> Switzerland is armed to the teeth. Why don't the Swiss kill each other in
> great numbers?
A venerable and interesting question. Here's an NYT article on point that has something to say for both sides. I think the short answer is that most of us would find Swiss norms more oppressive than British laws.
Michael
March 10, 1996
Do Guns Kill? Bullets Do, and So Do People
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
M ORGES, Switzerland -- Relaxing at a firing range where the thunder
of a dozen submachine guns threatens to set off avalanches in the
snow-capped Alps above, Frederic Oguey comes across as just another
13-year-old with sandy hair, a toothy grin and his own assault rifle.
"Dad gave it to me when I was 11 years old," Frederic said shyly,
beaming as he spoke of his Swiss Army gun with a 20-bullet clip. "I
shoot about once or twice a month."
This is a country, after all, where the government issues a machine
gun and bullets to most men in their late teens. The puzzle is that
the Swiss have guns galore and yet, in contrast to Americans, they
shoot at targets, not at each other.
Japan is the opposite extreme. It comes as close as any industrialized
country to being a gun-free society. No one may keep a handgun at
home, not even police officers, and illegal possession of a gun and
ammunition is punishable by 15 years in prison.
As Americans fret about crime and debate gun control, these two
countries stand out as intriguing models. What is striking about them
is that they have crime rates that are among the lowest in the
industrialized world, and yet they have diametrically opposite gun
policies.
Interviews across a swath of Switzerland and Japan suggest that, to
Americans of all political complexions, the experiences of the two
countries can be troubling.
For Americans who favor gun control, Switzerland offers a
discomforting reminder that ubiquitous guns do not necessarily mean
soaring crime. Instead, social factors -- such as the presence of an
economically frustrated underclass -- may be more important in
explaining crime levels.
To gun enthusiasts, the contrasts are also troubling. The spread of
guns may not always affect overall crime levels, but they do seem to
mean significantly more suicides and more killings within families.
Switzerland issues guns because it has no real standing army and
instead relies on a militia consisting of most Swiss adult men, who
serve from their late teens until age 42.
Each enlisted man keeps a machine gun at home, with ammunition, and
when he is discharged he can keep the gun or sell it to someone else.
About a quarter of Swiss households have a gun, mostly Army firearms.
While that is high by international standards, it is much lower than
in the United States, where roughly half of the households report
having a gun.
In explaining why Swiss gun crime is relatively rare, the Swiss
sometimes note that that although machine guns are ubiquitous, their
country has stricter controls for purchasing handguns than most parts
of America -- although even their controls pale next to Japan's.
A Swiss buyer of a handgun from a shop needs a government license,
which is normally issued within a few weeks to anyone without a
criminal record.
Some Swiss also explain the difference in crime rates by saying that
they have a much more sober attitude than Americans, whose heritage
combines hunting, machismo and the Wild West.
While the Swiss have the right to stroll through the capital of Bern
with a loaded machine gun, no one would think of doing so. The Swiss
shoot overwhelmingly just at firing ranges, and the police say they
would arrest anyone caught "plinking" at tin cans on a fence post.
"A gun is sacred," said Jean-Rene Zobrist, a financier from Morges, in
the French-speaking part of western Switzerland, as he took seven guns
out of an unlocked closet and cleaned them reverently. "You don't like
to lend your guns to other people. You wouldn't lend your guns out any
more than you'd lend out your wife."
Japan is the opposite end of the gun-owning spectrum from Switzerland
and the United States. Only about 50 private citizens -- all expert
marksmen -- are allowed to own handguns, and they must leave them at
the shooting ranges.
Last year, there were only 32 gun murders reported in Japan, compared
to 15,456 in the United States in 1994, the last year for which a
figure is available.
"There's no question that the current prohibition on guns has
contributed to public safety in Japan," said Shigeru Yotoriyama, a
senior police official.
One of the most basic questions about guns is whether more of them
means more killings.
Martin Killias, dean of the law school at the University of Lausanne,
analyzed murder rates in 18 countries around the world and found a
link, albeit only a moderate one, with gun ownership levels.
Although Switzerland has few murders, it probably has more than it
should, given its overall extremely low crime rates. The country ranks
as one of the safest in Europe, 11th among 12 countries for assaults
and threats, for example. Yet its murder rate ranks it sixth, and
about half the murders are gun related.
"Violence in Switzerland seems to be unusually fatal," Killias said.
Killias found a much stronger correlation between gun ownership and
suicide than between gun ownership and murder. Although gun owners
sometimes argue that people who shoot themselves would kill themselves
in other ways if guns were not around, that does not always seem to be
the case.
Killias found an overall increase in the number of suicides -- more
suicides by guns did not mean fewer suicides by other means. The
German-speaking part of Switzerland, for example, has a non-gun
suicide rate almost the same as the non-gun suicide rate in Germany.
But the German Swiss are four times more likely than the Germans to
kill themselves with guns.
This is significant because although people tend to worry about being
murdered by a stranger, they are more likely to kill themselves.
The average American is 65 percent more likely to commit suicide than
to be murdered, and so anything that boosts the rate of suicide may
have more of an impact on numbers of violent deaths than a crime
rampage.
Still, one common argument made by the American gun lobby -- that if
guns are restricted, criminals will still have them -- does find a
measure of support in foreign countries.
Japan, as an island country, is in an unusually good position to
control illegal gun imports. Yet gangsters still have guns, and a
robber can easily buy a Chinese-made military handgun for the
equivalent of $1,500.
If Japan, despite the toughest gun laws in any democracy, cannot stop
guns from being available and affordable, it is possible that no
country can.
Gun restrictions may not keep firearms out of the hands of criminals,
but abroad they do appear to work in curbing suicides and murders
within families, and in reducing gun crimes by teen-agers and petty
crooks. These incidents together account for the greatest portion of
violent deaths all over the world.
Another possible lesson from other countries is that although many
Americans have put a good deal of effort into restricting assault
rifles, those weapons may be less threatening than their image. They
are almost never used in robberies in Switzerland, police say.
Such rifles, though far more lethal than handguns, are not easily
concealed. Swiss criminals, with access to both kinds of weapons,
choose convenience over firepower every time.
Another intriguing suggestion from abroad is that in some
circumstances bullet control can work as well as gun control. Many
Swiss say few shootings occur in their country in part because they
are less likely to own ammunition than guns.
The overwhelming majority of them buy government-subsidized ammunition
at shooting ranges, and they are supposed to buy only what they use on
the spot. Except for militia members, many Swiss gun owners do not
keep ammunition at home.
Although there appears to be a link between national gun ownership and
violent death, social factors are also at work. Despite different gun
policies, Japan and Switzerland share many features that help explain
their similarly low crime rates.
Police and scholars say that one of the most important is that, unlike
the United States, neither has an underclass that feels excluded from
society. Yet the groups in both countries that come closest to an
underclass are responsible for a disproportionate share of crime.
In Japan ethnic Koreans and the hereditary outcasts known as burakumin
are discriminated against and form the shadow of an underclass, and
they dominate the criminal gangs known as Yakuza.
In Switzerland foreign laborers also make up a frustrated subculture,
and many play a major role in the country's drug trade and commit just
over half of the murders there.
Japan and Switzerland also have in common strong social and family
traditions. People often live in the same area for much of their lives
and they care what their neighbors think.
"Our biggest city by far is Zurich, and it's got 350,000 people," said
Rudolf Wyss, vice director of the federal office of police. "That's
nothing on an international scale. Most of Switzerland is still small
towns, where the social network is strong and where people don't feel
as anonymous or as lonely as in big foreign cities."
Copyright 1996 The New York Times Company