I wrote about how Swiss guns kill people a few days back, and have since received additional information I found interesting enough to post. Both graphs come from a leaflet the socialist party sent out with the intention of getting people to vote for tougher gun regulation. While they are quite fuzzy about what happens to current gun owners, which I dislike, the graphs seem pretty clear.
The grey bar shows the percentage of households with a gun, and the red bar the percentage of suicides with firearms (as opposed to other methods). There does seem to at least be a correlation between gun permeation and firearms suicide rate. However, Japan shows that a low firearms suicide rate doesn’t necessarily mean a low suicide rate.
Here we have (in black, left scale) the head count of the Swiss army, and (in red, right scale) the number of deaths by firearms in Switzerland, from 1995 to 2008. It shows a correlation between the number of soldiers (and hence the number of rifles in active use) and the number of deaths by firearms. Before 2004, it was fairly easy to keep the weapon upon leaving the army; it was made harder after that. Because many kept their firearms upon leaving the military, the drop in weapons available in Swiss households was not nearly as sharp as the drop in enrolment.
Any thoughts?
Of course I have thoughts. 🙂
Mostly what I think is that if what Switzerland is worried about is suicide deaths, I have no clue why you (plural, generic) are even considering more gun control. If suicide is wrong, why is assisted suicide legal? And if it’s not wrong, what difference does the method make? (Other than to those who have to clean up afterwards.)
The response to this information since they are using a gun -suicide correlation to support gun control is to question the conclusions they seem to be drawing. Would more gun control decrease the amount of suicides or simply cause suicidal people to look for other methods? Certainly it is good to have some regulations in place but it needs a lot of thought on the matter.
Good point, Sursumcorda. Euthanasia is not legal in Switzerland, but assisting suicide is (e.g. getting pills for someone). Suicide is nearly considered a human right (see 6.1 in this supreme court decision). In fact, that court decision says anyone has the right to determine both time and method of one’s death – so the whole guns-and-suicide correlation can be ignored from that point of view.
The second main point the pro committee pushes is the disastrous effects on family life that a gun brings, because the father (so I presume) can threaten use of the gun. For that, they show no numbers, because I suspect they’re hard to come by. Also, what they propose – a national registry instead of a cantonal one, and a proof of need and ability – probably won’t keep those threats at bay.
Sue, the WHO numbers show that despite a much lower gun suicide rate Japan has a higher suicide rate than Switzerland. So does Belgium, Finland, Russia, Belarus, and probably more. Eliminating guns doesn’t eliminate all gun suicides. There are plenty of options.
So I think all in all the suicide issue’s a red herring, trotted out because (a) most gun deaths are suicides and (b) we have statistics for suicides. Since suicide is legal (it is in most countries), and assisted suicide is legal, suicide is no reason for gun control.
As to threatening a family with violence: it is unacceptable, of course, but I doubt red tape is going to change the rate of jerks per 100’000 inhabitants.
As to threatening a family with violence: it is unacceptable, of course, but I doubt red tape is going to change the rate of jerks per 100′000 inhabitants.
Quite true. And since in most families a man does not need a gun to threaten his wife and children with violence, being generally bigger and stronger, it could be argued that the presence of a gun — and a woman who knows how to use it — serves to level the playing field a bit. On the other hand, it’s possible that same configuration might increase domestic violence, on the grounds that men don’t have a monopoly on jerk-dom.