I don’t think you need to apologize for anything. PJ raised the idea of getting a dog, and you are only sharing your expertise. You’re our resident expert on all things dog!
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I find this issues with being responsible for the well-being of a burglar non sense. What happened to self responsibility? Can i expect to ve sued if a burglar slips in my apartment or finds it too cold for their health? Not a fan of stand your ground laws either but there must be a reasonable middle ground
Of course, laws look dumb if you look at them from the perspective of apartments.
So, look a bit to the past. Imagine you’re in a farm where the road to other farms passes through your property. If you run or ride your bike in the countryside you’ll find a lot of these cases. I wouldn’t want to be shot while riding my bike just because someone feels unsafe.
There are also plenty of houses where there is no fence or door at property limit. You walk into the property before reaching the door to ring the bell. It would be not optimal to make shooting at the post or any other delivery worker legal.
I guess that’s why Spinal mentioned the “immediate danger” situation. Otherwise, the ambiguity of many situations would end in useless violence.
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agree on that. But if someone breaks down a door and enters an apartment armed, I don’t think that law should focus on their wellbeing.
Who is concerned about the burglar?
I don’t think the law is focusing on the well-being of specific people in specific situations. The issue is more generic, it’s about preventing that people with guns acts on fear and instinct.
How would you know an intruder is armed? Only way to know if the intruder shows the gun first, or shoots. If no visible menace and you shoot first, big trouble. Assuming the burglar waves a gun, it would be necessary after this event to reach for your gun, load and prepare it.
Then it’s very clear the law is on side of protecting burglers. If someone breaks open a door and it’s not police, I don’t think the victim should have the burden to check if they carry a gun or not, what gun they have, if it’s loaded etc. Italy is finally moving in the right direction, but it took years and it’s too little, too slow.
Fortunately Switzerland is neither Italy nor the USA. There is no tradition of people (except the police) owning or carrying hand guns here. The reason why one rarely sees young recruits with army rifles on trains anymore is because the Swiss realised that the army rifle was more likely to be used in a suicide or family violence than in defending the homeland - hence the rifles and ammunition are these days largely confined to barracks.
Violent dogs are a similar problem. You might like the idea of being “guarded”, but dogs raised in this way are a danger, especially to the very children and adults that they are supposed to be protecting. In NZ this is a very real issue. Let a golden retriever bringing joy instead of fear.
There are simple ways to deter burglars, why not use them? For everything else you have play stations.
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Yes. Fortunately here the law is on the side of protecting the nice persons accidentally wrecking a door open with power tools. Some people really enjoy Halloween trick or treat all here around. 
But seriously, as these things tend to happen in the countryside where the police cant arrive in time, i cannot see how this would endander the general public.
Playing devil’s advocate for a second - imagine you are woken up at 3am, as someone forces your door open. How do you know it’s a burglar, or police that got the wrong house? (or worse, someone that prank called the police from your number? Quite common in gaming circles to “swat” people this way).
Now, my knowledge is a bit out of date here - but historically it was quite easy to spoof someone’s phone number, ever with simple public tools like Skype. You then call the police, spoofing the number of someone that annoyed you. Tell the police you have a hostage/gun/etc, and will kill yourself unless they allow you to speak to the president. Hang up, and watch.
First result on youTube for “funny swatting videos”: (from SWAT - the armed response team)
Ehmmmm… Switzerland is in the top20 firearms per capita globally (#19), while Italy comes in at a measly #52.
Carrying I would agree - it’s only men aged 20-40 (for now) that carry rifles once a year to their shooting practice… oh and security guards.
but owning? There is a VERY strong gun culture in Switzerland. The worlds largest gun festival is in Switzerland, every 5 years (Eidgenössisches Schützenfest). In Kt. Zurich, there’s children’s shooting day - where kids/teens are taught to safely fire a firearm for 3x days (and get to skip school as a result).
I have been fortunate enough to be part of sports shooting clubs in 4x countries, and owned firearms in 4x countries. Switzerland is, hands down, the easiest place to acquire and own a firearm.
Even as a non-citizen, when I had a B-permit, all I needed to buy firearms here was to prove that my home country had no issue with me owning a firearm here (either nulla osta from the police, or a firearms cert from my home country). With a C-permit or as a Swiss citizen, you don’t even need that.
In Italy and the UK, the police expect to see where you store the guns & ammo, get medical history, psychological background report, etc… in Switzerland, the onus is on the owner to “keep them safe”. So much so, that my local firearms officer told me “If you live alone, keeping them in a wardrobe in your bedroom would be ok”
EDIT: One more, personal one. My elderly mother, about a year ago, got locked out of her house. Cue a few hours of panicked calls to me to see if I had a spare key (I did, but being 5 hours away wasn’t easy). Eventually I suggested calling a locksmith, who duly came out, asked her three times if she had any way to prove it was her house - yes of course, in the house there are my documents. 30 minutes later, and one drilled lock… she realized she was on the wrong floor of the building. I’m quite happy that italy doesn’t have a stand your ground law… but then again, I do think there needs to be some way to “protect” yourself sensibly… I would be fully for declassifying less-lethal weapons (e.g. pepper launchers) to user against intruders.
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I hadn’t realised that it was so easy to buy a gun here, partly because I know so few people who own or admit to owning one. I am not sure how those statistics are put together but I suspect there is or was a lack of distinction between privately owned and the army issued rifle. The tradition of shooting is largely linked to military service. It is/was obligatory for men to go once a year to the local firing range.
Fortunately gun and knife crime is low compared to many other countries. It will be a disaster if Switzerland goes down the American or British path.
It’s would be interesting to look into why, with such ubiquitous gun-ownership here in Switzerland, it doesn’t have the same shockingly high stats of gun deaths, mass shootings, accidents, etc., as they have in the US.
I think your lumping in of the UK with the US is a little misguided. The UK has negligible gun crime due to extremely strict gun ownership laws. Knife crime does hit the headlines but according to this, of 53,000+ violent crimes committed 2023/24, 0.5% were recorded as being committed with a “knife or sharp object”. 2024/25 stats currently showing as down on last year, too.
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From wiki: civilian gun ownership per capita, military rifles excluded.
I was told a statistic a while ago that put Switzerland in the top 10 for civilian held full-auto rifles (considering the military ones held at homes), but I cannot find a credible source for that…
Another fun fact is that CH is typically in the top3 for shooting ranges per citizen or per sq.km…
I think you’ll find most people don’t “boast” about having guns here. Few of my friends know I own firearms, and those that know I have ANY guns, are those I go shooting with.
There’s a few very badly written articles comparing Swiss to American gun laws - and a lot of misinformation. You’ll find most gun owners as a result are VERY wary about speaking about guns…
It’s a bit like religion. Or a penis. You can play with it in private, or with consenting people in dedicated venues… but don’t go advertising/boasting about it to others.
This is something I’ve always wondered (and debated) about. My personal view is that guns are introduced at a young age, at school (e.g. knabenschiessen), as tools. Just like a car, you can kill a lot of people, do a lot of damage. They are not glorified as status symbols… but this is of course, just a theory.
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During covid there was an argument with one of my neighbors about “noise”. 2-3 years ago I found the guy trying to open my apartment with his key. My apartment is exactly one level below his. No bad intention, it’s just that the guy is not doing that well mentally.
TBH, I’m happy that my wife hanged some deco in the door because it makes easy to recognize the right door among the other exactly same grey doors in the building. After a few beers, I would never get confused by a door left or right, but not hard to be confused in another level of the building.
Not even at 3am. Just a few days ago (in the US), a man that was part of a cleaning crew got killed when they got the wrong address and the owner shot him through his front door.
In Switzerland? In my experience, Police rings the bell, says Polizei and shows identification. Conversely, I know a colleague, whose door was hacked down, police could not arrive in time. Burglars pepper sprayed him, but he fought back hard enough to send them running away. He did not have weapons or self defense aids and was very scared for his wellbeing and his family.
That’s exactly what fraudsters/burglars do: hello, I’m the police!.
Press release from Neuchâtel police. The mention of jewelry implies not only phone fraud but physical presence at victim’s residence.
On Tuesday, July 22, 2025, the Neuchâtel police apprehended four individuals traveling in Peseux in a vehicle with French license plates. The ensuing investigation established a link between these individuals and several recent cases of fraud involving impersonating police officers.
A search of the hotel where the suspects were to spend the night resulted in the seizure of approximately CHF 4,600 in cash, as well as jewelry from two cases that occurred in the canton on the same day, involving a total loss of CHF 4,900.
Nobody needs a gun to deal with fraudsters? Opening the door without verifying identity is a choice.
Someone breaking down a door and barging in your apartment does not leave you lots of choices. And about the locksmith opening up the wrong apartment, I guess if there was someone inside shouting “I have called the police.”, the locksmith would ask “Hey, are you really sure I should open this door?”.
But yes, given the current laws, in Switzerland the best option would be choosing an apartment with a very solid armored door, high floor, in a safe area of a city, next to a Police station.
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I think your perception is distorted. Zurich isn’t Bogata.
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There might some truth to this:
- Single-family houses are at higher risk simply because burglars expect to find more stuff.
- Secondary residences are at higher risk because no one is there most of the time.
- Apartments at street level have a problem because it’s too easy.
Back to my real life, no single-family house in the country side and no secondary residence. We just live in an anonymous apartment building, burglars would leave a few coins in our apartment instead of taking stuff away
Also, we live a very safe country. If oneself does not feel safe here, it won’t get any better around the world.