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| Image courtesy CNN |
For a bit of a giggle, I occasionally post on one or more of the gun fetishist websites that abound across the Pacific. There's not really anything faintly amusing about the situation in that country, given that there have been twenty-seven school shootings so far this year, but there is some bizarre comedy in the weird rationalisations the gun lobby uses to cover their backsides.
You may remember this exchange a few years ago.
I do this in the (very) faint hope that some appeal to reason may be possible. It's indeed a very faint hope. Appealing to the Taliban would probably be equally productive.
Come to think of it, the NRA and the Taliban have a great deal in common.
Anyway, I posted this on the above website a few days ago. It was censored of course, but I took the precaution of taking a screenshot.
This will, in the fullness of time, be posted on that same website -
As they say in the classics, hope springs eternal.
Speaking of hope, parents of children attending elementary school across the Pacific must be hopeful on a daily basis. They having nothing else to cling to.
Their legislators seem paralyzed, and their law enforcement agencies hamstrung.
The noisy (and very small) minority that push for a relaxation of our gun regulatory laws in this country need only to glance eastwards to get a glimpse of what they re advocating....
6 comments:
https://andmagazine.substack.com/p/what-made-ramos-kill?s=r
https://eatgrueldog.wordpress.com/2022/06/03/had-enough-yet-18/
https://eatgrueldog.wordpress.com/2022/06/03/in-the-end-they-will-come-for-us-or-we-will-come-for-them/
We are no less free in this country because we have sane gun laws, but we are a great deal safer.
https://richardsonpost.com/howellwoltz/27275/armed-citizens-are-the-bane-of-tyrants/
In the USA, armed citizens are the bane of innocent school children and their teachers.
You didn't read it, did you?
I read as far as this statement - The world’s only successful military on earth—my (and their) definition being keeping people alive and out of wars—is the Swiss Army.
How have they done this? Every citizen was and is the army. Every male still serves from the age of 19-34 (women can also volunteer), and guess where they keep their gear?
Right in their own homes. This Swiss soldier is ready to deploy from—or defend—his own home or nation on a moment’s notice—which is why he’s never had to.
Which is largely bullshit. First up, compulsory military service applies to able-bodied male Swiss citizens only. Women may volunteer, but few do. The SonntagsBlick newspaper reported in 2016 that a record 250 women volunteered for service, up 35% from the previous year and practically double the 2015 numbers. Almost 20% of all conscripts were found unfit for military or civilian service in 2008; the rate is generally higher in urban cantons such as Zurich and Geneva than in the rural ones. Service in the federal army through conscription (Wehrpflicht), is based on a standing force of 3% of the population plus a reserve of one and one half that number, amounting to a total force of some 80,000. That's a long way from "every citizen", given the population is 8.6 million.
As for Switzerland not being invaded in WW2, neither were Spain, Portugal, and Sweden for reasons, like Switzerland, having nothing to do with an armed population. Apart from the topography, the reasons Switzerland was left unmolested were military (not civilian) deterrence, economic concessions to Germany and good fortune as larger events during the war delayed any an invasion.
Gun wankers will believe anything.
For the facts on gun ownership in Switzerland read -https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firearms_regulation_in_Switzerland
rather than gun wanker websites. You'll find that the Swiss regulations, whilst allowing access to a wider range of weapons than in this country, regulate and licence the owner, not the weapon, something that is absent in the USA. Having said that, you still require a special permit to possess a semi-auto, and all ammunition (no matter what the weapon) has to be kept securely locked away. The Swiss police this stringently.
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