| Key bits. I think they are unwise to walk away from the culture of an armed, trained citizenry, given the current changes in the countries surrounding them. |
[SwissInfo] Shooting is one of Switzerland’s most deeply rooted traditions. For generations, shooting ranges have been an integral part of Swiss municipalities, almost on a par with churches and schools. Today, many disused shooting ranges have left behind a costly legacy: thousands of contaminated sites that need to be dealt with.
| Whatever needs to happen, I’m sure the Swiss will do it throughly and quickly, like they repair their roads. Or has that changed in recent years as well? |
Sunday afternoon. Everyone is ready at the shooting range. The first shots break the silence and echo among the surrounding mountains. In a tunnel, sheltered by an earth embankment, a few youngsters lower the targets, look for the bullet hole, mark it with a sticker and raise the targets again, pointing out the point of impact to the shooter with a small paddle. It is the 1990s, in Valposchiavo, an Italian-speaking valley in Graubünden, southeastern Switzerland.
Back then, it was customary to attend the 10am mass. At 1pm everyone would meet at the shooting range. As in many Swiss villages, Sundays were devoted to prayer and the defence of the country. The adults practised shooting, just as they had learnt during their military service. Those too young to handle a rifle kept score, earning a few francs, which they might spend on filling up the moped on which they whizzed about the valley’s roads.
A TRADITION UNIQUE IN EUROPE
That Sunday gathering was not just a pastime. “Shooting is deeply rooted in Swiss history,” explains historian Cedric Zbinden. “The strength of this tradition lies in its two facets: on the one hand, there are the shooting clubs, which serve as meeting places and centres of social life. On the other, there is the militia, which for decades supported this practice and helped to establish it in almost every corner of the country.”
PEOPLE ARE STILL SHOOTING, BUT LESS AND LESS
In 1986, membership of shooting clubs peaked at almost 590,000, just under a tenth of the Swiss population. From the 1970s and 1980s onwards, the almost unshakeable image of the citizen-soldier began to show its first cracks.
“With the end of the Cold War, many people no longer saw shooting as an integral part of national defence,” Zbinden says. This shift in society was also reflected in the membership figures of shooting clubs.
Following the government’s decision in 1996 to abolish the compulsory membership of a shooting club, the number of active members has been steadily declining. In 1997, there were just under 230,000; last year, the figure stood at around 130,000, spread across some 2,500 clubs affiliated to the Swiss Shooting Sports Federation.
According to Zbinden, this trend also reflects changing leisure habits, particularly among the younger generations, and, more generally, the decline in the central role played by club activities in everyday life.
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