>The impression I got was that every man, woman, and child in Switzerland would be mobilized and armed if necessary to defend the country...

Each male (I don't think female yet) has an assault rife stored at home and are required to practice shooting periodically. These things look like a heavy cousin of an M16 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Stgw_90.jpg

Switzerland is a really good example of how having a large number of weapons in homes doesn't lead to increase gun crime and gun deaths. Don't tell the liberals that.