Swiss Ruetli match. Oh my. . . that guy is shooting a Stg57 semi automatic rifle that was probably truly converted from the true assault rifle version.
We've been running a lot of posts on firearms recently in reaction to the movement that has convinced itself that simply banning certain categories of them, categories which, at least mechanically, are nothing new (but see our posts on ARs), while ignoring the fact that whatever is going on is clearly societal in nature.
But ignoring societal problems, or at least making them superficial is, as we've also noted, what usually happens in such debates. If they're addressed, responsibility rears its stern head and modern American culture, if anything, has been dedicated to avoiding personal responsibility. . . heck any kind of responsibility, at all costs, at least since the 1970s.
So its worth noting that there are plenty of other cultures that have a "gun culture", as the media likes to portray it. Indeed, as we've also noted gun ownership is nearly universally allowed globally, although varying degrees of control vary widely.
Anyhow, Switzerland is worth looking at. Switzerland has a gun culture. Indeed, target shooting is the national sport. A national referendum recently to try to restrict firearms resulted in an overwhelming defeat with lots of language that Americans would easily recognize coming into play. But Switzerland also has a very low crime rate and none of the types of problems we've seen recently in the US (which has a declining rate of violence, as we've noted before).
Time magazine looked at this awhile back with an eye towards explaining it and one of the things they came up with was this?
One of the reasons the crime rate in Switzerland is low despite the prevalence of weapons — and also why the Swiss mentality can’t be transposed to the current American reality — is the culture of responsibility and safety that is anchored in society and passed from generation to generation. Kids as young as 12 belong to gun groups in their local communities, where they learn sharpshooting. The Swiss Shooting Sports Association runs about 3,000 clubs and has 150,000 members, including a youth section. Many members keep their guns and ammunition at home, while others choose to leave them at the club. And yet, despite such easy access to pistols and rifles, “no members have ever used their guns for criminal purposes,” says Max Flueckiger, the association’s spokesperson.
“Social conditions are fundamental in deterring crime,” says Peter Squires, professor of criminology and public policy at the University of Brighton in Great Britain, who has studied gun violence in different countries and concluded that a “culture of support” rather than focus on individualism, can deter mass killings.
“If people have a responsible, disciplined and organized introduction into an activity like shooting, there will be less risk of gun violence,” he tells TIME.
Swiss youth target shooting course. These kids are shooting .22 LR rifles
There's a lot that's telling here, including, amongst other things, that Time magazines reporter had an element of denseness in his comments, while at the same time he may have picked up on something that's quite correct.
Okay, on what's correct. There likely is something about a generation to generation passing on of firearms "culture" that makes these sorts of violent acts unlikely in a society that does that. What Time missed is that in fact this has been the rule in the United States, and Canada, up until very recently.
Switzerland, in spite of being a European nation, has been a nation with an agrarian culture to a large extent. That's easy to miss, but it's true. While Switzerland has large cities, it also has the Alpine pattern of settlement in which the defining nature of the country is the numerous small villages and towns in Alpine valleys. These are rural by their very nature. Switzerland also has a "right to roam", as many European countries do, a strong hunting culture, and a very strong militia history and culture which made shooting the national sport for men and women. Unlike other nations which have sought to restrict what people could have at home, Switzerland has required its men to keep their service arms at home, including true assault rifles. Retiring militia men can opt to keep their service weapons, both rifles and pistols, after their service is done. Purchasing semi automatic rifles, even for non Swiss citizens, is fairly easy. Support for firearms ownership is high even amongst those who don't shoot.
This isn't all that unusual either for European nations, although Switzerland provides the most prominent example. Shooting sports are popular in Scandinavia, which does feature greater controls by various nations, but only recently, rural Germany, Eastern Europe and the Czech Republic. Indeed, the latter nation nearly amended its constitution last year to insert a right to keep and bear arms in it. Iceland has a very high firearms ownership rate and almost, we might note, no homicide whatsoever.
Where the reporter was off the mark, likely as he has little experience outside of the concrete world, is that in a lot of the United States outside of the large metropolitan areas what's describe in the Time article is exactly what occurs in the US, and has occurred for eons.
Female teenage 4H competitive shooter.
4H, the youth agricultural organization, has had a shooting sports program that goes back to the 1970s. It's spread across the United States and exists everywhere, teaching very young shooters up to 18 year olds how to shoot on the range, including the rifle range, the pistol range, and the trap shooting range. The Boy Scouts also have such a program (and maybe the Girl Scouts too, I'm less familiar with them). At one time JrROTC had such a program for high school aged kids and when I went to high school they shot in a rifle range in the basement of the school with .22s. My late office neighbor was on a regional champion JrROTC rifle team which shot the M1903 rifle, the .30-06 service rifle then in use, when he was in high school. Now the JrROTC teams compete with air rifles, which is sort of sad, but at the same time I'd note that 4H, in addition to .22 LR also has air rifle teams.
The much maligned by the press National Rifle Association sets the disciplines used in all youth shooting in the United States, outside of the service rifle and pistol disciplines, and sponsors some of its own clubs youth teams. So that makes at least four different youth groups that have rifle teams in the US. Additionally, in my region, a local club sponsors a youth biathlon team.
So, what's the point? Well, that "culture" that the Time reporter noted does in fact exist in the United States, outside of the steel and concrete nightmare that the our "modern" economy continues to rush to create. The byproduct of that corporate capitalist world seems increasingly to be an environment which has a byproduct of disorder and unhappiness.
That may very well be the real problem.
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