7 ms·

Or just fix the underlaying issue. Switzerland has 2 million guns on 8 million citizens. Yet no school shootings. Why don't they have school shootings and can w

Or just fix the underlaying issue. Switzerland has 2 million guns on 8 million citizens. Yet no school shootings. Why don't they have school shootings and can we apply the Swiss system to the United States?

ptah 7y ago
it's not as easy to get guns in switzerland as in the US
- some_random 7y ago
  It is though, manual arms are arguably easier to buy than in the US. Semi-automatics require more work, but it's still easier than buying an NFA item.
- sschueller 7y ago
  It's not that hard either (over 18, don't have any violent crime history or mental issues (self harm) and Swiss citizen (exceptions exist)) however not every type of gun or knife is legal. Magazines for guns over 20 rounds are not legal and neither are rifle magazines with more than 10 rounds. Fully automatic guns are not permitted unless it was received during military service. Butterfly knifes and throwing knifes are also illegal. [1] https://www.fedpol.admin.ch/dam/data/fedpol/sicherheit/waffen/Brosch%C3%BCre/waffenbroschuere-d.pdf https://www.fedpol.admin.ch/dam/data/fedpol/sicherheit/waffe...
  - ptah 7y ago
    what is school going age in switzerland
  - rtkwe 7y ago
    Also ammo purchases have similar background check style requirements so it's difficult to bypass the systems unlike the US. It's always weird when people bring up Switzerland like it disproves the push for tighter gun laws, all it really shows is that tight gun laws work and you don't have to completely ban guns. [0] [0] They do have a high rate of suicide by guns than the rest of Europe though and that number has dropped as, surprise surprise, gun laws have been tightened.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
GuiA 7y ago
There are still 6 times more guns per person in the US than in Switzerland. Looking at the numbers also shows that Switzerland is far from being an outlier in any way, so I'm not sure why the Swiss system is more interesting than the Austrian system or Swedish system in that regard. There are just way too many guns in the US (i.e. "it's just way too easy to get a gun in the US"). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_civilian_guns_per_capita_by_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_civilian_g...
- umvi 7y ago
  The vast majority of those guns are sitting around harmlessly in gun collector's lockers. US has a mental illness problem. At some point, a societal sickness entered the country. A sickness of nihilism and hopelessness. A sickness where (mostly men) feel lonely and unloved and powerless to change their futures. A sickness where hatred for peers is harbored for years until it festers and explodes out in a violent way. Why does America have these kinds of people at such high frequencies compared to Switzerland?
  - Mirioron 7y ago
    >A sickness where hatred for peers is harbored for years until it festers and explodes out in a violent way. Could part of the problem be bullying? I've watched a lot of American movies and any time a school is depicted it has some pretty awful bullying going on. I've not heard of anything remotely like it elsewhere. Sure, there's bullying, but most of it ends in name calling or sometimes fights, rather than this harassment that goes on for years.
  - logfromblammo 7y ago
    It's because they are actually lonely and unloved and powerless, and also because they have been fed lies about America and their station in it since the moment they could first understand language. The mental illness occurs when their cognitive dissonance is strained to the breaking point. When someone realizes that they have labored their whole life, possibly at significant risk to life and limb, for the primary benefit of other people, who do not even return a minimum level of respect, a psychic pseudopod of rage reaches out, questing, for someone or something to blame. And it usually lands somewhere that is merely close, rather than deserving. They do not understand why their life has been considered disposable, and become determined to make their mark--even if it is to be a scorch mark or track mark--on the world. We are likely already familiar with some common modes of midlife crisis: buy a motorcycle, buy a sports car, buy a boat, get really into one's religion, volunteer for some charity, go back to school, etc. It may well be that when those sorts of outlets are financially unavailable, then "buy a gun, write a manifesto, and start the revolution" is one of the few that remain within reach. Or it may be that they just preferred that one from the start. Perhaps Switzerland is better at making people feel important, and is not exploitative to a point far beyond the breaking point?
wbronitsky 7y ago
This is a complete straw man. We are not discussing how many guns the Swiss have in absolute, not are we talking about how that could affect school shootings in the US. If we want to discuss the numbers, devices like ratios will serve us much better.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
billfruit 7y ago
Another argument might be Mexico, they have gun control, but seems to be still having school shootings.
smileysteve 7y ago
Are you proposing military conscription? Because that is a large part of what arms Switzerland; and most of those 2 million guns are service weapons.
rtkwe 7y ago
I mean if we're talking about Switzerland we have to talk about how their gun laws would be considered extremely draconian and unconstitutional in the US. [see 0] For starters all guns and ammunition purchases have what are essentially background checks, and it's much easier to lose the right to purchase, carry permits are basically non-existent and most transit is explicitly only to and from shooting ranges or hunting. Just saying there's lots of guns in Switzerland so guns aren't the real problem is very disingenuous and ignores the fact that as they've continued to restrict gun ownership to align with broader EU rules gun violence (including suicides) have dropped. [0] https://www.businessinsider.com/switzerland-gun-laws-rates-of-gun-deaths-2018-2#most-people-arent-allowed-to-carry-their-guns-around-in-switzerland-12 https://www.businessinsider.com/switzerland-gun-laws-rates-o...
- ta0987 7y ago
  They are not Draconian, they are in the ballpark of a blue state in the US. If the progressives were willing to accept the Swiss laws in the US under the stipulation that they would never again be made more strict, the US gun owners should be thrilled. Part of the problem is that US gun laws are often motivated by misunderstanding or spite rather than reason or compromise.
  - rtkwe 7y ago
    They would be called draconian by Republicans and the NRA, look how they react to any increase in gun laws today. Of course blue states get closer to the Swiss laws but IIRC no state has any kind of background check on ammunition [0] or universal gun registries both of which are part of the Swiss system. [0] It would be practically impossible to enforce because states can't put up barriers from things coming into their state from other states.
    - ta0987 7y ago
      They would be called draconian by Republicans and the NRA, look how they react to any increase in gun laws today. That's because those increases are never compromises or exchanges. They are simply demands. Republicans and the NRA look at what the gun laws in DC and Chicago were before the Supreme Court cases and think: "That's their end game. Zero guns. Because look: when they had the political power to take them away, they did." They have no rational reason to support increases in gun control that come in exchange for nothing. If the Democrats offered a compromise, in the form of a constitutional amendment, not repealing the 2nd amendment but detailing it out, we could probably see real talk and progress. If it's not an amendment then it's simply "pray I don't alter it any further".
hanniabu 7y ago
Yes, but if you actually address the root cause then you can't use shootings as an excuse for mass surveillance.

ptah 7y ago

it's not as easy to get guns in switzerland as in the US

some_random 7y ago
It is though, manual arms are arguably easier to buy than in the US. Semi-automatics require more work, but it's still easier than buying an NFA item.
sschueller 7y ago
It's not that hard either (over 18, don't have any violent crime history or mental issues (self harm) and Swiss citizen (exceptions exist)) however not every type of gun or knife is legal. Magazines for guns over 20 rounds are not legal and neither are rifle magazines with more than 10 rounds. Fully automatic guns are not permitted unless it was received during military service. Butterfly knifes and throwing knifes are also illegal. [1] https://www.fedpol.admin.ch/dam/data/fedpol/sicherheit/waffen/Brosch%C3%BCre/waffenbroschuere-d.pdf https://www.fedpol.admin.ch/dam/data/fedpol/sicherheit/waffe...
- ptah 7y ago
  what is school going age in switzerland
- rtkwe 7y ago
  Also ammo purchases have similar background check style requirements so it's difficult to bypass the systems unlike the US. It's always weird when people bring up Switzerland like it disproves the push for tighter gun laws, all it really shows is that tight gun laws work and you don't have to completely ban guns. [0] [0] They do have a high rate of suicide by guns than the rest of Europe though and that number has dropped as, surprise surprise, gun laws have been tightened.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]

GuiA 7y ago

There are still 6 times more guns per person in the US than in Switzerland. Looking at the numbers also shows that Switzerland is far from being an outlier in any way, so I'm not sure why the Swiss system is more interesting than the Austrian system or Swedish system in that regard. There are just way too many guns in the US (i.e. "it's just way too easy to get a gun in the US"). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_civilian_guns_per_capita_by_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_civilian_g...

umvi 7y ago
The vast majority of those guns are sitting around harmlessly in gun collector's lockers. US has a mental illness problem. At some point, a societal sickness entered the country. A sickness of nihilism and hopelessness. A sickness where (mostly men) feel lonely and unloved and powerless to change their futures. A sickness where hatred for peers is harbored for years until it festers and explodes out in a violent way. Why does America have these kinds of people at such high frequencies compared to Switzerland?
- Mirioron 7y ago
  >A sickness where hatred for peers is harbored for years until it festers and explodes out in a violent way. Could part of the problem be bullying? I've watched a lot of American movies and any time a school is depicted it has some pretty awful bullying going on. I've not heard of anything remotely like it elsewhere. Sure, there's bullying, but most of it ends in name calling or sometimes fights, rather than this harassment that goes on for years.
- logfromblammo 7y ago
  It's because they are actually lonely and unloved and powerless, and also because they have been fed lies about America and their station in it since the moment they could first understand language. The mental illness occurs when their cognitive dissonance is strained to the breaking point. When someone realizes that they have labored their whole life, possibly at significant risk to life and limb, for the primary benefit of other people, who do not even return a minimum level of respect, a psychic pseudopod of rage reaches out, questing, for someone or something to blame. And it usually lands somewhere that is merely close, rather than deserving. They do not understand why their life has been considered disposable, and become determined to make their mark--even if it is to be a scorch mark or track mark--on the world. We are likely already familiar with some common modes of midlife crisis: buy a motorcycle, buy a sports car, buy a boat, get really into one's religion, volunteer for some charity, go back to school, etc. It may well be that when those sorts of outlets are financially unavailable, then "buy a gun, write a manifesto, and start the revolution" is one of the few that remain within reach. Or it may be that they just preferred that one from the start. Perhaps Switzerland is better at making people feel important, and is not exploitative to a point far beyond the breaking point?

wbronitsky 7y ago

This is a complete straw man. We are not discussing how many guns the Swiss have in absolute, not are we talking about how that could affect school shootings in the US. If we want to discuss the numbers, devices like ratios will serve us much better.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

billfruit 7y ago

Another argument might be Mexico, they have gun control, but seems to be still having school shootings.

smileysteve 7y ago

Are you proposing military conscription? Because that is a large part of what arms Switzerland; and most of those 2 million guns are service weapons.

rtkwe 7y ago

I mean if we're talking about Switzerland we have to talk about how their gun laws would be considered extremely draconian and unconstitutional in the US. [see 0] For starters all guns and ammunition purchases have what are essentially background checks, and it's much easier to lose the right to purchase, carry permits are basically non-existent and most transit is explicitly only to and from shooting ranges or hunting. Just saying there's lots of guns in Switzerland so guns aren't the real problem is very disingenuous and ignores the fact that as they've continued to restrict gun ownership to align with broader EU rules gun violence (including suicides) have dropped. [0] https://www.businessinsider.com/switzerland-gun-laws-rates-of-gun-deaths-2018-2#most-people-arent-allowed-to-carry-their-guns-around-in-switzerland-12 https://www.businessinsider.com/switzerland-gun-laws-rates-o...

ta0987 7y ago
They are not Draconian, they are in the ballpark of a blue state in the US. If the progressives were willing to accept the Swiss laws in the US under the stipulation that they would never again be made more strict, the US gun owners should be thrilled. Part of the problem is that US gun laws are often motivated by misunderstanding or spite rather than reason or compromise.
- rtkwe 7y ago
  They would be called draconian by Republicans and the NRA, look how they react to any increase in gun laws today. Of course blue states get closer to the Swiss laws but IIRC no state has any kind of background check on ammunition [0] or universal gun registries both of which are part of the Swiss system. [0] It would be practically impossible to enforce because states can't put up barriers from things coming into their state from other states.
  - ta0987 7y ago
    They would be called draconian by Republicans and the NRA, look how they react to any increase in gun laws today. That's because those increases are never compromises or exchanges. They are simply demands. Republicans and the NRA look at what the gun laws in DC and Chicago were before the Supreme Court cases and think: "That's their end game. Zero guns. Because look: when they had the political power to take them away, they did." They have no rational reason to support increases in gun control that come in exchange for nothing. If the Democrats offered a compromise, in the form of a constitutional amendment, not repealing the 2nd amendment but detailing it out, we could probably see real talk and progress. If it's not an amendment then it's simply "pray I don't alter it any further".

hanniabu 7y ago

Yes, but if you actually address the root cause then you can't use shootings as an excuse for mass surveillance.