Herr Heim is from the Ticino Canton of southern Switzerland. With a mild climate and a taste for “la dolce vita” borrowed from their nearby Italian neighbors, Heim and the Ticino Swiss are easily the most laid-back, casual and easygoing of all Swiss. If you think he sounds fairly badass, you should meet his northern ‘Scweitzerdeutch’ countrymen, who are considered cool and businesslike by comparison.
Lugano may be pricey, but it’s like the French Riviera in the middle of the Swiss Alps.
Amen!
I am proudly Swiss by heritage. There is municipality in the Bern canton named after my forbears as well as a schloss. It is in the Germanic portion of the country mentioned in another post here.
I wish the nation I call home was as solid in this area as the nation I am descended from. The Swiss aren’t perfect in this as there are liberals there too. There is a real political war to Brady-ize the populace.
We need to institute this policy! Why? Because it works and makes sense, but mostly I just want a machine gun!
You mean an armed populace is not the cesspool, most vile, corrupt and riotous place on earth?
Yeah what you said.
Too bad they didn’t put any guns to use in WW2.
If the quote is true, from WW1 but applicable:
Shortly before World War I, the German Kaiser was the guest of the Swiss government to observe military maneuvers. The Kaiser asked a Swiss militiaman: “You are 500,000 and you shoot well, but if we attack with 1,000,000 men what will you do?” The soldier replied: “We will shoot twice and go home.”
Sure they did. They didn’t get invaded. Would that be true if they were unarmed?
But of course you mean a more active use, like leaving their own land to go shoot foreigners. I think that would have been a black mark on Swiss history.
The Nazis didn’t need to invade. They used the Swiss for “business” purposes — smuggling and money laundering.
And Lew Rockwell is one of the more despicable characters in American politics. He may have ghostwritten Ron Paul’s racist and anti-Semitic newsletters — at least that is what some of Paul’s people claim. Rockwell is not a reliable source for anything.
I’d love to believe it, but the real reason that Switzerland is crime-free is because it’s full of Swiss.
The same reason Japan doesn’t allow weapons but is crime free basically. Thanks for saying it first, I was kinda hesitant.
No, the reason both Japan and Switzerland have almost no crime is because they are almost completely homogenous cultures. That is why both countries enjoy such a noticable lack of crime.
Homogeneous!? Switzerland is the LEAST homogeneous country in Western Europe. Four languages (German, French, Italian and Romansh) staunchly Protestant and staunchly Catholic, yeah the Swiss sure are homogeneous.
There are historic reasons why the Swiss are disinclined to violent crime. Partly it’s a live and let live attitude arising from the harshness and poverty of the land. But it also derives from their history of an armed population. No matter how one divides them each group is about equal to any of the others — everybody’s a minority and nobody is a majority and everybody is armed, fit to fight and occupies a defensible position. This is why Switzerland escaped the horrors of the 30 Years War even though being surrounded by the uber-catholic Habsburg empire.
Right! Like homogenous Mexico. Crime free!
LOL!
Japan is most certainly NOT ‘crime free’. Although if rephrased to assert that there is “no unauthorized crime” and “guns cannot be acquired except illegally without too much difficulty” I would agree.
Some years ago I had a chat with a Soviet emigre friend and the subject of the similarity of murder rates in the USSR and the US. He said the reason was life is cheap in the Soviet Union but in the US murder is the National sport. The US murder rate from other causes then firearms is still twice that of the UK. It’s part demographics and part culture.
Not true…
Foreigners are about 25 % of the population (about 21 % and rising plus naturalized people)
The Swiss are a homogenous, civilized people. If they had NO GUNS they would also be relatively crime free.
The USA is a hodge podge of both civilized citizens and illiterate, barbarians home-grown and imported. Guns are MORE NECESSARY here, than in Switzerland to protect ourselves from both barbarian criminals and a despotic government.
Thank God and our Founding Fathers for our Declaration of Independence, Constitution and especially the 2nd Amendment.
they can’t conceal carry.
For a more in depth look at the Swiss and their traditions of self reliance and armed independence, I would highly recommend the following two books;
La Place de la Concorde Suisse, by the utterly marvelous author John McPhee and;
Target Switzerland, by Stephen P. Halbrook
I”m sure there is crime. But crime that would amount to nothing more than speeding or the like.
An armed and knowledgeable populace is very nice indeed.
Edit: I also want this man’s bumper stickers. “Fight Crime: Shoot Back”
Japan is far from being ‘crime-free.’ Corruption and extortion rackets are not just common, but *endemic*, run by Yakuza gangs in collusion with crooked local police and politicians.
The incompetent Japanese police boast (incredibly) a nearly 100% conviction rate for crimes they investigate, which itself raises some troubling questions. How do they solve *every* crime? They don’t.
In fact, many reported crimes are never investigated because either they appear too difficult to solve or because they are clearly Yakuza-related. These reported crimes are officially categorized as ‘accidents.’
If a crime appears simple, and the investigation doesn’t involve politicians or gangsters, the police simply arrest the obvious suspects (or round up the usual criminal underclass) and beat them until somebody confesses.
Japan has a high crime rate, but its rates of homicide and random street crime are very low. Murders and street crime are bad for business, and the Yakuza are very businesslike.
I watched a documentary about sumo wrestling which brings this point home. A number of former athletes that acknowledged their was cheating and an organized crime element going on ended up dead. All were listed as natural causes even though there was an incredible amount of evidence (dug up by a P.I.) which indicated they were murdered.
The P.I. pretty much said if someone isn’t standing at the scene soaked in blood holding a weapon then it doesn’t go down as a crime, because they aren’t sure they will be able to find the perp and keep their “100%” success rate.
Could it be homogenous populations of industrious people with an absence of a race based grievance industry?
While the headline is largely correct, I wanted to inject a touch of balance.
Switzerland is generally crime-free, not completely. Ubiquitous guns are one of the reasons for this. Two other reasons are the Swiss personality, which tends towards honesty and the fact that many Swiss are nosy people watching everything that goes on around them.
Concur. Switzerland is more of a Corporate State than a Nation State. (Not a criticism – just an observation).
That video should be required watching in schools. “…freedom fundamentally comes from the ability to defend yoursel”…truer words were never spoken!
Regarding crime in Japan, it is also the case that statistics are kept in a distinctly different manner that tends to minimize their homicide rate.
For example, if a woman goes crazy in the USA, killing her husband and four children before taking her own life, that counts as one suicide and five murders. In Japan it is called a “family suicide” and counts as six suicides and no murders.
Forget criminals – even the Nazis wouldn’t —- with Switzerland until they conquered the rest of the world. That’s how you know you’re doing something right.
As for Japan, that’s really not an apt comparison. Not to sound alienist, but Japan is a formerly isolationist country of the Asian periphery that shares basically none of the salient assumptions westerners would have about crime. That includes weapons, crime, statistical categorization, statistical accuracy, criminality, casus belli, or assumptions of the collective/individual. (For a fascinating take on the latter, read “Crafting Selves”, if you can stomach postmodern academic prose.)
imagine every American with their own M-16 and Beretta 9mm that they keep in their home.
That would end spouse abuse. Gun running? Why bother smuggling or stealing guns when everyone has one already.
Liberals always try to twist the meaning of the 2nd amendment by emphasizing the “well regulated militia”. They have so perverted the intent of the Constitution, that there is no militia in the United States for them to regulate.
There’s only the Nazi style gun control.
We visited Swiss friends last year.
Very well off. He is some kind of consultant. She is a COO of a large company. Gorgeous. Wears fabulous hats to work.
After a couple pleasant days (wonderful hospitality!) I brought up the guns in Switzerland thing and asked them if it was true.
It is true.
Husband informed me gorgeous wife is a crack shot and that they have several weapons.
Switzerland is too homogenous to compare to America, but in areas where Americans can be armed there seems to be a different dynamic than the “‘legal’ gun free” areas of America.
an armed society is a polite society – Heinlein
Ethnic diversity is of no consequence. Findland is a great place to live but has relatively few minorities. Somalia is a homogenous hell-hole. It’s the character of the people that is most important. What the Swiss demonstrate to me is that firearms are not a problem when owned by good people.
I pay taxes, I am a law abiding citizen, why can’t my government give me free ammunition to practice with?
Because that’s socialism.
The Swiss have compulsory military service (for males) and conscientious objectors must pay an extra tax for the rest of their lives.
I see you gentlemen are content to be only half free. And you are willing to let the Drug War be used against you.
BTW no mention of the Swiss legalized heroin program. Which the Swiss voted for twice.
Coke (the drink) got its name from the drug Coke about1900. My great uncle was able to purchaseall drugs legally and there was little ‘drug problem’ in his time.
NO PROFIT until drugs were made ILLEGAL
And I am over 70 and we used paragoric on my children’s gums while teething, NOW ILLEGAL.
“Switzerland can mobilize a pretty large army even by European standards.” I think that’s close to quoting the gentelman, but lets make that a little more accurate – “Switzerland can mobilize a pretty large army ESPECIALLY by European standards.”
Inspiring and depressing. The opposite forces are at work here (USA).
Nonsense, Switzerland is not crime-free because of guns. First, it’s people/culture who make no crime or crime. Guns have nothing to do with it. Second, Switzerland is home to some the world’s most blood-thirsty, selfish criminals, thieves and slavers, all perfectly “legal” though hardly above-board.
@David: Those are some pretty serious accusations. Care to back them up with some kind of facts?
“Switzerland is home to some the world’s most blood-thirsty, selfish criminals, thieves and slavers”
Thanks for the heads-up. If a Swiss banker tries to break down my door with the rest of his gang, I’ll be sure to shoot him first.
“an armed society is a polite society – Heinlein”
More bunk. The Middle East is armed to the teeth, almost every household in Iraq has an AK, at least. Somalia? Sudan? Armed to the teeth. Are those polite societies? It’s people, not guns who are polite or not. We want to say that criminals shoot people, not guns, and that is correct. However, we cannot then in consistency turn around and say that people who have guns are polite. That is not correct. If we take the gun out of the equation in one direction we have to take it out of the equation in the opposite direction. Otherwise, we’re just hypocrites and opportunists/propagandists. A gun’s a tool, just like a pencil. It can be used to help or to harm. It has no inherent moral standing one way or another. I am surprised this childish claim would be made about Switzerland and guns. The Swiss people are the issue, not their guns.
David said : “It’s people, not guns who are polite or not. We want to say that criminals shoot people, not guns, and that is correct… A gun’s a tool, just like a pencil. It can be used to help or to harm. It has no inherent moral standing one way or another.”
Cool.
Magoo replied: “+1. Couldn’t be stated better.”
Excellent! Now that Magoo has conceded the truth of our basic premise I look forward to the cessation of his arguments in favor of various disarmament schemes.
Note the qualifier “Society.” It’s what we have. It’s what the Anglosphere has, as well as the rest of (non-Balkan) Europe, parts of South America, and the places in Asia where the indoor plumbing works. Most of the Middle East, Somalia, Sudan, and dozens of other places you didn’t mention don’t HAVE a society. They are barbarians who yearn for the good ol’ days of the 7th century. Give barbarians firearms and they would (and do) put an AK47 round between your eyes for the slightest of slights, or on a whim. Give civilized freemen firearms and you’re as safe as you’ve ever been.
From The Belmont Club today “Perhaps the actual presence or absence of guns is less important than the social and political state of a society. How else would one explain the low rate of crime in Switzerland, where assault rifles are ubiquitous and the mayhem in the poorer parts of London, where gun laws are extremely restrictive? Maybe the rate of crime is far more strongly correlated with political and social factors than it is to the physical prevalence of instruments like guns, knives or clubs. If so, then perhaps it is political and social policy that kills people, and guns and other physical instruments simply extend the aggression in the mind.”
In any event it a pleasant surprise to see the Libs here throwing off Multiculturalism at last to argue how culture can determine morals/ethics and some are just better than others.
Well if you lower the standard for what you call a ‘society’….
Sorry to tell you Switz is not crime free. My neighbors can hit a bullseye at 1000m which is nice but whole apatments are cleaned out by foreign gangs in Lausanne every day. My wife lost her wallet on the train twice. Switz is a small place and it cannot avoid the world around it. Sorry to spoil your dream.
PTL says: “an armed society is a polite society” – Heinlein
That adage was designed to fit one of Heinlein’s science fiction worlds, not this one. The real world is complicated and problematic. Science fiction worlds are simplistic, two-dimensional, and more than a little corny — on purpose. These are fantasy worlds created for our entertainment.
In my opinion, one should take Heinlein’s ideology about as seriously as L. Ron Hubbard’s theology.
Magold, you are living proof that an armed society is not necessarily polite.
I would be more impressed if, even once, the Swiss had sacrificed in the defense of the West, instead of mooching off the U.S. taxpayer and American kids who sacrificed–sometimes with their lives–to defend ingrates like Switzerland and Sweden.
Living as bystanding moochers is no moral way to go though life.
Well, they’re good shots and dandy chocolatiers. Those gotta count for something.
They make a damn fine wrist watch, and pocket knife also.
The US has more criminals than Switzerland has people. That’s why both nations need to remain armed. Americans need to remain armed for protection against domestic criminals. Switzerland, with its small population, needed to arm all its citizens for protection against foreign criminals wearing uniforms.
The Swiss system appears to be universally applied. As a citizen, males serve on a compulsory basis, from 18 years of age to 34 years, nominally (may be up to age 50 in some cases.). The Swiss Army has, at its core, a cadre of professionals who make up about 5 percent of the standing force. The standing army contains about 120,000 effectives, with a ready reserve of 80,000.
The Swiss made a reputation for bravery and loyalty in the 16th century in their almost suicidal defense of Pope Clement VII in 1527, but for centuries before that they were renowned and feared mercenaries on the battlefields of Europe.
The Swiss model makes every citizen a stakeholder in the national fate. It imbues the citizen soldier with a sense of discipline, and imparts to them military skills and weapons that they retain for their entire lives. The Swiss model is the ideal case for an American National Militia, as envisioned by the Founders.
Swiss acceptance of this duty for life, as it essentially is, along with the experience of that military service, has shaped the Swiss in ways that we in America can understand only if we have been under arms ourselves in a military environment. Their service makes them better citizens. They are law abiding, honest, productive, and willing to stand up to criminals, whether they be foreign armies or “disaffected youths”, because they learn those traits as citizen soldiers.
There is a movement, from the left in Switzerland to abolish the army. That would be a tragic mistake, not only for Switzerland, but for Europe as well.
ICrime stats and cultural/sociological aspects aside…I want the Army to let me keep my shit! My bank account would be so much happier.
That could make it part of the G.I. bill. Keep your rifle. That would be a stimulus package I could get behind.
I would have to say that if the Swiss were swamped with blacks and hispanics, it wouldn’t quite so peaceful. Look at the UK and the States right now. Do the research.
The truth is incontrovertible, malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end; there it is. – Churchill
the sad reality is there is crime in Switzerland, commited mostly by people comming from Eastern Europe,and the ROM.
Cocote
We are of the same mind as the Swiss here in Texas. I only hope that America will someday embrace the truth of self-defense and that our Progressive captures will be defeated politically.
This thread does not any sense. Anybody in America can choose to have a gun or not have gun. There are far more guns in America than people. As a civil society we try to prevent criminals from obtaining guns. However, those laws rarely work.
I am unaware of any organized effort that says “give up my gun”. All the comments about cultural,ethnicity or comparisons with other countries owning guns is purely speculation and about 250 years too late.
Switzerland does have a low violent crime rate. But so do other European countries such as Norway that have strict restrictions on guns.
Awesome. Simply awesome.
Amen.
Herr Heim is from the Ticino Canton of southern Switzerland. With a mild climate and a taste for “la dolce vita” borrowed from their nearby Italian neighbors, Heim and the Ticino Swiss are easily the most laid-back, casual and easygoing of all Swiss. If you think he sounds fairly badass, you should meet his northern ‘Scweitzerdeutch’ countrymen, who are considered cool and businesslike by comparison.
Lugano may be pricey, but it’s like the French Riviera in the middle of the Swiss Alps.
Amen!
I am proudly Swiss by heritage. There is municipality in the Bern canton named after my forbears as well as a schloss. It is in the Germanic portion of the country mentioned in another post here.
I wish the nation I call home was as solid in this area as the nation I am descended from. The Swiss aren’t perfect in this as there are liberals there too. There is a real political war to Brady-ize the populace.
We need to institute this policy! Why? Because it works and makes sense, but mostly I just want a machine gun!
You mean an armed populace is not the cesspool, most vile, corrupt and riotous place on earth?
Yeah what you said.
Too bad they didn’t put any guns to use in WW2.
If the quote is true, from WW1 but applicable:
Shortly before World War I, the German Kaiser was the guest of the Swiss government to observe military maneuvers. The Kaiser asked a Swiss militiaman: “You are 500,000 and you shoot well, but if we attack with 1,000,000 men what will you do?” The soldier replied: “We will shoot twice and go home.”
A short bit of history of Switzerland and WW2.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig2/stagnaro5.html
Sure they did. They didn’t get invaded. Would that be true if they were unarmed?
But of course you mean a more active use, like leaving their own land to go shoot foreigners. I think that would have been a black mark on Swiss history.
The Nazis didn’t need to invade. They used the Swiss for “business” purposes — smuggling and money laundering.
And Lew Rockwell is one of the more despicable characters in American politics. He may have ghostwritten Ron Paul’s racist and anti-Semitic newsletters — at least that is what some of Paul’s people claim. Rockwell is not a reliable source for anything.
I’d love to believe it, but the real reason that Switzerland is crime-free is because it’s full of Swiss.
The same reason Japan doesn’t allow weapons but is crime free basically. Thanks for saying it first, I was kinda hesitant.
No, the reason both Japan and Switzerland have almost no crime is because they are almost completely homogenous cultures. That is why both countries enjoy such a noticable lack of crime.
Homogeneous!? Switzerland is the LEAST homogeneous country in Western Europe. Four languages (German, French, Italian and Romansh) staunchly Protestant and staunchly Catholic, yeah the Swiss sure are homogeneous.
There are historic reasons why the Swiss are disinclined to violent crime. Partly it’s a live and let live attitude arising from the harshness and poverty of the land. But it also derives from their history of an armed population. No matter how one divides them each group is about equal to any of the others — everybody’s a minority and nobody is a majority and everybody is armed, fit to fight and occupies a defensible position. This is why Switzerland escaped the horrors of the 30 Years War even though being surrounded by the uber-catholic Habsburg empire.
Right! Like homogenous Mexico. Crime free!
LOL!
Japan is most certainly NOT ‘crime free’. Although if rephrased to assert that there is “no unauthorized crime” and “guns cannot be acquired except illegally without too much difficulty” I would agree.
Some years ago I had a chat with a Soviet emigre friend and the subject of the similarity of murder rates in the USSR and the US. He said the reason was life is cheap in the Soviet Union but in the US murder is the National sport. The US murder rate from other causes then firearms is still twice that of the UK. It’s part demographics and part culture.
Not true…
Foreigners are about 25 % of the population (about 21 % and rising plus naturalized people)
The Swiss are a homogenous, civilized people. If they had NO GUNS they would also be relatively crime free.
The USA is a hodge podge of both civilized citizens and illiterate, barbarians home-grown and imported. Guns are MORE NECESSARY here, than in Switzerland to protect ourselves from both barbarian criminals and a despotic government.
Thank God and our Founding Fathers for our Declaration of Independence, Constitution and especially the 2nd Amendment.
they can’t conceal carry.
For a more in depth look at the Swiss and their traditions of self reliance and armed independence, I would highly recommend the following two books;
La Place de la Concorde Suisse, by the utterly marvelous author John McPhee and;
Target Switzerland, by Stephen P. Halbrook
I”m sure there is crime. But crime that would amount to nothing more than speeding or the like.
An armed and knowledgeable populace is very nice indeed.
Edit: I also want this man’s bumper stickers. “Fight Crime: Shoot Back”
Japan is far from being ‘crime-free.’ Corruption and extortion rackets are not just common, but *endemic*, run by Yakuza gangs in collusion with crooked local police and politicians.
The incompetent Japanese police boast (incredibly) a nearly 100% conviction rate for crimes they investigate, which itself raises some troubling questions. How do they solve *every* crime? They don’t.
In fact, many reported crimes are never investigated because either they appear too difficult to solve or because they are clearly Yakuza-related. These reported crimes are officially categorized as ‘accidents.’
If a crime appears simple, and the investigation doesn’t involve politicians or gangsters, the police simply arrest the obvious suspects (or round up the usual criminal underclass) and beat them until somebody confesses.
Japan has a high crime rate, but its rates of homicide and random street crime are very low. Murders and street crime are bad for business, and the Yakuza are very businesslike.
I watched a documentary about sumo wrestling which brings this point home. A number of former athletes that acknowledged their was cheating and an organized crime element going on ended up dead. All were listed as natural causes even though there was an incredible amount of evidence (dug up by a P.I.) which indicated they were murdered.
The P.I. pretty much said if someone isn’t standing at the scene soaked in blood holding a weapon then it doesn’t go down as a crime, because they aren’t sure they will be able to find the perp and keep their “100%” success rate.
Could it be homogenous populations of industrious people with an absence of a race based grievance industry?
While the headline is largely correct, I wanted to inject a touch of balance.
Switzerland is generally crime-free, not completely. Ubiquitous guns are one of the reasons for this. Two other reasons are the Swiss personality, which tends towards honesty and the fact that many Swiss are nosy people watching everything that goes on around them.
Concur. Switzerland is more of a Corporate State than a Nation State. (Not a criticism – just an observation).
That video should be required watching in schools. “…freedom fundamentally comes from the ability to defend yoursel”…truer words were never spoken!
Regarding crime in Japan, it is also the case that statistics are kept in a distinctly different manner that tends to minimize their homicide rate.
For example, if a woman goes crazy in the USA, killing her husband and four children before taking her own life, that counts as one suicide and five murders. In Japan it is called a “family suicide” and counts as six suicides and no murders.
Forget criminals – even the Nazis wouldn’t —- with Switzerland until they conquered the rest of the world. That’s how you know you’re doing something right.
As for Japan, that’s really not an apt comparison. Not to sound alienist, but Japan is a formerly isolationist country of the Asian periphery that shares basically none of the salient assumptions westerners would have about crime. That includes weapons, crime, statistical categorization, statistical accuracy, criminality, casus belli, or assumptions of the collective/individual. (For a fascinating take on the latter, read “Crafting Selves”, if you can stomach postmodern academic prose.)
imagine every American with their own M-16 and Beretta 9mm that they keep in their home.
That would end spouse abuse. Gun running? Why bother smuggling or stealing guns when everyone has one already.
Liberals always try to twist the meaning of the 2nd amendment by emphasizing the “well regulated militia”. They have so perverted the intent of the Constitution, that there is no militia in the United States for them to regulate.
There’s only the Nazi style gun control.
We visited Swiss friends last year.
Very well off. He is some kind of consultant. She is a COO of a large company. Gorgeous. Wears fabulous hats to work.
After a couple pleasant days (wonderful hospitality!) I brought up the guns in Switzerland thing and asked them if it was true.
It is true.
Husband informed me gorgeous wife is a crack shot and that they have several weapons.
Switzerland is too homogenous to compare to America, but in areas where Americans can be armed there seems to be a different dynamic than the “‘legal’ gun free” areas of America.
an armed society is a polite society – Heinlein
Ethnic diversity is of no consequence. Findland is a great place to live but has relatively few minorities. Somalia is a homogenous hell-hole. It’s the character of the people that is most important. What the Swiss demonstrate to me is that firearms are not a problem when owned by good people.
I pay taxes, I am a law abiding citizen, why can’t my government give me free ammunition to practice with?
Because that’s socialism.
The Swiss have compulsory military service (for males) and conscientious objectors must pay an extra tax for the rest of their lives.
I see you gentlemen are content to be only half free. And you are willing to let the Drug War be used against you.
http://powerandcontrol.blogspot.com/2011/08/guns-and-weed-road-to-freedom.html
====
BTW no mention of the Swiss legalized heroin program. Which the Swiss voted for twice.
Coke (the drink) got its name from the drug Coke about1900. My great uncle was able to purchaseall drugs legally and there was little ‘drug problem’ in his time.
NO PROFIT until drugs were made ILLEGAL
And I am over 70 and we used paragoric on my children’s gums while teething, NOW ILLEGAL.
“Switzerland can mobilize a pretty large army even by European standards.” I think that’s close to quoting the gentelman, but lets make that a little more accurate – “Switzerland can mobilize a pretty large army ESPECIALLY by European standards.”
Inspiring and depressing. The opposite forces are at work here (USA).
Nonsense, Switzerland is not crime-free because of guns. First, it’s people/culture who make no crime or crime. Guns have nothing to do with it. Second, Switzerland is home to some the world’s most blood-thirsty, selfish criminals, thieves and slavers, all perfectly “legal” though hardly above-board.
@David: Those are some pretty serious accusations. Care to back them up with some kind of facts?
“Switzerland is home to some the world’s most blood-thirsty, selfish criminals, thieves and slavers”
Thanks for the heads-up. If a Swiss banker tries to break down my door with the rest of his gang, I’ll be sure to shoot him first.
“an armed society is a polite society – Heinlein”
More bunk. The Middle East is armed to the teeth, almost every household in Iraq has an AK, at least. Somalia? Sudan? Armed to the teeth. Are those polite societies? It’s people, not guns who are polite or not. We want to say that criminals shoot people, not guns, and that is correct. However, we cannot then in consistency turn around and say that people who have guns are polite. That is not correct. If we take the gun out of the equation in one direction we have to take it out of the equation in the opposite direction. Otherwise, we’re just hypocrites and opportunists/propagandists. A gun’s a tool, just like a pencil. It can be used to help or to harm. It has no inherent moral standing one way or another. I am surprised this childish claim would be made about Switzerland and guns. The Swiss people are the issue, not their guns.
+1. Couldn’t be stated better.
“Couldn’t be stated better.”
Of course it could.
Wow, snappy comeback. Algonquin round table material.
David said :
“It’s people, not guns who are polite or not. We want to say that criminals shoot people, not guns, and that is correct… A gun’s a tool, just like a pencil. It can be used to help or to harm. It has no inherent moral standing one way or another.”
Cool.
Magoo replied:
“+1. Couldn’t be stated better.”
Excellent! Now that Magoo has conceded the truth of our basic premise I look forward to the cessation of his arguments in favor of various disarmament schemes.
Note the qualifier “Society.” It’s what we have. It’s what the Anglosphere has, as well as the rest of (non-Balkan) Europe, parts of South America, and the places in Asia where the indoor plumbing works. Most of the Middle East, Somalia, Sudan, and dozens of other places you didn’t mention don’t HAVE a society. They are barbarians who yearn for the good ol’ days of the 7th century. Give barbarians firearms and they would (and do) put an AK47 round between your eyes for the slightest of slights, or on a whim. Give civilized freemen firearms and you’re as safe as you’ve ever been.
From The Belmont Club today “Perhaps the actual presence or absence of guns is less important than the social and political state of a society. How else would one explain the low rate of crime in Switzerland, where assault rifles are ubiquitous and the mayhem in the poorer parts of London, where gun laws are extremely restrictive? Maybe the rate of crime is far more strongly correlated with political and social factors than it is to the physical prevalence of instruments like guns, knives or clubs. If so, then perhaps it is political and social policy that kills people, and guns and other physical instruments simply extend the aggression in the mind.”
In any event it a pleasant surprise to see the Libs here throwing off Multiculturalism at last to argue how culture can determine morals/ethics and some are just better than others.
Well if you lower the standard for what you call a ‘society’….
Sorry to tell you Switz is not crime free. My neighbors can hit a bullseye at 1000m which is nice but whole apatments are cleaned out by foreign gangs in Lausanne every day. My wife lost her wallet on the train twice. Switz is a small place and it cannot avoid the world around it. Sorry to spoil your dream.
PTL says: “an armed society is a polite society” – Heinlein
That adage was designed to fit one of Heinlein’s science fiction worlds, not this one. The real world is complicated and problematic. Science fiction worlds are simplistic, two-dimensional, and more than a little corny — on purpose. These are fantasy worlds created for our entertainment.
In my opinion, one should take Heinlein’s ideology about as seriously as L. Ron Hubbard’s theology.
Magold, you are living proof that an armed society is not necessarily polite.
I would be more impressed if, even once, the Swiss had sacrificed in the defense of the West, instead of mooching off the U.S. taxpayer and American kids who sacrificed–sometimes with their lives–to defend ingrates like Switzerland and Sweden.
Living as bystanding moochers is no moral way to go though life.
Well, they’re good shots and dandy chocolatiers. Those gotta count for something.
They make a damn fine wrist watch, and pocket knife also.
The US has more criminals than Switzerland has people. That’s why both nations need to remain armed. Americans need to remain armed for protection against domestic criminals. Switzerland, with its small population, needed to arm all its citizens for protection against foreign criminals wearing uniforms.
The Swiss system appears to be universally applied. As a citizen, males serve on a compulsory basis, from 18 years of age to 34 years, nominally (may be up to age 50 in some cases.). The Swiss Army has, at its core, a cadre of professionals who make up about 5 percent of the standing force. The standing army contains about 120,000 effectives, with a ready reserve of 80,000.
The Swiss made a reputation for bravery and loyalty in the 16th century in their almost suicidal defense of Pope Clement VII in 1527, but for centuries before that they were renowned and feared mercenaries on the battlefields of Europe.
The Swiss model makes every citizen a stakeholder in the national fate. It imbues the citizen soldier with a sense of discipline, and imparts to them military skills and weapons that they retain for their entire lives. The Swiss model is the ideal case for an American National Militia, as envisioned by the Founders.
Swiss acceptance of this duty for life, as it essentially is, along with the experience of that military service, has shaped the Swiss in ways that we in America can understand only if we have been under arms ourselves in a military environment. Their service makes them better citizens. They are law abiding, honest, productive, and willing to stand up to criminals, whether they be foreign armies or “disaffected youths”, because they learn those traits as citizen soldiers.
There is a movement, from the left in Switzerland to abolish the army. That would be a tragic mistake, not only for Switzerland, but for Europe as well.
ICrime stats and cultural/sociological aspects aside…I want the Army to let me keep my shit! My bank account would be so much happier.
That could make it part of the G.I. bill. Keep your rifle. That would be a stimulus package I could get behind.
I would have to say that if the Swiss were swamped with blacks and hispanics, it wouldn’t quite so peaceful. Look at the UK and the States right now. Do the research.
The truth is incontrovertible, malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end; there it is. – Churchill
the sad reality is there is crime in Switzerland, commited mostly by people comming from Eastern Europe,and the ROM.
Cocote
We are of the same mind as the Swiss here in Texas. I only hope that America will someday embrace the truth of self-defense and that our Progressive captures will be defeated politically.
This thread does not any sense. Anybody in America can choose to have a gun or not have gun. There are far more guns in America than people. As a civil society we try to prevent criminals from obtaining guns. However, those laws rarely work.
I am unaware of any organized effort that says “give up my gun”. All the comments about cultural,ethnicity or comparisons with other countries owning guns is purely speculation and about 250 years too late.
Switzerland does have a low violent crime rate. But so do other European countries such as Norway that have strict restrictions on guns.
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