Infidel-6 said:
( .... ) The 1994 gun laws where an utter knee jerk to the Oka Crisis and Outlaw Native Gangs, - once again a criminal element that was not affected the least by the guns laws - but many law abiding citizens lost collections, and had their remaining legal guns devalued "over night".
How much do you figure the more recent pressure is due to the urban-rural split in voters/"people polled" (my read from Stats Can is roughly 60% urban-40% rural)?
Infidel-6 said:
Quite frankly one just has to look to the violence in other parts of the world and see that compilations of laws do not do any good.
Even in Switzerland, for example (hope this isn't too much of a hijack - just sharing to provide more grist for the mill) - shared with the usual disclaimer (highlights mine)...
Swiss Army Gun Victims Push Referendum, Even After Bullet Vote
Antonio Ligi, Bloomberg wire service, 28 Sept 07
Article link
Tanja Vollenweider and her family had just built a house near Zurich when her husband lost his job at an insurance company. Two weeks later, the militia officer took his army-issued pistol into the forest and killed himself.
``It was Friday, we had had guests at home,'' Vollenweider, 35, said at her home in Daellikon. ``My daughter saw him leaving with the weapon. She woke me up. We heard the shots.''
Four and a half years later, Vollenweider and other gun control advocates yesterday won a victory when the lower house of parliament voted to bar Switzerland's citizen soldiers from keeping ammunition at home. Their next goal is a national referendum on stricter gun laws.
The husband of former alpine skier Corinne Rey-Bellet killed the winner of five World Cup races with his army weapon last year, fueling demands for tighter gun control. Much of the debate has focused on military weapons because Switzerland's militia- based army requires soldiers to keep their guns at home.
While lawmakers yesterday voted to rescind a World War II- era law that forced soldiers to keep 50 rounds of ammunition at home, they rejected a proposal to have militia members turn in their weapons.
``The militia concept and personal responsibility are among the foundations of our country,'' Defense Minister Samuel Schmid said. ``If a state considers it necessary to take responsibility away from its citizens and doesn't trust them to handle a personal gun responsibly, it ultimately weakens itself.''
In addition to military weapons, Switzerland has the fourth- highest rate of civilian gun ownership after the U.S., Yemen and Finland, according to the Small Arms Survey, a Geneva-based research project sponsored by countries including the U.K., Canada and Switzerland.
`About the Victims'
Switzerland recorded an average of 1,428 suicides every year from 1969 to 2000, according to government statistics. Some 343 of those, or 24 percent, involved guns.
Martin Killias, a criminology professor at the University of Zurich, estimates that about 260 people kill themselves using army weapons each year, and another 20 are murdered.
While the Swiss homicide rate is relatively low, at 12 per 1 million inhabitants compared with 56 in the U.S., the number of killings by family members is high, Killias said. Domestic violence deaths amount to 5.5 per million versus 7.9 in the U.S. and 4.3 in the Netherlands, according to Killias's study.
``It's about the victims,'' Chantal Gallade, 34, a Social Democratic lawmaker whose father killed himself with an army gun, said in the capital, Bern. ``There are too many, and every killing that you can avoid is worth it.''
William Tell
Pro Tell, a gun supporters' organization, says there is no direct link between killings and army guns. Pro Tell is named after William Tell, the legendary Swiss hero who is said to have shot an apple off his son's head after being arrested by an Austrian governor.
``Whoever snaps would do it anyway,'' said Jack Balmer, 34, a postal worker and corporal in the militia. ``They will use a hammer if they can't use their rifle.''
Switzerland's gun laws are partly the result of a militia tradition, dating back to the 17th century, which created a ``myth that only a rifleman is a citizen,'' said Rudolf Jaun, a professor of military history at the ETH Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich.
Even today, the army consists mostly of militia. Most men undergo military training when they are about 20, after which they serve in the militia. When their service has ended, militiamen may buy their personal weapons.
Rouven Howald, a financial controller, has no plans to keep his rifle.
``I am personally all in favor of having weapons at the army barracks,'' said Howald, 34. ``I just have one at home because I am required to do so.''
Fight Continues
Aaron Karp, co-author of the 2007 Small Arms Survey and a professor of political science at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, said he didn't know of any other country that ``routinely'' lets soldiers take guns and ammunition home.
Switzerland introduced its first unified gun ownership law in 1999. It has since agreed to tighten the rules as part of an accord with its European neighbors to do away with border controls. The changes, which have yet to take effect, will require all gun buyers to have permits and impose penalties on illegal gun ownership for the first time.
Tanja Vollenweider says she will continue to fight for rules that require military weapons to be stored at army barracks, and oblige all other weapons to be registered.
Such rules may have saved her husband's life, said Vollenweider, who found out at the funeral that he was about to be offered another job.
``If that night the weapon wasn't around, he would have had to find one,'' she said. ``But three days later the situation would have been different. Three days later he would have had another job offer.''
To contact the reporter on this story: Antonio Ligi in Zurich at aligi@bloomberg.net
