Switzerland has lots of guns, but provides no model for America
As a Swiss citizen, a cheese-lover, an occasional watch- wearer and even a reluctant opinion-haver, I have watched the politicking around Switzerland’s gun laws with increasing concern. Most thinkpieces seem hellbent on shoehorning the country into a talking point they find helpful.
Breitbart News commends Switzerland’s liberal gun laws while pushing false narratives linking increased immigration and crime. Liberal media praises Switzerland for common sense gun regulation, but ignores the massive differences between implementing laws in the US versus implementing them in a country one-third the size of Pennsylvania.
The truth is more complicated. Swiss laws do place very few restrictions on initial gun ownership, but documentation and licensing is robust. Gun owners must prove their need for a weapon. Even weapon lookalikes, like airsoft guns, must be registered.
Sure, you can get a gun, but the government can — and will — know about it. Not that it bothers the Swiss.
The Swiss, in general, trust their institutions. 68% have high trust in police, 57% have high trust in the justice system, and 47% trust the government and the numbers are increasing. This trust is also built on heavily taxpayer-subsidized media including radio, television and newspapers. In 2011, 70 to 80% of the population read at least one daily newspaper during the week.
It’s the chicken and the egg problem: Did a trusted government understand the value of a robust fourth estate and opt to subsidize, or did a critical free press urge citizens to support them by voting for politicians who believe in transparency?
A lot of Swiss gun culture is also a side-effect of the country’s mandatory military and civil service. My own father kept his gun in a box with his army boots. To my knowledge, he never even owned ammunition.
In America, implementing government subsidies for news organizations or creating a mandatory civil service would require absolutely massive overhauls of the system. Mistrust of government, police and the courts runs deep on all sides of the political spectrum.
In Switzerland, a gun is a wellrespected tool to take part in hobby hunting or marksmanship competitions. They remain, in effect, a neutral object.
American guns, meanwhile, have become a central player in a divisive political arena. They are now a symbol for freedom and the American way of life, associated with evangelical Christianity and the far-right — a disservice to the huge swath of gun owners and hobbyists who don’t fall into these categories.
It’s odd that Switzerland, a country where separation of church and state doesn’t even exist, feels much less religiously -charged.
There are also inevitable side effects that accompany gun ownership that Switzerland is not immune to. Firearms are very effective at killing, and crime becomes more deadly when guns are around. Switzerland has few, but deadlier crimes and more suicides than other European countries.
Switzerland is a complex and often contradictory country, with many progressive policies and just as many conservative ones. The only constant theme of the six mainstream parties in the federal government is that they move at an infamously glacial pace.
For example, Switzerland stubbornly refused to allow women the right to vote until 1971 — with one region holding out until 1990. (I assure you, we are all very embarrassed about this).
Nowadays, nearly 30% of Switzerland’s population has an immigrant background, yet the country passed a ban on wearing burkas in public just last year.
There are 26 states within Switzerland, four national languages, six mainstream political parties and seven sitting presidents at a given time. The country has existed in some form since 1291.
If you can make a sweeping generalization about Switzerland that is somehow applicable to the gun violence in America, you might possibly be the first.