Returning to an old argument about the impacts of gun ownership following the mass shooting in Lewiston, Maine.
With each mass shooting, the United States goes through a period of mourning and a kabuki dance, at least at the Federal level. Advocates for what we have as national non-gun regulation often point to Switzerland to make their claims it isn’t the guns. But…
There are as of this writing 2 million guns in Switzerland, a small Alp-locked country with a population of 8.2 million citizens, many odd-looking hats, and four languages.
That number of guns, in relation to the total population, is a lot but still about four times less than in the United States. The Small Arms Survey — a Swiss-based leading research project — estimates that in the U.S. there were 390 million guns in circulation in 2018. That works out to 120.5 arms per 100 residents, up from 88 in 2011, and the highest level in the world:
Source: Statista
Switzerland is indeed a socially complex country with many cultures, like in America. The country boasts four totally different languages. French. Swiss-German, which is impenetrable even to real Germans (who really do speak real German). Italian. And something called Romansh which nobody at all from the other three linguistic populations claims to understand, although Romanians can.
And whatever your native tongue, if you are an adult Swiss male, you are eligible for gun ownership. Even so, in Switzerland, almost nobody ever gets killed by gunfire (yes in 2001 when a man unleashed a volley in a government building killing 14, but that was 20 years ago).
Death by gunfire is very rare in Switzerland, always has been and still is, and not because guns are rare. They are pretty common in that country but do not enjoy the kind of ubiquity or ease of acquisition that the U.S. National Rifle Association (NRA) might approve.
In Switzerland, you can’t get a gun just because you are bored or because you want one, something a lot of Americans and other gun-loving populations are not always told. And the Swiss have been persnickety about this issue for some time. So much so that in 2016 there were just 45 homicides caused by guns in that country, one of the lowest rates in the world. As for attempted homicides: 187 in total in that same year, again one of the lowest rates in the world.
It makes one wonder why the NRA likes to point to Switzerland every time US schoolchildren or elderly churchgoers get slaughtered. Look at Switzerland, say its members. Lots of guns, lots of longevity.
Why the gun ownership situation in Switzerland is very different from the U.S.
The core difference is that in 2008 Switzerland cracked down on guns and gun owners in its characteristically Swiss way, meaning automatic weapons and silencers were then declared verboten.
These days every healthy Swiss male 18 or older in the military is taught to use, clean, dismantle and store lethal weaponry – a fairly easy task in a nation where conscription is mandatory for young men, and also okay for women too if they insist.
A normally buried fact about Switzerland: women are decided underdogs in that country, deprived of some of the same rights as men, and always have been. It was not until 1971 that a majority of Swiss men agreed that yes, women should be allowed to vote in federal elections – this 78 years after New Zealand agreed to female suffrage and 53 years after German women were granted the privilege.
But back to weaponry. You want a gun in Switzerland even after you finished military service? Fine, but you have to apply for one and get a license unless you want a hand bolt-action rifle or a multi-barreled hunting rifle– in which case you do not need a license.
So, let’s say you are Swiss, you have military experience, and now you want a real, thoroughly lethal gun, not a multi-barreled hunting rifle that’s good for bringing home venison, and also, you’re 18 or older: Can you pack heat without a bureaucratic problem?
Here for the Swiss, unlike Americans, regulations are quite a bit more finicky. Not only are you supposed to be criminal record-free in order to get a gun, but you also must be deemed unlikely to cause harm to other Swiss. Local police who have doubts about a prospective gun owner’s well-being (or even those who are assured of the same but worry nonetheless) may and sometimes do ask local psychiatrists or friends about an applicant’s mental state or alcohol and drug use.
Also, that gun license, even when approved, is only valid for a maximum of nine months, and applicants are allowed only one weapon. Period.
That’s right. Twenty semi-automatics are unlikely to find their way into the basements of Swiss adolescents. So if the NRA wants to point to Switzerland, it needs to tell the whole story, please…
Editor’s Note: The opinions expressed here by Impakter.com columnists are their own, not those of Impakter.com — In the Featured Photo: 1925 certificate of participation (recording 26 out of the maximum 35 points reached) in the traditional Knabenschiessen tournament in Zurich, held on the second weekend of September each year. The rifles depicted are Schmidt–Rubin, in service from 1889 to 1953. To be noted: at this tournament, semi-automatic weapons can be used from the age of 12. The tournament, officially held for the first time in 1889, is one of the oldest in Switzerland, dating back to the 17th century. Source: Knabenschiessen Wikimedia CC BY-SA 4.0
