Three people, including the suspected assailant, have been killed in a shooting at a factory near the Swiss city of Lucerne, police said on Wednesday.

Seven others were injured in the attack, which happened just after 9 a.m. local time (3 a.m. ET) at a wood-processing company in the town of Menznau, west of Lucerne, the police said in a statement.

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Emergency services were at the scene and the area had been cordoned off. A news conference had been scheduled for the afternoon.

Last month, a gunman killed three women and injured two men in the Swiss village of Daillon, stirring a debate about Switzerland's firearm laws, which allow men to keep guns after their mandatory military service.

There is no national gun register, but some estimates indicate that at least one in every three of Switzerland's 8 million inhabitants keeps a gun, many stored at home. Citizens outside the military who are 18 and over can apply for a permit to purchase up to three weapons. Sharpshooting and hunting are popular sports here.

A shooting in the Zug regional parliament in 2001, in which 14 people were killed, prompted calls to tighten laws, but the majority of Swiss citizens rejected a proposal in 2011 for extra measures such as mandatory locked storage of guns not in use.

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This story was originally published on Wed Feb 27, 2013 6:41 AM EST

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