FOF - Guns

[DaveJ]

[TheCowsCameHome]

1. Is that correct?

Seriously?

[Laurian]

2. How very sad....and embarrassing.

[AnotherMcIntosh]

3. Is it true that in Switzerland: “gun crime rate is so low that statistics are not even kept”?

http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2011/01/10/switzerland-gun-crime-rate-is-so-low-that-statistics-are-not-even-kept/

And, if so, is it because the Swiss are opposed to gun ownership and gun possession?

Or is it because the Swiss have not exported their jobs to foreign countries, and the Swiss take care of their own?

[GOTV]

9. I don't think Switzerland is opposed to gun ownership. Just the opposite ...

... militia aged men are required to keep a gun in their home:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics_in_Switzerland

[Democracyinkind]

13. Just to clarify

Being coerced into having such a gun is not the same as promoting gun ownership.

I and about 99% of my friends who have such assault weapons in our closets would not possess any weapons at all if it weren't for our being slaves to this collective mass illusion that others call the Swiss armed forces.

[AnotherMcIntosh]

14. That's what I think.

[Hoyt]

15. They can't carry them and have to keep them locked up - and people there are concerned for society.

[Democracyinkind]

16. Thank you.

Tired of answering all the "but Switzerland proves that guns are safe" posts.

Actually, it is quite the opposite, as you pointed out. Switzerland is a model case for strict gun control.

And being forced by the military to have an assault weapon in your closet is not the same as being a proponent of gun ownership. Literally nobody I know who has a military-madated weapon at home would even consider possessing a weapon if they weren't forced to.

[Democracyinkind]

10. some answers from the front

1. It is not true.

http://www.bfs.admin.ch/bfs/portal/de/index/themen/14/02/04/key/01.html

(in german)

Some picks:

1995: 436 gun-related deaths, of which 392 were suicides.

2009: 277 ditto, 253 suicides.

(Edit: Somewhere between 6 and 7 million inhabitants during 1995-2009)

Statistics are kept.

Almost every male citizen of Switzerland has a fully automatic assault rifle somewhere in his appartment. It comes with military service which is universal (although more and more do "civilian service" w/o guns). Back in 1995, members of the armed forces (almost everyone) was issued a 50-shot pack of ammo, then they stopped that, and thereby cut gun-related deaths into half.

As to exporting jobs to other countries:

50 years ago, Switzerland was an industrial hothouse: Textiles, Machines, Weapons, precisions instruments, chemistry, pharmaceuticals, clocks.

Only a couple of those industries remain. Off-shoring has hit Switzerland just as hard as any country in the "First World". Active politics and a willingness to invest in education helped to offest the layoffs - Switzerland was able to undergo the industrial-to-service-economy-switch without depriving large segments of the population of realistic prospects of future livelihood.

That is not to say that the transition didn't hurt alot of people or that the service economy was able to absorb 100% of industrial workers.

[hack89]

4. The result of our insane "war on drugs". Time to legalize. tn

[safeinOhio]

5. From todays googles

Boy, 3, fatally shoots self in car at gas station - CBS News
Mar 14, 2012 ... Updated at 12:08 p.m. ET. (AP) SEATTLE - A 3-year-old boy fatally shot himself with a gun he found in a car while his family stopped for gas ...
www.cbsnews.com/.../boy-3-fatally-shoots-self-in-car-at-gas-station/ - Cached
News for child shot self

9NEWS.com Boy who shot himself with grandpa's handgun identified - 4 days ago
Police have identified the 2-year-old boy who shot himself in the head Tuesday in Sandy. Ethan Hearty, from Denver, died after he shot himself ...
Salt Lake Tribune - 32 related articles »
DeLand toddler shoots finger with dad's gun - ?Orlando Sentinel - 20 related articles »
Boy who shot himself with grandpa's handgun identified - ?Salt Lake Tribune
2-year-old Colorado boy fatally shoots self in Utah - The Denver Post
5 days ago ... A 2½-year-old Colorado boy accidentally shot himself in the head Monday in a Sandy neighborhood after somehow getting hold of his ...
www.denverpost.com/.../2-year-old-colorado-boy-fatally-shots-self - Cached
Denver boy who shot himself with grandpa's handgun identified ...
4 days ago ... Police have identified the 2-year-old boy who shot himself in the head Tuesday in Sandy.
www.denverpost.com/.../denver-boy-who-shot-himself-grandpas-handgun- identified - Cached
Police: 4-year-old child accidentally shoots self - Atlanta News - Fox 5
Police in DeKalb County say a 4-year-old child somehow obtained a gun and accidentally shot himself in the head and suffered a grazing wound on Tuesday.
www.myfoxatlanta.com/story/18644905/4-year-old-shot-in-dekalb-county
The Herald-Sun - Police say boy 4 accidentally shot himself in the ...
By KEITH UPCHURCH [e-mail]; 419-6612. DURHAM – A 4- year-old boy shot himself in the head by accident Friday morning after finding a ...
www.heraldsun.com/.../article-Police-say-boy--4--accidentally-shot-himself- in-the-head - Cached
Detectives execute search warrant at Arnold home where boy, 4 ...
Jul 11, 2012 ... A young boy in Westmoreland County was shot in the face on Tuesday as he played with another child in his aunt's home.
www.wpxi.com/news/news/local/child-7-shot-self-face...-/nPqPW/ - Cached
3-year-old boy fatally shoots himself in car while family stops for gas ...
Mar 14, 2012 ... A 3-year-old boy fatally shot himself with a gun he found in a car while his family stopped for gas early Wednesday at a gas station in the ...
www.foxnews.com/.../3-year-old-boy-fatally-shoots-himself-in-car-while- family-stops-for-gas/ - Cached
Child dies after accidentally shooting himself: police - Washington Post
Apr 9, 2012 ... A 6-year-old boy in Prince George's County died after he accidentally shot himself, authorities said.
www.washingtonpost.com/.../child...shooting-self.../gIQAdebX6S_blog.html
Mother, friend plead not guilty after boy, 3, fatally shoots self - U.S. ...
Mar 28, 2012 ... A mother and her male friend pleaded not guilty Wednesday to manslaughter charges in the death of a 3-year-old boy who fatally shot himself ...
usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_.../10909272-mother-friend-plead-not-guilty-after- boy-3-fatally-shoots-self?... - Cached
Jahnisha McIntosh Charged With Manslaughter After Son, 3, Shot ...
Mar 28, 2012... the driver's seat has been charged with manslaughter in the death of the boy, who shot himself in the head while the woman went to get food.
www.huffingtonpost.com/.../toddler-shot-himself-tacoma-jahnisha-mcintosh_ n_1386029.html - Cached
Searches related to: child shot self

[Odin2005]

6. So the guns walked up and murdered those people by themselves?

[caseymoz]

19. Right tool for the job.

If you want to drive a nail, do you use a tire iron, or a hammer?

Differences with a gun, people feel bolder in pushing a confrontation. Assault is physically easier. It takes all the need for agility and grappling out of the confrontation. A gun wound has five times the morality rate of a knife wound, plus a wound with a bullet in a vital organ is many times more deadly than a knife. (Scientific American). So, more confrontations that would have ended with assaults instead end with homicide.

It would be nice to know how many homicides would have still occurred if the right tool hadn't been available. Unfortunately, we don't have that stat. You can, however, compare countries rate of assaults/homicides with one another, then find out how many assaults resulted in homicide. You could also compare the rate of "hot-headed" assaults between countries with and without guns, where every weapon is available but guns, and see which country consistently has the higher rate. Then you would get the idea 1) if guns are emboldening people into confrontations, and 2) if the assaults from those confrontations are leading to higher homicides.

So, if the answer to both of those were yes, would that at all change your mind?

I'll add also, statistically speaking, guns don't protect you. People who have a gun in their household are actually twice as likely to die of a gunshot wound than those who don't. That's considering accidents and suicides (which are also easier with a gun and make more difficult options moot).

Would they have died if they had knife or bug poison? Not when they're twice as likely.

[jp11]

7. And no one wants to put a single one of those murdering guns in jail.

[LeftinOH]

8. Even relative to population, the US is still grossly over the top:

If Australia's population was the same as the US, their total would be about 530 people.

If Canada's was the same as the US, the total would be about 1,800 people.

[Hoyt]

18. Of course, those Aussies recently passed tough gun laws that would have our gun culture whining

to high heaven about how hard life is without their guns.

[Reasonable_Argument]

11. Well....

We're also a great deal larger than those countries. We still have a higher per capita rate of gun violence but you need to examine what is going on in our country that leads to so much violence and focus less on the tools used to commit those violent acts.

[HopeHoops]

12. 200 in Canada?

[Godot51]

17. These colors don't run...

... oh, wait, they do. They run red.