It’s weird because Switzerland is one of the most armed countries in Europe, as in they have firearms but barely any shootings of any kind (so you don’t often hear news equivalent to a guy shooting students in a classroom or killing people at a shopping mall over there). Part of it has to do with the draft (most people who purchase firearms have a form of training, as they learnt how to properly handle them during military service).
I don’t know much about Switzerland, but America has an incredible dehumanizing education system where if you don’t fit into a highly competitive capitalist, you have no value. Some kids don’t feel like they want to be a part of that, but they don’t have an alternative, so they don’t care anymore. Adults that that happens to become deranged and may think shooting up a school is doing the kids a favor. A few of them have had copies of Catcher in the Rye in their pocket which has those themes.
It’s not access to guns that’s the problem. It’s that we fundamentally have a broken psyche at a social level.
Im going to guess there are fewer desperate, discarded, angry people in Switzerland.
Yeah, guns are the tools and not the root cause. Significant income disparity, racism, social pressures, and a ton of other triggers cause murders and suicides and while guns enable them there still needs to be something that causes someone to use the guns in that way.
Violent crime that doesn’t involve guns in the US is significantly higher than other western countries.
Same with hard drugs, and the associated crime… they’re a symptom, not the root cause. Hard drugs are used to escape reality. If there’s fewer reasons to escape, usage drops dramatically.
Because nearly all of those arms are under lock and key. They don’t exist for fun shooting. They are federal property which is stored in the homes of reservists in case they are called in. Like they have their uniform and other items for their countries defence at home for this event. And people don’t have the ammunition for it, which would be supplied at the assembly locations when push comes to shove.
Who needs ammo when you’ve got a pointy stick?
Don’t underestimate those guys. They are highly motivated and trained, and excellent at crowd control.
Oh they have guns but no ammo?
Nope. The gun is government property, stored alongside uniform and other things at every reservists home. In case of an attack, they will assemble at predetermined locations and supplied with ammo. Same with training. And woe to you if you use the gun for private purposes.
One reason I haven’t seen mentioned yet is practicability.
Yes, people have the tools. But how do you get that tool to where you need it?
In the US I believe you can just carry weapons for whatever reason you want. That’s not quite the case in Switzerland. If you’ve got a gun for military service, for example, you’re only allowed to carry it from and to military service or the shooting range. You can’t just go to a school with it. Same applies to other purposes. You can only carry a gun for the specific purpose you have your permit for. You can’t just take it to a school or mall.
Plus, the people who have guns at home usually only have the guns, no ammo, iirc.
I can only comment about what goes on in the US. In many states you cannot just carry the guns wherever you want. In states that allow you to carry a gun that’s concealed, you will need a special permit. Some states don’t require this though. If you are carrying in the open, some states allow this, but many don’t. There are also rules about where you can take the gun. For example, many states do not allow you to bring it on school property.
In California you very very rarely see anyone with a gun. In some red states it’s pretty common.
The issue is easy access to guns with ammo and the culture behind them.
Socio-economic sanity.
My mom (if she were still here) would say it’s from Reagan taking money out of mental health.
My mom would say it’s from the fall of man and America turning away from God. Your mom seems smarter than mine.
Your mom seems like the reason why there are so many mass shootings in the USA
The “your mom” jokes are getting really cryptic. I’m completely OOTL.
If the loop is “your mom”
Are you implying that you trying to get back in the loop is you fucking that guy’s mom?
If so it might have been better to remain “too afraid to ask”
Not cryptic enough, we need to go deeper… Into that guy’s mom
It always seems to go back to Reagan.
Removed by mod
switzerland has mandatory military service, a small population, and is higher per capita wealth. their quality of life is among the highest in the world and swiss gun culture is very responsible and chill.
USA is the opposite of most of that.
You got part of it. The Swiss get formal training during their military service, and understand that owning a gun is a responsibility and an obligation, not a right. They have a sense of duty around their ownership.
But another big part is that nobody on the planet fetishizes guns like the US. Guns are a symbol of virility, of sexual prowess, of “American Freedom.” Facebook recently showed me a reel by a woman who poses (nude) on OnlyFans with guns and motorcycles. That is a profoundly US mindset. (And of course the guns are assault rifles.)
Only in the US and a few other pockets of rednecks are guns fetishized.
You missed the countries those rednecks ironically hate, because they share so much. They both want to impose their version of religious law, both fetishize guns, both hate women, and both have some serious problems with closeted POS.
This always annoys me about the US. A gun is a tool. There is nothing inherently political about owning one. I own a lump hammer and a sickle but that doesn’t necessarily make me a communist. I just occasional need to bang things and chop things.
People in Switzerland have a bit of discipline, common sense and a baseline of education. There are also rules what kind of weapons you’re are allowed to have: you CANNOT get a subwoofer AK573-ultra assault rifeletta with powerbooster that shoots 263 253mm bullits per second. For your toddler.
That, and also likely better mental healthcare, less laws that would cause situations where someone can be pushed over the edge, etc…
That and a magnum 53, a box of handgrenades and an ice cream as welcome gift. And a bonus card.
I would assume better social safety nets, less income disparity, and less economic and social stress on their less well off members of society. Pretty sure their society doesn’t idolize criminals and antisocial people either.
Crazy what Nazi gold will buy you
At least the Swiss bought love and understanding; US Americans would buy a tomahawk 78 handgun with hatchet uploader, a 43 telescope visor with an automatic built-in HUK flamethrower and grenade catapult… and bring it to their daughter’s wedding.
According to a quick check on Wikipedia Switzerland has 27.6 firearms per 100 people, so in average you can expect 1 in 4 people to be armed. While the USA has 1.205 weapons per person, so you can expect in average that 1 in 5 people has an extra weapon besides the one 100% of the population does.
I think the 436% increase in weapon per capita might contribute to an increase with gun violence, but that’s just my guess.
I think that should be 1.205 guns per person, or 120.5 guns per hundred people. I know we have some people with massive collections, but I’ve never met someone with literally 10s of thousands of guns. Also the people that own a few hundred are skewing the statistics. We aren’t actually all armed.
120.5/100 == 1.205, it’s the exact same number expressed differently. However, 1.205 implies that everyone has at least one firearm, which is not true. 120.5/100 implies that if you go to 100 random people and count all their guns together, you’ll end up around 120 guns on average.
Sure, but they wrote 120.5 guns per person, and I don’t think we have a stockpile that amounts to 48,000,000,000 weapons. I could believe there are 480,000,000 privately owned weapons in the US, hence my correction/confusion.
You’re correct, in one my edits before submitting I must have erased the 100 there and forgot to move the decimal place, thanks for pointing it out (I’ve edited my post). The rest of the math was done considering the correct number, i.e. 1.2 weapon per person, it was just a wording mistake.
It’s a bunch of reasons, but the one that we can actually do something about is the social democratic safety nets. We have way fewer in the US and that causes rampant anxiety, which leads to violence. Switzerland’s population isn’t on the brink of snapping, so they tend not to shoot each other.
Probably Switzerland has less morons
stannis_fewer.picx
I want to use the word ‘less’, so I’ll change it to “less moronicism”
Because guns don’t cause gun violence; poverty, unemployment, drug addiction, and mental health issues cause gun violence.
Switzerland’s society and government place value on treating the underlying causes of gun violence. The US’s government has been captured by corporations who derive profit from the incarceration of people who commit gun violence.
Can’t gun violence without guns. If we can’t fix one component we need to fix the other.
I think it’s a combination of factors but the largest (in my mind at least) is the capitalist fed toxically-independent mindset that has thrived in the US. It keeps people afraid of other people. It keeps them isolated which prevents community and safety and trust. It sows xenophobia. It prevents any preference toward a government collective.
Take a look at the difference between US towns and towns anywhere else in the world. Suburbs are extremely rural in comparison. They’re re devoid of life. Life only exists in the little boxes. In Europe a town of 300 is built around an active town center and rural properties are all focused on that center. US suburbs are less connected than rural Europe or Asia. And then much of the US is way more rural than the suburbs. You’ve got a media and political system telling everyone they’re alone and on their own. So when people have a psychotic break (not super uncommon) or just some form of extreme emotion, they do so with the fear of others in mind. And they lash out with one thing that makes them feel powerful in their solitude.
the vast majority of americans live in cities dude. only 20% of the population is rural.
in the US, theres significant propaganda to maintain gun ownership and ammosexuals, usually amongst conservatives and are quite misinformed about gun control in blue areas, because it also preys on paranoia, its ties into low education,not always but often. its also part of movies, shows,etc.
plus the ammosexuals fantasize about shooting people all the time(they would love for people to give them an excuse to do so)
The swiss only store those guns, and they don’t have the ammo for it.
