Via Dane Carlson, an interview about the armed Swiss.
I love this quote, I've seen it elsewhere:
Shortly before World War I, the German Kaiser was the guest of the Swiss government to observe military maneuvers. The Kaiser asked a Swiss militiaman: "You are 500,000 and you shoot well, but if we attack with 1,000,000 men what will you do?" The soldier replied: "We will shoot twice and go home."
Still today, every Swiss male on reaching age 20 years old is required to attend recruit school and issued a Fucile d'assalto 90 (model 1990, 5.6 mm selective fire rifle) to keep at home. Many women also participate in the shooting sports, as do teenagers and elderly persons. Weapons are carried so commonly on public transportation, around towns, and to hotels - especially when a shooting match is about to occur - that foreigners think a revolution is occurring.
This goes to show you that guns aren't the problem. The culture evolving in this country is bereft of a sense of personal responsibility - where people try to sue McDonalds because they're fat, and someone gets awarded 1.2 million dollars in a legal judgement against a gun supplier because a gun that they sold worked.
When the Nazis occupied France and other countries, they found the registration lists of firearm owners in the police departments. Gun owners who did not turn in their firearms within 24 hours were shot, as were those who failed to inform on their friends and relatives. For whatever reason, historians have shown no interest in highlighting the cruel fate of Jews and subjects in the occupied countries who were firearm owners.
This gives me pause as I'm about to submit my handgun permit application...
Seriously, the permit form makes me feel like a criminal. They require two sets of fingerprints, two referrals from "reputable persons who are personally acquainted with the applicant", and they have me sign SIX release forms that go to local psychiatric hospitals so they can check up on me and make sure I'm not crazy.
And yet some of these gun owners who eluded the Nazis were able to use their firearms to save their families, refugees, and others and even to mount armed resistance. The Warsaw ghetto uprising of 1943 was initiated with only a half dozen illegal handguns.
In Switzerland, the only "gun control" law was that every man must shoot accurately at 300 meters. Had they attacked, the Nazis would have needed no gun registration records - they could have assumed that every man had a gun. As war clouds approached, in 1938 at the World Shooting Championships held in Luzern, Switzerland, Swiss Federal President Philipp Etter declared:
"There is probably no other country that, like Switzerland, gives the soldier his weapon to keep in the home. . . . With this rifle, he is liable every hour, if the country calls, to defend his hearth, his home, his family, his birthplace. The weapon is to him a pledge and sign of honor and freedom. The Swiss does not part with his rifle."
Lots of other interesting things in the article, including stuff about how the philosophy our country was founded on is similar to the Swiss philosophy (lack of a standing army, etc.) Well worth a read.
Also via Dane, here's another article I have to read: Sorry, Mr. Franklin, "We're All Democrats Now" by Representative Ron Paul, a Republican representative from Texas. Here's the article from the House site, which is better formatted for printing.
Sunday, February 2, 2003
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Those guys (the armed Swiss) make the best watches.