Swiss Fear…well, nothing
The Swiss are on the verge of changing forever. For no good reason, they’re participating in a referendum to force their militia members to turn their issued militia weapons into a central armory instead of the traditional gun cabinet in their homes as they’ve done for centuries.
And why would they change the Swiss character as it’s been for centuries? For no good reason. The article cites one shooting incident ten years ago and points at the 300 suicides/year as sufficient reason. 300 out of a population of 7 million.
Backed by a broad coalition of nongovernmental organizations, center-left and center-right politicians, and women’s groups, the initiative was born in large part in reaction to a series of shooting incidents, particularly the 2001 spree at a government building in Zug that killed 14 people.
Friedrich Leibacher, who killed himself after the massacre, used a commercial version of the Swiss army‘s SG 550 assault rifle — a gun still commonly found throughout the country in cupboards or under beds, the Associated Press reported.
So it wasn’t even his issued weapon, but a similar one he had purchased. The article also doesn’t mention how many of the suicides are committed with the issued weapons. Basically, the whole country is scared (well, more than half of the country) is scared.
Scared of nothing. It’s like they all yelled “Boo” at once and scared themselves.
Category: Gun Grabbing Fascists
Well, if they think they’re afraid now, wait until they get rid of their guns.
Then they’ll know what being afraid really looks like.
You think people would learn.
Fortunately there appears to be a ‘gut check’ going on as the vote draws near and it may be defeated.
It’s unfortunate that they even considered it though.
One of the things that the Swiss point to in their culture is that most of the citizenry is armed. They go by Heinlein’s assertion that an armed society is a polite society. If they have a problem with suicides, maybe they should find the cause of the suicides first?
Question: this massacre happened in 2001, so why did it take 10 years to enact?
As for the suicide rate isn’t that on par with most countries? If the suicide rate is so “high” then why not address the underlying problem. WHY do so many people want to kill themselves? Taking the guns away will simply mean that they will need to be more clever in how they off themselves. won’t really stop them.
#4 – Doc? THAT is the $64 question. One that has apparently evaded the highly educated left loons occupying the ivory towers of “higher education”…For now, I will assume (oops) they needed some stats to use for the article and choose the highest ones available.
As to why I think someone would commit suicide? It falls back to an unpublished rule of thumb regarding homicide investigation. “Fathers kill mothers, brothers kill sisters,husbands kill wives, boyfriends kill girlfriends and vice versa”. It is for all purposes an endless equation.
Something just dawned on me. Having dealt with suicides in years gone it is learned if somebody is seriously determined to kill themselves, there is no length to which they will go to accomplish it. Society can take away every weapon known to mankind but it will not stop someone from killing themselves. There is no rational, not for the consequences to those left behind to deal with the mess. Zip, zero nothing.
If your familiar with somebody like CJ, reaching out like he has and people actually taking the time to keep him buoyed up is the solution? I don’t know, just don’t know….
“There is no actual scenario now that requires a soldier to have his weapon at home in order to fight the enemy,”
It’s always been amazing to me to see how quickly people become complacent. I suppose Europe will never see war again.
http://story.birminghamstar.com/index.php/ct/9/cid/b8de8e630faf3631/id/744102/cs/1/ht/Gun-referendum-fails-in-Switzerland/
Looks like the Swiss are too smart to be fooled by fearmongering myopics. Good on ’em.