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You have guns, which leads to the police having military equipment and being more violent. The Swiss also have guns but I haven't seen a lot of news news about

• tialaramex 8y ago
  Americans love bringing up Switzerland, but the US has way more guns than everywhere else. Way more (per person). Nobody in Switzerland would say "OK, Fred does seem to be a violent nutjob who beats his wife, but we can't very well stop Fred having a gun" but in the US taking away Fred's gun is genuinely considered a contentious idea. Also, as you'd expect given it has all these guns, Switzerland sees a higher rate of gun deaths than most European countries. If your goal is "lets have fewer gun deaths" the lesson is still "have fewer guns" not "copy Swiss culture".
  • weberc2 8y ago
    > Nobody in Switzerland would say "OK, Fred does seem to be a violent nutjob who beats his wife, but we can't very well stop Fred having a gun" but in the US taking away Fred's gun is genuinely considered a contentious idea. This surprises me. I have quite a few family members who are card-carrying NRA members and they all seem to support restrictions for violent offenders and mentally ill. I don't doubt that reduced access to guns would reduce gun deaths, but if there is a cultural element--for example, if inner-city cultures are more violent (this is an example; no idea what percentage of gun deaths are attributable to inner-city violence), perhaps we should tackle that problem instead of taking guns away from responsible gun owners.