The US versus Switzerland - Why So Different ??

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Mike H

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I feel a need to be controversial so here goes.

The only other "civilised" nation in the world that has handgun ownership levels approaching the US is Switzerland, right ?

Having done some research into the numbers of shootings in that country versus the number in the US (for legally owned guns used in illegal shootings, employee versus boss etc) I have perhaps not surprisingly discovered that such incidents are almost unheard of over the last 20 years in Switzerland. Now where does that leave me in terms of a conclusion, answer, we have a high flake content who also happen to like handguns and who are willing to kill people at MacDonalds when they get served with an undersized portions of fries. I am of course referring to the minority of gun owners here and not the law abiding majority, of which I am proud to include myself. But my basic point is this, why do we have so many more "crazies" than the Swiss when they have just as many guns per capita of the population.

Anyone care to hazard an opinion ?

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Mike H
 
They have a more homogenous society and also they have been a civilized society for over a thousand years. We have people here who act like they just fell out of the trees yesterday, or crawled out from under a rock, take your pick. The swiss have also had to fight people on their own soil from time to time to remain free.
 
It seems to me that they also have a larger portion of thier population that has been given weapons training at different age levels.....This, I should think, imposes a higher level of responsibility on the handler.....??
 
What those guys said - Homogenious society, strong shared value system, minor immigration that is tightly controled and scrutinized, a well armed, well trained, disciplined & educated populace, and shooting is like a national pasttime there. No particular magic - M2
 
In Switzerland, every male citizen is required to serve in the Armed Forces until age 50. They keep their uniforms and issued weapons at home, and conduct "reaction drills" for invasions on a regular basis. So, everyone has weapons, military training, are organized into local militias, and practice constantly to defend their towns.

Intersting model for modern America? Maybe this is what the founders meant by a "militia"? Maybe the CMP should issue an M-1 to every able-bodied male citizen - and require him to drill once a month with the local National Guard unit?

I'd vote for that!
 
I agree with Mike in VA, however, I like to call it "PRINCIPLES"!! They stick to them.

[This message has been edited by Paul Revere (edited November 08, 1999).]
 
Only three ethnic groups in S witzerland,each with its own area or cantons.People dont mix much as here in America. And military training is taught to all citizens and this makes people responsible for the weapons in their homes. Our country is not founded on any one two or three groups of people and ,lets face it, each group had to fight for its rights when it came off the boat. It is a volatile mix here in America and probalby contributes to erratic behavior and violence. Our strong points of the melting pot are also weaknesses too. liberals criticize the Swiss for keeping all the other races out, but they(Swiss) have that right. Their country wasnt founded on our belief in allowing people from anywhere to come to America. We can be envious of the Swiss and their basically crime free nation. But we will never have that here.Rioting like NYC in 1977 and LA after King verdict would be imposssible among any of the three groups in Switzerland.
 
Alex: The Swiss system is EXACTLY what our founders had in mind for the militia. Why didn't it happen? Two answers: The Atlantic, and the Pacific. For geographic reasons, we're not under much of a military threat, such as requires Switerland to have as many citizens as possible under arms. Their government trusts them with guns because it has no other choice. (See any resemblance to Israel there?)

As for why we've got such a high crime rate, doubtless there's lots of reasons. (Starting with the war on drugs, and welfare programs which pay people to stay where they'll never find a job.) But remember that the crime rate here varies dramaticly from place to place, and that if you leave a few urban ghettos out of the average, America looks like a fairly peaceful country. In fact, if I recall correctly, the "political jurisdiction" with the lowest murder rate in the entire world is an American state: MN, I believe.

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Sic semper tyranus!

[This message has been edited by Brett Bellmore (edited November 08, 1999).]
 
This is very un-PC to say, but is this thread implying that race-mixing does not work? A heterogeneous society with lots of different cultures makes for stress to the point of murder like rats in a cage? I would find that to be a very interesting discussion, if everyone could be candid. In our culture though, some topics are of limits, and I doubt everyone couild really feel they could be candid without being branded.


IMO, the main factor for our violence problems comes down to repeat violent offenders. A very very small percentage of our population takes up %90 of the Police time. Violent offenders get back on the steets, and get increasingly violent until they become murderers....then they often get back out and do it again.
Our system creates our problems and that is about it. If we dealt with these violent criminals strictly when they started down that path, and made that path extremely undesirable to go down, then we would not have them on our streets.

On the other hand, some large number of street murders and violent crimes happen in the slums. Often criminals shooting criminals (certainly not always), but certainly it tend to stay within their district. Everyone complains about the street violnce, but the truth is, unless you live in one of those areas that creat the majority of our statistics, you will probably never see this "rampant violence" in America. It is like foreigners that see movies and think that our whole country is a battle zone. A few areas are very very bad, and the rest of the country, if you look around you, is actually very safe.
I don't know about anyone else, but I am just an average bloke, with a below average background and income, living in America's biggest cities, and I have never lived in a neighborhood that I could not safely go jogging at 2 am (in fact, I do).
 
I live in so Kal probably one of the largest melting pots of muck in the country and I think there is definitly something to what Alan said, there is a lot of racial tension here not to mention the language barriers, and differences in political opinion between whole groups, I dont think this is analysed because it is to anti-pc. Look at Finland Austria, and Israel as other countries with high firearm presence and low killings. With Israel, I'm only talking JEW ON JEW crime.
 
Well, I think you can have mixed ethnics and a low crime rate, but not while an effort is being made by ethnic politicians and preasure groups to play up differences and exacerbate tensions. What's good for the NAACP isn't necessarilly good for the country as a whole, and raise that to the Nth power for Louis Farakan.

Still, I think we could do a lot more about our crime problem if political correctness didn't compell politicians to pretend that the only way to solve inner city ghetto problems is to mess with people living in the countryside.

In fact, I've got an idea I'm absolutely sure would cause the crime rate in our big cities to plummet. Pick a percentage of the population, maybe one to five percent, check their backgrounds thruroughly to make sure they're not gang bangers, give them some training, arm them, and send them out on the street as volunteer undercover police. I call it my Citizens Carrying Weapons program; "CCW"

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Sic semper tyranus!
 
My take on the reasons for the difference. For those of you who have ever played a team sport in high school you should know the answer. Since everyone is required to attend military training, everyone knows everyone. They build up friendships and get a since of community involvement from the training. Besides if there was one there with a mental problem, it would show up during the training .



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Richard

The debate is not about guns,
but rather who has the ultimate power to rule,
the People or Government.
RKBA!
 
As the person who started this thread I am very interested to read the well thought out responses, I personally agree with much but not quite all of what has been said.

Firstly, a couple of inaccuracies, Switzerland has one of the highest immigrant populations in the western world, I know this for a fact because a buddy of mine is emigrating there in the new year to work in Basle as an auditor with a major pharmaceutical company and he has the figures, I will temper that however with the fact that a majority of these are working "professionals" not quite your average second or third world economic overspill, unlike us, they don't let just anyone in.

The multi-cultural issue is of course a hot potato, I liked the phrase "wish I could be candid but fear that I'd be branded", you should do bumper stickers as a side line Red Bull you'd make a fortune. It's easy to say that mixing races causes violence, but it's not quite so straightforward. Which country has the highest violent crime rate in the world, answer South Africa, they are almost totally ethnically homogenous, second or third must be Jamaica, same again. Now it may sound like I'm targetting afro-caribbean nationals here, but smaller islands with largely afro-caribbean populations but a higher standard of living like St.Kitts, Bermuda or the Grenadines have very low crime rates.

I'm trying to be even handed here and I hope it shows. I have never been the subject of a violent or potentially violent attack myself, but my wife has, twice. Once was at college in her dorm when a black student attempted to force his way into her room, making it quite plain what he had in mind if he got through the door. Fortunately her screams scared him off and the college authorities in Pennsylvania hushed the whole thing up and asked the guy to look elsewhere for his education (and rape victims presumably) which stinks. Then when she started work in Pittsburgh, a black guy broke into her apartment when she was asleep, she awoke to find him in the kitchen, fortunately he was only interested in her TV and video. In spite of this she is not racist and will not carry a gun, but then again she needn't worry, because the next person that trys to hurt her, or any of my family, will have me to deal with, and I DO.

Stay Safe,

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Mike H
 
Bookkie brought back memories of my induction in the US Army in 1970. Once everyone had a haircut and green baggy clothes some very interesting friendships sprouted that would have been highly unlikely in civilian life, because they were able to see what they had in common rather than how they were different. I think this carries over today. While I enjoy and learn from 'diversity' (and lord knows we have it by the ton is the DC area), this celebratind diversity is divisive, as it focuses on the differences, discourgaes assimilation, and it counter productive.

I have alot of immigrant friends and acquaintances. Many are working very hard at becoming 'American', others are bitching about how poorly America compares to their homeland in some respect or another.

I get a real kick out of those who are trying so hard to fit in. They still take pride in where they're from, preserve the customs that are dear to them, cook native dishes, etc., but they also make a real effort to speak English at home while also teaching their kids the 'old' language. Mostly, they're here for the opportunity for a better life.

To the others, I try to diplomatically point out that they knew this was an English-speaking secular western society before they came here. If you wanted a Spanish/Muslim/Chinese culture, you should have stayed home. I ask them what my chances [of survival, in some cases] would be if I immigrated to where ever they're from and demanded and English-language educationfor my kids? No one is denying them the opportunity to preserve/practice their heritage or culture [at home], but understand you aren't 'there ' anymore, so learn the lingo, get a job, pay your taxes, and take advantage of the opportunities before you. Or go home. Beyond basic entry level social services (e.g. ESL classes), I don't think we have a big obligation to 'accommodate' these people.

The other 'problem' we face as a nation, is too much 'tolerance' leading to a lowest common denominator set (or lack) of values. If I were king of the world, I'd turn off immigration for a while, let the dust settle and the current crop of 'new' Americans assimilate a bit, because right now there's just too much turmoil, it is serving no one, and we're all paying for it. We need to get rid of this hyphenated-American crap and just focus on being American (Damn, I getting reactionary as I enter crumudgeonhood!) Sorry for going off thread, end of rant. M2

[This message has been edited by Mike in VA (edited November 09, 1999).]
 
In Switzerland, everyone is familiar with firearms, and thus there is no mistique.

Here, firearms are largely demonized. Most people learnd all they know about firearms from TV/movies, where the appearance of a gun almost invariably leads to a death within minutes. Thus people get mezermized by the mystique of "oooo, a GUN!" and either flee in terror or do what they've learned to do: point it at someone and pull the trigger. The firearm-related homicide rate used to be very low, as people either had zero experience with guns or learned about them in a common context of sport, defense and hunting. The rate shot up when a generation got their gun education almost exclusively from TV. If firearms education was required in public schools, we could remove much of the misinformation and mystery, and move closer to the Switzerland model.
 
I agree with the statement that military training tends to bring the various ethnic and class groups together, and that we as a nation have lost that. I am 36 years old and spent my first five years after college as a Marine infantry officer. I find almost no one of my generation with similair formative life experience - in sharp contrast to most of the guys I hang around with, who are in their 50s. Most of my colleagues are doctors, lawyers, accountants or MBAs who grew up in white, middle-class suburbs,went t o college with other white, middle-class suburbanites, and now live in mostly white, suburban neighborhoods - and have never met or worked with anyone from a different background. I personally think their education is incomplete.
 
Ask any big city African or Mexican cop what he thinks.If he`s been on the job 5 yrs.,he thinks just like you do.He`s left the gang behind,and now he can`t stand the parasites.
 
I don't know what it is, but I've seen a number of statistics showing that if you compare the crime between white Americans and Europe ours is higher in murder and lower in most other crimes.

The unpleasant, politically incorrect fact is that most of the high crime rate in the United States is committed by blacks and hispanics.

I don't know why this is, but it seems to be the case. I saw another study showing that the murder rate of whites in Vancouver Canada is higher than the murder rates of whites in Seattle. Seattle's higher black and hispanic population puts the murder rate much higher than Vancouver's. So in this case it appears that gun control causes whites in Vancouver to commit more murders.
 
Mike in VA
I think you nailed the major cause right on the head Instead of celebrating what we have in common we are stressing our differences and trying to pit one group against another. Look at what the current administration is doing promoting rules to benefit one group over another. Personally I don't care what color, shape or sex a person is, in the Army we all wore green, got up at ungodly hours in the morning and strained and sweated togather.
 
;) I am going to be candid, with the fear of being branded:

I saw a person on TV, (and I will leave the description at that in order to prevent bias) that said
"The American experiment has failed: race mixing does not work".

I am not saying that I agree, but it did make me think and look around. When Mexican immigrants come here, do they move into a black neighborhood and try to diversify? Do they move to a Chinese neighborhood? Do they move to a white neighborhood? No, they move to a Mexican neighborhood. Same with all the other races. If you look around our major cities, they are composed of geographic areas defined by race. You have "little Mexico" right down the street from me where *everyone* speaks spanish, the shops are spanish, and it is actually difficult to find someone that speaks english. Go to another part of town, and it is predominantly black. If I walked through there, (and I have had this experience), I would likely be assaulted for the mere fact that I am not black. There is a Chinatown and similar derivatives in every major port city.
My point is, people naturally segregate themselves. They don't WANT to mix. But, certain political groups want to force these people to mix. And the funny thing is these groups usually want everyopne *else* to mix. You don't see these politicans moving to ethnic neighborhoods and mixing it up themeselves....they just want everyone *else* to mix.
Possibly this causes racial tensions. I don't know from there and I am not claiming to be answering any questions, but just asking some.
All I know is that that person's comment made me look around and realize that no one wants to race mix, everyone wants to live in their neighborhood surrounded by people of their culture. In that regard, maybe the American experiment has failed.
The thing is, I think America was first built on the premise of ONE culture: the American culture. That is not the way it is today though: it has been confused with "culturally diverse", which means a mixing of a bunch of cultures like oil and water. I really don't think that was the original idea. I think the original idea is that when a person moves to America, they become an American, period. They speak American, they dress American, they live American, they are American. In that regard, we are supposed to be one culture, not a mixing of a bunch of cultures.

Ps- I have been held at knife point by a black drug addict in a black neighborhood, I was mugged by a group of black men on the edge of a black neighborhood, and I was the victim of an attempted carjacking by two black men that I fought off with a ASP baton. I try not to let this color my vision of black people, but two of these incidents happened when I ventured into a black neighborhood, and don't think that these incidents have not left an impression on me. It would be impossible for these kinds of incidents *not* to leave an impression on a person, and if I said otherwise, I would be lying so as to appear PC.

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"On a long enough time line, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero" Jack, Fight Club
 
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