I don’t own any guns and haven’t shot one in 20+ years, but I just got back from visiting Switzerland. The place is full of guns and there are little shooting houses (Stand de Tir en Français) scattered around for the people to practice at. They love ’em, can’t get enough of ’em, etc… Of course the army people have them but private people do as well. And not just hunting guns but scary looking guns like they are always telling us to be afraid of on the Tee Vee. The sort of gun you see Osama waving around with a scary soundtrack behind, you know – that kind of thing. Now consider this – the Swiss have four distinct cultures/languages – French, German, Italian, and Romansch. If there were people who historically don’t seem to get along, it would be the French, Germans, and Italians. How many wars have they fought with each other in the last couple of hundred years? Meanwhile Switzerland is an island of calm. Napoleon tried to invade it and failed. Hitler thought about it but remembered what happened to Napoleon and decided not to. And so Switzerland sits there, full of people speaking different languages, eating different foods, making jokes about and disagreeing with each other, all happily shooting their guns at targets, but not at each other. It is a strange paradox, but in that case lots of guns exist in a very peaceful society. They have had the odd mass shooting incident but those can happen anywhere – crazy people don’t care about gun laws anyway. They’re crazy!

One thing I did notice is that the Swiss have a very strong sense of responsibility and duty. I don’t think this exists here, the majority of people are just out to get what they can when they can without giving a shit about anyone else.