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What does your pro-Tell thingy mean?

Wilhelm Tell could probably explain it better, but here goes:

Since it's inception 711 years ago the Swiss Confederacy has had essentially a 100% draft, with every male citizen under 65 in the reserves. Currently this means that there is an assault rifle and ammo in virtually every Swiss house, next to the uniform. They can mobilize in under an hour. They have a very low crime rate! Would you want to burgle a house with an assault rifle armed resident???

This makes Switzerland the gun grabbers target #1.

The Pro-Tell movement is intended to thwart the gun grabbers.

A little more on the Swiss: Each and every town and village is required by law to have at least two shooting ranges. Every year (at least this was true in the 1980's when I observed them as an active duty army officer) the whole country shuts down for a three day wargame. This is culminated by a shooting competiton that results in the winner being awarded the trophy for a year which stands in the winners town hall or the residence of the (I think this is right) Burgermeister or Mayor. The rifle competition is held on a known distance range with targets out to 500 meters. This is NOT a .223 (5.56mm) competition. They're damn good soldiers and they practice all the time on their own.

On the nature of the current threat. I also agree there is "something" more that is undefinable, but real. Here is something that I'll bet most of you remember: There was a lot of talk amongst military folks a few years ago that the former USSR had a number of "Back-Pack" nukes they had smuggled into this country and prepositioned them during the cold war era. That of the 25 they supposedly hid, they had either lost or sold several to people who would pay, in a "cash poor" but "hardware wealthy" post USSR world, right after the fall of the communists. This is not a so called "dirty bomb. it is a nuclear device with a nominal yield of of about 1 kiloton or so....maybe a bit more. One kiloton is about 1000 tons of TNT. How much of downtown New York City would be destroyed in a blast of 1000 tons of explosive?

Speaking of "Hardware Wealthy" When I was attending the Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Warfare School, the instructors were telling us about the old USSR's favorite weapon that was roughly analogous to our delight with the claymore mine and it too, is a landmine, a chemical landmine. There were thousands and thousands of these chemical landmines just gathering dust in unprotected warehouses or bunkers in the former USSR. They are housed in a plastic casing or hull, non-ferrous and about the size and shape of a softball "base" used in physical education classes all over the country. They are designed to be set up in fields and or be command detonated by illiterate soviet privates and they even come with instructions that are pictures instead of written so anybody can use them! How comforting. You guys don't wanna know the effects of GB Soman on the unprotected nervous system. Soman is a nerve agent, very similar in nature to our own VX.

I thought it might be about that! I lived in Switzerland for 9 years. I even speak fluent Swiss German! Indeed, my husband had his rifle, and he used to take me to his obligatorische Schiesstage (compulsory shooting days). It was pretty fun, even if it does give you a sore shoulder. I wasn't too bad, either!

By the way, I have a friend who is the great-granddaughter of Wilhelm Tell, LOL, by that I mean that her ancestor was the man they used to model for both the statue and the coin of him!