more guns (was: Reply to Margaret)

Michael Pollak mpollak at panix.com
Fri May 7 23:19:07 PDT 1999



> 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



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