This is the smartest, most compelling write up I've read so far on the subject. A lot I didn't know, especially some interesting parallels of Swiss history to ours. I wholeheartedly agree with what they've done would support a similar approach here.
All in all, food for thought and genuine reflection.
http://www.guncite.com/swissgun-kopel.html
Highlights (sections bolded by me):
"As one historian summarises: "Switzerland was created in battle, reached its present dimensions by conquest and defended its existence by armed neutrality thereafter." The experience of Swiss history has made national independence and power virtually synonymous with an armed citizenry."
Analysis of Switzerland does demolish the simplistic notion "more guns, more gun crime." More important than the number of guns is their cultural context. In Switzerland, guns are an important element of a cohesive social structure that keeps crime low.
Although guns are more available to the Swiss, Swiss gun culture is more authoritarian than America's. Gun ownership is a mandatory community duty, not a matter of individual free choice. In Switzerland, defence of the nation is not a job for professional soldiers or for people who join the army to learn technical skills for civilian jobs. Defence of the nation is the responsibility of every male citizen.
Despite all the guns, the murder rate is a small fraction of the American rate, and is less than the rate in Canada or England, which strictly control guns, or in Japan, which virtually prohibits them. The gun crime rate is so low that statistics are not even kept.
What have we learned from Switzerland?' Guns in themselves are not a cause of gun crime; if they were, everyone in Switzerland would long ago have been shot in a domestic quarrel.
Cultural conditions, not gun laws, are the most important factors in a nation's crime rate. Young adults in Washington, D.C., are subject to strict gun control, but no social control, and they commit a staggering amount of armed crime. Young adults in Zurich are subject to minimal gun control, but strict social control, and they commit almost no crime.
America-with its traditions of individual liberty-cannot import Switzerland's culture of social control. Teenagers, women, and almost everyone else have more freedom in America than in Switzerland.
What America can learn from Switzerland is that the best way to reduce gun misuse is to promote responsible gun ownership. While America cannot adopt the Swiss model, America can foster responsible gun ownership along more individualistic, American lines. Firearms safety classes in elementary schools, optional marksmanship classes in high schools and colleges, and the widespread availability of adult safety training at licensed shooting ranges are some of the ways that America can make its tradition of responsible gun use even stronger. "
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