Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – A group of researchers based at Chuv (University Hospitals) in Lausanne have published the results of a 23-year study of Swiss homicide-suicides in The American Journal of Forensic Medicine and Pathology (28 January 2010 issue). Their conclusion: a stricter weapons law would help reduce the number of such deaths. The study was undertaken in the context of an ongoing national debate over military laws that require soldiers to keep guns at home. Switzerland has a national militia.

The group studied 75 cases of homicide-suicide, where a murderer then turns the weapon on himself or herself. The cases, from western and central Switzerland, involved 172 deaths.

“Our results show that if guns were used in 76 percent of the cases, army weapons were the cause of death in 25 percent of the total. In 28 percent of the deaths caused by a gunshot, the exact type of the gun and its origin could not be determined.”

Background, military guns, GenevaLunch

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