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by xyzzyz 1000 days ago
> Switzerland has strict gun laws that mostly ban the kind of military-grade firearms we see used in mass murders in the U.S.

This is completely, verifiably false. It even contradicts the rest of your comment, where you quote:

> After they've finished their service, the men can typically buy and keep their service weapons

The “service weapon” here means literally the one that they used in military, which, as I presume, is “military grade”.

1 comments

You must have overlooked the word "mostly" in my comment.

The first link in my post is to an official Swiss government site. If you want to quibble about what constitutes a "military-grade" firearm, that's certainly your privilege.

Yes, you can follow that link and find that you are completely wrong. Please name one weapon that is “military grade”, commonly available in US, but banned in Switzerland. You can’t, because you’re wrong.
From the Swiss government Web page I linked: Banned weapons include "semi-automatic firearms with a large magazine" — as just one example, recall that the Las Vegas shooter used "a large quantity of ammunition in special high-capacity magazines holding up to 100 cartridges each."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Paddock#Las_Vegas_shoo...

No, because this doesn’t ban anything that’s in common use in US. The 30 rounds magazines in common use in US do not count as “large magazines” for the purposes of that Swiss law, because these are normal capacity magazines. As I said, you are completely wrong about this.
That's it, keep moving the goalposts ....

BTW, did you also overlook the part about Switzerland requiring military training and service for (essentially) all able-bodied men in a certain age range? Whereas in the U.S., pretty much any untrained bozo who never served can buy high-powered weaponry and strut around cosplaying in camo and body armor, ostentatiously toting the weaponry and shouting belligerent slogans. (It's been my untutored conjecture that most such folks are trying to compensate for deep-seated fears that they don't really measure up in the masculinity department, although there also seems to be a certain percentage of sociopaths in the mix as well.)

No, it is you who keep moving the goalposts. The original claim was:

> Switzerland has strict gun laws that mostly ban the kind of military-grade firearms we see used in mass murders in the U.S.

And this is clearly false: you have not shown a single “military grade firearm” that we see used in mass murders in the US, but which is banned in Switzerland. All mass murders in US that I know of have used normal capacity magazines, and these are not banned in Switzerland. Your best argument here is that there might have been some mass murder in the US that used some weapon banned in Switzerland, but this is very far cry from your original goalpost, which is that Switzerland mostly bans guns used in mass murders in US: it overwhelmingly does not.

> BTW, did you also overlook the part about Switzerland requiring military training and service for (essentially) all able-bodied men in a certain age range?

Not sure what it has to do with the discussion, which was about clearly and explicitly false claim you made and apparently continue to hold on to, despite utter lack of evidence. Military service is not a prerequisite for gun ownership in Switzerland in general (it is for some guns, though).

> although there also seems to be a certain percentage of sociopaths in the mix as well

If we are playing armchair psychologist here, well, I could say something here about social orientation of people knowingly spreading verifiable falsehoods on the internet to further their ideology and agenda.