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World: Swiss government official says gun control laws need to be tightened
Josey1
Member Posts: 9,598 ✭✭
World: Swiss government official says gun control laws need to be tightened Copyright APonline By JONATHAN FOWLER, Associated Press GENEVA (September 30, 2001 11:22 p.m. EDT) - Three days after a gunman in Switzerland stormed a regional government meeting and killed 14 people, the nation's Justice Minister said Sunday that the Switzerland's gun control rules needed to be tightened."There are deficiencies in the 1999 gun control law. We are preparing changes," said Ruth Metzler in an interview with the Zurich-based SonntagsBlick weekly.Metzler said Swiss authorities planned more controls on the buying and selling of guns by private individuals but did not give details.Gun control in low-crime Switzerland is the most relaxed in Western Europe. The neutral country's defense has traditionally been based on a part-time militia whose members keep their weapons at home.Under the rules introduced in 1999, anyone buying a gun from a store must show the seller a permit. The permits are issued by local police or authorities in the different Swiss cantons, or states. However, the only document required when one private individual sells a gun to another is a contract of sale.There is no restriction on guns inherited from another owner.Switzerland has no register of weapon sales. Calls for such a list by gun-control advocates were rejected by lawmakers concerned about breaking data-protection rules.When gunman Friedrich Leibacher entered the state parliament Thursday in the wealthy city of Zug, he fired bursts of dozens of rounds from his 5.6mm Sturmgewehr 90.Three members of the seven-person Zug executive branch were killed, along with 11 of the 80 legislative members. Fourteen people were still in the hospital Sunday, one in critical condition.Police said Leibacher had been convicted of a string of offenses 30 years ago, including sexual offenses against children.After he threatened a bus driver with a revolver in 1998, police confiscated Leibacher's handgun, but later returned it to him because of gun legislation in force at the time. http://www.nandotimes.com/world/story/113715p-1255597c.html