Hacker News Reader

Comment by hyperhopper | Hacker News Reader

You should look up Switzerland's gun laws and intentional homicide rate if you think so.

That is a far more complex issue which is far deeper than such a simple correlation.

For the curious, in Switzerland, you don't keep ammo at home, there's proper registration of weapons with proper background checks, and it's treated more as a means of national defense, so having lots of guns is going to get you odd looks from people. Guns aren't seen as something for personal defense: that's the job of the police.

In other words, Switzerland has a much healthier attitude towards gun ownership and usage.

Isn't that that the argument from pro gun people? It's people and the culture, not the guns. See Sweden for an interesting example. One of Europe's highest gun ownership with little gun violence back in the day. Then it changed and it's now a daily occurrence with gang shootings while the number of legal guns was reduced.

Switzerland has a more traditional, not healthier, relationship between the people and the state: the people are subjects who are given tiny freedoms, but are kept on tight leash, because the state has a deep distrust of its people. The abberation with guns is just insecurity of the state: it's small and needs its people to act as part-time military in reserve. If it had a bigger military, the fake gun rights would disappear overnight.

> people are subjects who are given tiny freedoms, but are kept on tight leash,

This take comes across as insulting and I am not even from there.

Do you, by any chance, hail from the land of the free, where government can seize your property without even accusing you of a crime? (Civil forfeuiture)

You are right to feel insulted, because this relationship is upside down. The founders of "the land of the free" were aware of this problem and that's why everywhere in the founding documents they talk about "the people" that must have liberties, vs "the state" that must be kept on leash. The civil forfeiture problem shows just that: the state has insatiable desire to control the people, and it finds way to do so despite an elaborate framework to keep its tentacles short.

And yet all of these issues, when they come up, are invariably happening in the "land of the free", not in the "totalitarian state dystopia of the EU and neighboring countries".

Ah, do you have even the slightest clue about Switzerland?! I mean, it's quite impressive how you seem to have confused Switzerland for a highly centralised country with a distant political structure.

Could you go and do some research on the country before you comment on it?

> If it had a bigger military, the fake gun rights would disappear overnight.

The Swiss military is _huge_ for its size. It has one of the largest militaries per capita in the world.

They are one of the most people-empowering nations ever. If enough people indicate it(50k signatures in 100 days cfr google), a legally binding regerendum must be held. A simple majority can then change the law.

I wish more nations could have that kind of direct acces to their democracy. Even so, the majority of these referenda fail to change anything, so presumably people tend to make more noise than wanting actual change.

It's not just the attitude, it's also the sheer number of guns: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_civilian_g...

The US is so far ahead of every other country, including Switzerland, that the argument "it works for the Swiss people" makes no sense.

Switzerland had a huge suicide problem (well by their standards) so they locked up the militia ammunition in communities for the guns Swiss militia members were sent home with.

Also, Switzerland is basically where the USA would be if the first clause of the second amendment was meaningful.

Switzerland is top of Europe in gun homicide rates with about 5x the EU average.

You might not be making an example in support of an argument you think you're making ;P

But it also has a murder rate less than half of France's.

The people who use guns to kill in Switzerland instead use knives or other objects in France.

(I am admittedly cheating a bit, as Switzerland lacks the high crime subpopulations that France has)

TBF, much of that is down to suicides, as Switzerland has a much higher rate of suicide by gun than other countries. The general gun homicide rate once they're omitted isn't quite so crazy.

Same in the US, of course. Suicide by gun counted as 'gun violence' is the classic disingenuous deception. Remove those and gang violence (primarily against rival gangs), and the numbers don't look that scary, which is the issue for those with an agenda.

From an international perspective, most reporting about gun control being a big issue in the US appears to come from mass shootings, not the misc. causes such as gang activity or suicides.

If you look into the stats that reporting typically uses, I've found that mass shootings are frequently defined differently than they're popularly thought of (I believe gang violence is frequently included), and suicides are frequently included in the overall violence stats.

Yeah, and if you ban blue cars, blue cars will crash less and you'll see more red cars crash.

I specifically said "intentional homicide rate" for a reason, to get ahead of this ridiculous argument that people bring up despite it not holding up or being relevant.

I don't care how the homicide happens, I care that a homicide happened. And despite lots of guns, it doesn't happen a lot in Switzerland compared to the world or even other EU countries. Clearly, guns aren't the problem, the other factors play into it more.

There's also no national statistics collected in either the US or Canada on whether murders/crimes involving firearms are 'legal' or not. Which is relevant to these debates and you'd think would be of interest to authorities.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com