While wasting time on my lunch hour I came across this interesting editorial
from an Australian newspaper.  BTW--Australia is well on their way to
banning private ownership of firearms of any type.

Switzerland: Europe's gun centre
where kids don't kill kids
By Gerard Jackson
The New Australian
No. 124,   21-27 June 1999

The Littleton killings have once again brought into the spotlight America's
alleged love affair with guns and its violent nature. Horror story after
horror story is wheeled out to demonstrate this 'fact'. Statistic after
statistic is faithfully recited to convince people that the horrors would go
away if only guns were banned. According to this mantra, guns are the real
evil, as if they were some kind of voodoo curse. Because of this malignant
force, according to Cameron Forbes, American "teenagers plot to remedy
slights by blowing away fellow students with Tec-9s" (Guns: why the US can't
bite the bullet, The Australian 15/6).* Ergo, remove the evil and the
killings will cease.

But is it really so? Are guns the real culprit? What the likes of Forbes
never tell their readers is that America's crime rate, and in particular its
murder rate, were much lower when access to guns was much easier. But let us
go abroad to test the thesis that the root of the evil is easy access to
guns. If this were so then Switzerland should be a war zone. In this country
every male between aged 20 to 42 is required by law to to keep firearms,
including pistols, at home; every reserve keeps his assault rifle at home
and every soldier takes his rifle home. Moreover, once a soldier retires he
is entitled to keep his weapon, whether it be a rifle or a pistol. Not only
that, but ordinary citizens are even allowed to buy military assault rifles.
In short, Mr Forbes, virtually every Swiss home is armed - and not with
peashooters - thus giving the Swiss citizenry more firepower than its
American counterpart.

It was the Swiss' passion for guns only matched by their determination to
keep their liberty that helped keep the Nazi war machine at bay. When the
Swiss government thought a Nazi invasion was imminent it ordered every able
bodied man to stand by his post and defend it to the last round. Their
determination to defend their liberties plus their shooting skills and the
sheer quantity of weapons at their disposal combined with the nature of the
terrain persuaded the Nazis that an invasion of Switzerland was not worth
the cost.

While other countries have tennis courts, golf courses, football pitches
aplenty the Swiss have shooting ranges. And Swiss shooters carry their guns
in the open as freely as golfers carry their clubs. Shooting festivals and
contests are a frequent and popular and children are encouraged to
participate. Once again, what strikes visitors about these events is the
casual way weapons are carried through the streets and on public transport.
In restaurants and coffee shops tourists sometimes find themselves competing
with guns for places to hang their coats. Naturally there is an ample supply
of gun shops to service the country's love affair with shooting.

Yet where is the crime wave? The school shootings? The nightly murders? A
colleague kindly supplied me with the following facts: In 1997 Switzerland
recorded only 87 premeditated murders and 102 murder attempts. The
interesting thing is that only 91 of these offences involved a gun, though
out of a total of 2,498 robberies and attempted robberies 546 involved the
use of guns. Of particular interest is that nearly 50 per cent of these
offences were committed by foreigners. Compare Switzerland's murder rate of
1.2 per 100,000 with Britain's rate of 1.4 per 100,000. Their respective
robbery rates are 36 per 100,000 and 116 per 100,000 - and bear in mind
foreigners committed nearly half of Switzerland's robberies. The contrast
between the two countries is particularly striking when we consider that
Britain's gun laws are draconian compared with Switzerland's.

None of this is intended to promote gun ownership but only to demonstrate as
facile, if not fatuous, the view held by the likes of Forbes that guns are
the real problem in America. People who are determined to kill will do so,
unfortunately. And if they are resolved to use guns as the means to commit
murder then they will do that too. I cannot help but think that what are now
called subcultures in America are largely the nihilistic product of more
than 30 years of successful cultural warfare by liberalism against America's
basic standards of decency. The kind of standards that so many Australian
journalists (and American ones too) find so odious.

-----Original Message-----
From: Barber, Kenneth L. [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Monday, February 28, 2000 11:06 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Guns (Was north/south/ guns)


there are districs in georgia where they passed a law that every body was
required to carry a gun. not enforced, but crime dropped hugely.