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Swiss army lost 101 firearms in 2023

Swiss army guns.
The 101 missing guns is in line with the fluctuations of previous years, the army said. © Keystone / Gaetan Bally

The Swiss military weapons – mostly assault rifles and pistols – went missing last year, it was reported on Friday.

Swiss army guns disappear every year. According to the newspaper Blick, 101 army weapons were reported missing last year, including 88 assault rifles and 13 pistols. The vast majority of these, 95, were stolen.

The number of weapons that went missing was slightly higher than in 2022, as can be seen from the army statistics on the internet. In 2022, 96 army weapons were reported, compared to 98 in 2021.

+ How Switzerland combines a passion for guns with safety

The 101 losses is in line with the fluctuations of previous years, the army said. Only in the first year of the pandemic, 2020, was the number of lost weapons significantly lower (70).

According to Blick, 32 missing military weapons were recovered last year – most of them in the homes of the people who had reported the loss or with their subsequent tenants.

+ Switzerland, a nation of gun lovers


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