re: #37 jaunte

I did a quick little search to see if there was a correlation between the rate of gun ownership in the society and gun violence. I can’t vouch for the quality of this page but according to the the graph on it, Switzerland is not even an outlier.

Violence and Video Games Part 9: The Statistics/Conclusion (I picked this page for the graphs.)

However, that’s just covers the question of gun ownership. The gun culture in Switzerland is entirely different. The gun advocates here would not like Switzerland’s laws. I would be perfectly happy to have everyone wanting a gun in the U.S. to join a government run militia for a year and undergo proper training. Also, the Swiss are really fond of target shooting, you know, a sport. I have no concerns about people who are interested in sports like this. I worry about the people who want guns for personal protection and want to carry them all over the place.

Regarding Swiss laws on carrying, from Wikipedia:

To carry a loaded firearm in public or outdoors (and for an individual who is a member of the militia carrying a firearm other than his Army-issue personal weapons off-duty), a person must have a Waffentragbewilligung (gun carrying permit), which in most cases is issued only to private citizens working in occupations such as security.

There’s a permit necessary to buy a gun. People with a criminal record or a psychiatric history cannot get a permit. Records must be kept of private transfers. The sale of automatic firearms is not permitted. Ammunition sales are registered.

If we’re going to have a gun culture, then let’s have a real gun “culture.” Let’s train people how to use them. Let’s give them a course in safety. Maybe, along with sex ed, we could have gun ed in school and teach actual facts about how guns are dangerous, not something gleaned from movies and advertisements.

But the gun advocates don’t like laws like the Swiss have.

In any case, there’s still one big problem.

Switzerland: Guns kept at home frequently used to kill partners
76% of the homicide-suicide cases in Switzerland involve the use of firearms, very often a gun kept at home by Swiss army reservists, according to a new study by the University Institute of Forensic Medicine of Lausanne (Switzerland). (source)

Most people who advocate for greater regulation of guns in the U.S. would be reasonably happy with Switzerland’s laws.