Further fuel for the gun-control debate yesterday, when Switzerland, in a much-anticipated referendum, voted to reject a plan for stricter controls on gun ownership. The result was clear without being overwhelming: 56.3% voted “no”, as did majorities in 20 of the 26 cantons.
If passed, the referendum would have ended the most notorious aspect of Switzerland’s gun laws, the practice of reservists keeping their fully automatic weapons in their homes. It would also have imposed stricter checks on gun owners. But as Wikipedia explains, “The Swiss army has long been a militia trained and structured to rapidly respond against foreign aggression.”
Supporters of gun control suggest, not unreasonably, that this is an obsolete view of military preparedness — that, as one put it, “We’re not going to defend Switzerland against the Red Army from the kitchen window or the back yard.” Instead, they argue, the ready availability of firearms contributes to Switzerland’s relatively high suicide rate.
But the relationship between gun ownership and gun use is anything but simple. Contrary to what one might expect, gun crime in Switzerland is rare. According to The Guardian, there were only 24 gun homicides in 2009, or about 0.3 per 100,000 inhabitants — that’s only one-fourteenth of the rate in the United States.
The United States is the obvious point of comparison — even more since last month’s massacre in Arizona, and its surprising failure to set off any serious national debate about gun control. High rates of gun violence have failed to dent the political power of the gun lobby, and the advent of the Obama administration (with a supposed agenda of gun control, although there is precious little evidence for it) has made the defence of gun culture even more of an article of faith among Republicans.
But the fact that widespread availability of firearms produces such different results from those in Switzerland should clue us that something else is going on. The hysteria provoked by threats to gun ownership — even purely imaginary ones — indicates that Americans’ relationship to their guns is quite different from that of the dour and pragmatic Swiss.
Ultimately, gun violence is driven by much deeper causes than the regulatory regime. Rather than seeing gun carnage in America as a product of gun ownership, it makes more sense to see both as symptoms of something more basic, a culture of fear and insecurity. That was a key message of Michael Moore’s Bowling for Columbine, although critics who take Moore for a crude propagandist typically miss the point.
Symptoms, of course, may still be worth treating, and no doubt there are sensible regulatory measures that could be taken that might reduce the incidence of violence (perhaps including some of the firearms training that the Swiss get). But it’s not surprising that there has been little enthusiasm for a broad attack on gun ownership. The idea that taking people’s guns will pay dividends of itself, without addressing the cultural factors, is a mere pipedream.
America will have to confront some of its own demons before its citizens will lessen their devotion to their guns. And other countries, including Australia as well as Switzerland, probably should worry less about the American experience when they decide how to deal with gun ownership.
The myopic parochialism of US debate on gun control continues to astonish many who live outside that country. The USA has 14.4 times Australia’s population; 141 times Australia’s total firearm-caused deaths (31,224 in 2007 vs 221 in 2008) and 238 times Australia’s firearm homicide/manslaughter rate (12,632 in 2007 vs 53 in 2008). In 1996, post Port Arthur, our government introduced massively supported gun laws which banned citizen access to semi-automatic rifles and pump action shot guns and saw a temporary tax levy fund the buyback of the now banned guns. In the 18 years before the gun law reforms, there were 13 mass shootings (5 or more killed) in Australia. In the 14.6 years since, there have been precisely none. Go figure.
Here’s what happened to gun deaths in Australia in the first 10 years afterwards http://tobacco.health.usyd.edu.au/assets/pdfs/Other-Research/2006InjuryPrevent.pdf
Examine ownership of long gun vs hand gun in Switzerland vs USA. I think you’ll find a correlation there.
@Simon: Examine the same stats of Australia vs Switzerland. One data point doesn’t make for a conclusion.
Pity that the NRA in amerika doesn’t quote the full 2nd Amendment, beginning “A well regulated militia…” which is exactly what the Swiss have. Asdid the Finnish and they helde off the Red Army in WWII long enough to inflict some serious damage.
Apart from annual update training for males to the age of 55, the hausfrau has her own responsibility to maintain a fortnight’s supply of tinned & dried food.
@Simon: I’m not so impressed with some of the other findings, but the disappearance of mass shootings is very striking – and, as you say in the paper, that was the key justification for the Howard reforms. But of course Australian gun culture is different again from both Switzerland and the US; guns here have just never had much of a political connotation.
@Meski: That’s a very interesting point. On a quick search I can’t find any statistics directly addressing it, but clearly the big problem area for gun violence in the US is handguns, and long guns are the most visible aspect of Switzerland’s liberal attitude. But I’d love to see some detail on that.
@AR: Yes, it’s not as if there’s no regulation in Switzerland, but it’s combined with widespread gun ownership. I have no problem with an individual right to own guns – which in Australian terms makes me pro-gun – but I think the state should take the necessary steps to ensure that people who own them are not crazy and know how to use them properly, which in American terms makes me anti-gun.