Quote:
Originally posted by ilw@15 July 2003 - 05:51
I've been thinking about the switzerland thing and talking to some people and i think the fundamental difference between swiss gun ownership and american is not only the type of gun (as it seems quite a few swiss people here have handguns), but also the purpose of having the gun. Here as j2k4 pointed out its a legal requirement and I haven't met any swiss people who would even consider having a gun for home defence. All the swiss guns are carefully locked away making them unsuitable to protect anyone from an intruder, but this makes the gun very hard for children to get at and the incidence of 'gun death' is much lower. I personally reckon there probably wasn't really a need for having a gun to protect your home until people did start protecting their homes with guns and now its a vicious circle. More people with guns to protect themselves leads to more people getting killed by guns (as shown by stats) as well as leading to more guns on the street (higher availability of guns) and this all leads to more people wanting a gun to protect themselves
Okay-