Item — HN Reader

"As for the cause and effect line you draw, hardly so clear cut. Switzerland has assault rifles in every home and a low crime rate. The UK has an effective gun ban and a very high crime rate."

Thanks for bringing that up: the Swiss firearm-related murder rate is 10x that of the UK. In a country that overall not only has a much lower crime rate (as you rightly point out), but is generally proverbially peaceful.

(Examples: when my sister moved to Aigle in the south of Switzerland, she noticed that the flower shop had left some very valuable plants outside over the weekend. With price tags, so you knew which ones to take. She thought someone was obviously in trouble, but the owners left those plants outside very weekend. And yes, nobody locked their doors.

I was walking with a friend in Basel, and we saw a key taped to the gate of an apartment building. With a note reading "Only for the owner!!".)

Switzerland is an almost comically peaceful and safe place. Yet 10x the gun murder rate of the much less peaceful and safe UK (I lived in London for 3 years).

So how does this support the idea that having firearms widely available does not have a negative effect?

3 comments

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentiona... (per 100,000)

Switzerland 0.7

United Kingdom 1.2

So in the UK they've just switched to other weapons. The end is the issue here not the means.

So are you claiming that the substitution rate is 100%? Any evidence for that?

If it's any less than that, we've saved some lives. Which I consider a Good Thing™, but you're obviously entitled to your own opinion.

Or is this the old "if we can't prevent 100%, there's no point in preventing any"-canard?

There has to be some threshold. How many lives per year is worth restricting the freedom of every law abiding citizen?

Let's say we could ban peanuts, and it would save 50 people every year. Would it be worth it? Probably not. How about 100 million. Probably so.

There isn't any good evidence either way. It's too hard to control the variables. It's possible that banning guns increased homicides from guns and other means. It's possible that it prevented homicides from guns and other means. There is really no way to tell from the evidence. But it is certainly not clear that it helps.

I wonder if the relationship a country has with their military has a role? Having a large number of ex-service men and women trained in efficient use of firearms? Just pondering, as I've been reading around the subject for the last hour and cant find anything.

Could one make the argument of "typical Swiss efficiency"?