Following the gun attacks in Paris and Brussels, the EU tightened gun rules in 2017. In 2018, the government of Switzerland, a nation outside the EU but within the Schengen area, changed its laws on guns to reflect european laws.
© Anton Zhuravkov _ Dreamstime.com
However, the changes do not please everyone. Switzerland has a long tradition of gun ownership and a group known as the Swiss shooting interest group (CIT) called for a referendum on the subject, which will take place on 19 May 2019.
A recent poll by gfs.bern suggests a growing number of voters are definitely in favour of accepting the government’s changes to gun laws, a percentage that rose from 50% to 52% between March and April. The percentage definitely against also rose from 25% to 26%. The first poll was run at the end of March and the second at the end of April.
Overall, in the lastest poll, 65% were in favour – 52% definitely and 13% quite in favour, compared to only 34% against – 26% definitely and 8% quite against. Only 1% were undecided or declined to respond.
For the latest poll, 5,817 people were interviewed between 23 and 30 April 2019.
More on this:
gfs.bern poll (in German)
Vote information (in French) – Take a 5 minute French test now
Initiative website (in French)
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