Can the Swiss Model of Gun Ownership Solve America’s Crisis?
Field shooting competition in Switzerland. Creative Commons photo by SwissBloke via Wikimedia Commons
by Charles Irwell
Are you sick of children getting shot at school yet?
It’s an exhausting prospect to sit here, as an Englishman, and discuss gun ownership in the US. Endless bloody jibes about school shootings online are now reaching the point of tedious cliché (oh boy, that’s a depressing sentence), and rebuttals about our comparative lack of enthusiasm for hard weaponry are equally monotonous.
Yet, the United States remains the most heavily armed nation on earth. With an average of 120 firearms for every 100 citizens (putting it far ahead as the most guns owned per capita), it owns 46% of all civilian-owned firearms (with just under half of all households containing one firearm) and kills more of their own countrymen by firearms than any other fully-developed nation. Yes, guns are merely the instruments of their wielder’s desires, same as a knife or a baseball bat, and yes, there is something noble in theory about enshrining the right to an effective means of self-defense into law, as well as ensuring parity of weaponry between the state and the citizen (in 1776, at any rate).
The preceding arguments are not my own, nor those of the Second Amendment Right, but those of George Orwell and Christopher Hitchens. Two titans of left-wing thought, itself not a bastion of boomsticks, agreed that an armed citizenry was a highly effective check on governmental power. For those arguing that any potential insurrectionists would be facing drones, fighter planes, tanks and the rest, I would point out that highly armed irregular forces held NATO to a stalemate in Afghanistan for two decades, and then took over the country again.
However, the sheer number of murders – let alone gun murders, or even just gun deaths – in the United States does raise the eyebrows. The staggering figures, both per capita and nominal, provide arguably the most compelling argument for a nationwide moratorium on gun use. If only life were that simple.
Fear not – we may have an alternative to the current stalemate about what to do about the pew-pew, and it has existed for quite a few hundred years.
Switzerland, in geopolitical terms, is innocuous to the point of laughable. Orson Welles’ improvised monologue in The Third Man is rightly considered masterful, but also essentially truthful – Switzerland, at least to its European neighbours, is a political haven, a picturesque skiing holiday spot, a chocolate & cheese factory or a bank. And it’s full of cows grazing on the best pasture on Earth. As if to underline this lack of muscle on the world stage, their only long term military presence for the past two hundred years has been ceremonial duties outside the Vatican. Neutrality, peace, democracy, good confectionery, what on Earth does this have to do with guns?
Well, aside from some pragmatic politicking to avoid pissing off their much larger neighbours, there’s a further reason the Swiss avoided two world wars on their doorstep. Switzerland has one of the highest rates of gun ownership in the world. It actively pursues a policy of “armed neutrality”, meaning it encourages ordinary citizens to own weapons in the name of self-defence. Famously, if apocryphal, Kaiser Wilhelm II, in one of his many bully-boy foreign policy episodes, attempted to pressure the Swiss into joining the Central Powers prior to the Great War, or at least to look the other way on German troop movements, menacingly stating the German Army was twice the size of the entire Swiss male population. When asked what they would do in the event of an invasion, the Swiss envoy replied, “Shoot twice, then go home.” As far as historical one-liners go, this is up there with the first rank. Not only pithy, but true.
The federal shooting range of Versoix, Switzerland; people come to such ranges to complete mandatory training (Obligatorischeschiessen) with service arms, or to shoot for sport and competition. Creative Commons photo by Rama via Wikimedia Commons
Until recently, gun safety and target practice were mandatory classes in Swiss schools, and even school buses had rifle racks at the rear. National marksmanship competitions are a huge deal, and there are dedicated public holidays where shooting takes place. The culture around weaponry does not stop at being an officially mandated effort at self-defence, however. Many YouTube channels specialising in guns have emerged, such as Bloke on the Range, and some commentators who visit Swiss firing ranges note the apparent lack of health and safety, noting that roads and even towns are built below berms and targets. This means folks going through their daily errands while live rounds zip and crack overhead.
As antithetical as this sounds to harmonious, peaceful, banal old Europe, and sure sounds like the ultimate counterargument against any infringement on the right to bear arms, there are some terms and conditions. One, there are licensing rules. While Swiss law recognises the qualified right to acquire arms, it also requires any shooter wishing to buy repeating weapons needs a “shall-issue permit” – meaning the permit is a mere formality which is granted upon application. The most modern weaponry needs a “may-issue permit” – meaning the permit can be refused by the authorities (luckily black-powder weapons like musket and even smooth bore cannons require no licence for you nutters who use musket for home defence, just as the founding fathers intended). Before you roll your eyes, the permit can only be refused if you have a history of violent crime, have been mentally deemed unfit to carry a firearm or are at significant risk of harming yourself or others. In other words, common fucking sense prevails.
The second is a cultural one. It is important to note that, as root causes of crime go, Switzerland is doing rather well. It has the highest average amount of wealth per adult on Earth, and its poverty rate is half that of the United States. It ranks permanently high on the Human Development Index and has a very strong currency in the Swiss Franc. But this is not just to say that Switzerland is a peaceful nation because it is more prosperous. The whole culture around firearms, from the outset, is framed as a way for Swiss citizens to protect each other from outsiders, and not Swiss individuals from everyone else or the Gubmint.
Young people learning to clean their rifles. Creative Commons photo by SwissBloke via Wikimedia Commons.
On top of this, the US founding fathers did try to find some common ground with the Swiss in being nations with an armed citizenry. But the difference is that while citizen militias are indeed fantastic for self-defence, they are terrible at prosecuting wars.
Derek from accounting may love his country, but does he love it that much that he is prepared to eat crap food, live a hole in all weather, deal with no toilet paper, drink water that gives him dysentery, or willingly walk in a line towards a heavily fortified position that could mow him down in a moment? Of course not. The point is that while militias are good for keeping King George’s minions off your tea and tax rates, they’re not so good for aggressively pushing Native Americans off their land or annexing territory from the Spanish. So, where the two nations truly diverge is that America has the guns and every other service that would conceivably require them: five official armed service branches, several intelligence departments, even the National Parks Service routinely carry weapons. Meanwhile, Switzerland had a referendum on whether they should bother having an army at all in the recent past, and its foreign policy does not mandate multiple armed services.
Not to mention the American social history of policing is – to put it mildly – trigger happy, and fully arms itself as if it were the military. In contrast, the Swiss policing philosophy, like their military one, is borne from self-defence and preservation rather than prosecution. The Landjager corps – deputised armed men recruited to keep bandits away from Switzerland’s outlaw-friendly mountains and forests – quickly spiralled into corruption and brutality, leading to reforms including specialised training, higher wages and widespread dismissals from the corps… in 1864. Name me one US county, ward, parish or even neighbourhood willing to make such a sacrifice.
For a peaceful gun culture, it means education, collective rights and responsibilities, expanded social reform and, most importantly, a demilitarized constabulary.
Is America ready?
Howdy! My name is Katy Atchison and I'm an Associate Editor for Broke-Ass Stuart.
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