Three dead as gunman opens fire on colleagues at Swiss business

PARIS -- A gunman opened fire on colleagues at a Swiss wood-processing plant Wednesday morning, an attack that left three people dead, including the assailant, and seven others wounded.

The gunman walked into the staff canteen at the Kronoswiss wood-processing factory at Menznau, near Lucerne in central Switzerland, about 9 a.m. during a staff breakfast break and began shooting.

Police said the 42-year-old suspect, who was not named, had worked at the plant for a decade and did not fire at random but picked off specific colleagues with a handgun.

A spokesperson for Kronoswiss, which employs about 450 workers, said the gunman had always been “very calm� and “somebody you would not notice� during the time he worked for the company.

It wasn’t immediately clear how the gunman died.

Gun ownership is widespread in Switzerland due to a long-standing tradition of allowing those who complete their compulsory military service to keep their rifles and weapons. Many serving in the military are reservists allowed to store weapons at home.

A referendum in 2012 aimed at tightening firearm controls was defeated.

The number of gun crime is low with 24 killings in 2009, a rate far lower per capita than in the U.S.

Other high-profile incidents include the 2001 shooting of 14 people at a City Council meeting in Zug, near Lucerne, and an attack last month by a 33-year-old gunman who killed three women and wounded two men in the village of Daillon in the south of Switzerland.

[For the record, 10:20 a.m. Feb. 27: An early version of this post incorrectly referred to the shooting in Zug as recent. The killings occurred in 2001.]

ALSO:

10 hurt in Afghanistan suicide attack

Kerry confronts clashing interests in Syria, Iran and Russia

Thousands jam St. Peter’s Square for pope’s last general audience