what they say about those who fail to learn from history...

Yep. They become Republicans

MtnMan wrote:

the comedian wrote:Yeah, the Swiss are a violent people...

Speaking as a 1st gen Swiss American, it's an odd little country.

Politically, the Swiss aren't violent, but not certainly not pacifist, either. "Belligerent isolationism" is what I would call it. They have a strong streak of the survivalist mentality that the rest of the world can blow itself to F#*% and they'll just carry on as they were. Oh, and they did shoot down both Nazi and Allied planes in WW II.

Yea, and we bombed Basel and Zurich. On the same day. It was an accident, really....