Gun culture and laws: USA vs. European Union

If Americans actually stepped up and implemented a needle exchange or a supervised drug program similar to what they do in Switzerland, it would absolutely gut the black market overnight.

Across most of Europe, you see standard substitution therapies available, things like methadone or Subutex. But Switzerland is really in a league of its own because they actually allow people to access heroin in a clinical setting. I’ve watched women walk into these clinics in the morning and be back at their jobs by the afternoon. They aren't just drifting through life; they’re integrated into society rather than being total parasites.

But where is the US leadership on this? Instead of actual solutions, they just keep shoving people into prison cells and perpetuating this endless "war on drugs." If you walk into a clinic without top-tier insurance, they won't even give you the time of day.

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hiddeneagle98 said:unknown

William Clark86 unknown: Americans are just fundamentally schizophrenic and emotionally unstable as a nation. It’s wild how differently we process reality compared to everyone else. If something happens that we’d just shrug off, say "cool," and move on with our day, they’ll spend twenty minutes jumping around like fanatics in a state of pure euphoria. On the flip side, if we encounter something that’s clearly just a total load of crap and we barely blink, they’ll spiral into these massive, rage-filled meltdowns where people start breaking things. It’s that pattern across the board—it’s constant.

Americans tend to be pretty reactive—they’re loud, they get worked up over everything, and they constantly overreact. I wouldn't go so far as to say they've lost their grip on reality, but they definitely lean into the drama.

It’s honestly wild how some cultures just normalize that fake, over-the-top politeness from servers. You go out to eat and suddenly you're being smothered in this manufactured, sugary sweetness that feels completely hollow. It’s like they’ve all collectively agreed to put on a mask of extreme friendliness that doesn't actually mean anything, and we're just expected to play along with the charade.

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Back home, if you decide to cut in line, all you're going to get is some dirty looks or maybe a little snarky comment thrown your way by someone passing by. It’s subtle, almost quiet. But over here? If you even think about stepping out of turn, people lose their minds. You'll have folks screaming in your face, making a massive scene, and if things escalate enough, it’s not uncommon to see someone actually swing at you or pull a handgun. It's a completely different level of volatility.

Yeah, we’re just a bunch of softies, aren't we? Just sitting here, completely pacified and taking it all on the chin.

It’s funny how you see those folks over in London, just standing there in perfectly straight lines at the bus stop like they actually give a damn about order.

And honestly, no matter how much they carry themselves like true gentlemen, those same guys can turn into absolute animals when it comes to how they actually behave.

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I know I'm generalizing here, but look, if you took a hundred Americans and a hundred Europeans and dropped them into the exact same situation, I’d bet my life that way more of those Americans would react exactly the way I just described. It wouldn't be even close. It’s become part of the actual culture now—it’s seeped into the subcultures, the media, and even the political machine. What we're seeing is this constant, forced conditioning that trains people to react in a certain way, essentially teaching folks to adopt these specific stances when they wouldn't have even thought to act like that otherwise.

Timothy Nelson5 hit the nail on the head earlier. If you actually sat down and mapped out where most violent crime in the States happens, you’d see it’s concentrated in just a handful of urban pockets. Honestly, if you were to isolate those specific areas and look at the data, the numbers would be comparable to the entire European Union.

Americans aren't even close to fixing the mess with the ghettos and the gang violence, and honestly, trying to blame that on some rednecks in the Rust Belt and their Second Amendment rights is a complete non sequitur.

When you look at those high-crime urban centers, the reality is that your Second Amendment rights are basically non-existent anyway; the local regulations are so restrictive they feel more like European law than anything you'd expect in America. Trying to get a concealed carry permit in a place like New York City is a total nightmare, and don't even get me started on open carry—it’s practically a fantasy for a law-abiding citizen there. It’s funny how people complain about gun control when the vast majority of homicides in those cities are actually committed with illegal weapons smuggled across the border from Mexico.

Just a small correction here, the guns are actually flowing from the USA into Mexico (and they still are), rather than coming the other way around...

Slow The Iron River of Guns to Mexico The Biden administration Has an opportunity to stem Illegal gun trafficking to Mexico and Beyond
The Biden administration has an opportunity to stem illegal gun trafficking to Mexico and beyond.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/20/o...ns-mexico.html

brightheron64 said:unknown

Just a small correction here, the guns are actually flowing from the USA into Mexico (and they still are), rather than coming the other way around...

Slow The Iron River of Guns to Mexico The Biden administration Has an opportunity to stem Illegal gun trafficking to Mexico and Beyond
The Biden administration has an opportunity to stem illegal gun trafficking to Mexico and beyond.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/20/o...ns-mexico.html

Yeah, obviously, since America manufactures them, there's zero doubt that most of what we're seeing is American made.

Basically, maybe that’s where we should start—tackling the illegal arms trade directly.

And if they actually want to mess with the cartels' bottom line, they ought to try a completely different approach to dealing with addiction instead of just feeding the cycle.

Sent from my unknown

hiddeneagle98 said:If Americans actually stepped up and implemented a needle exchange or a supervised drug program similar to what they do in Switzerland, it would absolutely gut the black market overnight.

Across most of Europe, you see standard substitution therapies available, things like methadone or Subutex. But Switzerland is really in a league of its own because they actually allow people to access heroin in a clinical setting. I’ve watched women walk into these clinics in the morning and be back at their jobs by the afternoon. They aren't just drifting through life; they’re integrated into society rather than being total parasites.

But where is the US leadership on this? Instead of actual solutions, they just keep shoving people into prison cells and perpetuating this endless "war on drugs." If you walk into a clinic without top-tier insurance, they won't even give you the time of day.

unknown

I mean, maybe that would take some of the wind out of the drug cartels' sails, but I doubt it... honestly, they’d probably just find a way to pivot into the business of distributing 'free' drugs, along with all the usual headaches that come with it.

Substitution therapies like methadone or Subutex are pretty standard across Europe. Switzerland is a bit of an outlier because you can actually get heroin in a clinic there. I see women coming in, getting sorted, and then heading off to work. They're integrated into society, not just living as parasites.

But where does that leave America? Over here, the main strategy seems to be just cramming people into prisons and maintaining this endless, perpetual war on drugs... if you walk into a clinic without insurance, you won't even get a polite hello.

You can't just take a situation from one country and transplant it into another, assuming the entire civilizational framework is identical. That’s the big delusion held by those cultural Marxist dreamers. It’s just as misguided as thinking a mass influx of illegal immigrants will suddenly turn them into 'Europeans' the moment they step foot in Europe.

In the US, the real issue is that certain groups have their own distinct subcultures, and that's the primary driver of violence.
Maybe ninety percent of all murder and violent crime is tied to perhaps twenty-five percent of the population. We know which groups we're talking about, even if we aren't supposed to say it out loud.
The correlation between those crimes and gun ownership isn't just present—it's inversely proportional.
Where there's plenty of legal gun ownership, crime rates tend to stay low.
Where legal carry is strictly limited—basically almost banned—homicide rates end up being ten to fifty times higher.

Smart enough.

hiddeneagle98 said:The thing is, even though most Swiss folks own guns and love hitting up the shooting ranges, they still have their own specific gun culture; when you look at the number of firearms per capita, they're right up there at the top. They even host shooting competitions for kids between 13 and 17, like the local youth festivals.

Here is some insight into how the gun culture works over in Switzerland:

https://www.businessinsider.com/swit...to-use-a-gun-3

From the perspective of other European Union nations, the Swiss appreciate firearms at a level pretty similar to Americans. It’s just that Americans might be a bit more primitive in their obsession.

At the end of the day, the violence we see in the USA isn't a result of gun laws or the right to bear arms; if anything, it’s probably the other way around. Switzerland is the perfect proof of that point.

It's a strange kind of "love." I've met hundreds of Swiss people—both professionally and personally—but not one single person ever talked to me about this passion,
let alone showed off their collection (not even counting public carry).
1. After WW2, anyone who finished military service was required to take their service weapon home—it was based on the idea of national self-defense against foreign threats.
For 99.99% of Americans, the idea that they'd need a gun to defend themselves against their own government is just absurd; maybe except for those extreme anti-vaxxers, far-right types, or leftists nowadays.

That's really what drives the stats on gun ownership and this supposed "love."

2. For quite some time now, fewer and fewer veterans are actually taking their service weapons home (which, by the way, has to be kept under lock and key, separate from ammunition).

3. Knabenschiessen is more like a carnival target shoot where you win a toy than some deep expression of firearm passion.

4. Even hunters supported adopting stricter European Union-style regulations on private gun purchases, which passed easily in a referendum.

5. You won't find guns in any regular store, nor is there any flashy advertising.

6. There is no such thing as a Second Amendment regarding gun rights in Switzerland.

Switzerland: So Many Guns, No Mass Shootings

Switzerland’s Responsible Gun Nuts Pt. 2

PS
It's true—and honestly a bit worrying—that there's also been a spike in handgun requests here. 😢

casualtiger2 said:It's a strange kind of "love." I've met hundreds of Swiss people—both professionally and personally—but not one single person ever talked to me about this passion,
let alone showed off their collection (not even counting public carry).
1. After WW2, anyone who finished military service was required to take their service weapon home—it was based on the idea of national self-defense against foreign threats.
For 99.99% of Americans, the idea that they'd need a gun to defend themselves against their own government is just absurd; maybe except for those extreme anti-vaxxers, far-right types, or leftists nowadays.

That's really what drives the stats on gun ownership and this supposed "love."

2. For quite some time now, fewer and fewer veterans are actually taking their service weapons home (which, by the way, has to be kept under lock and key, separate from ammunition).

3. Knabenschiessen is more like a carnival target shoot where you win a toy than some deep expression of firearm passion.

4. Even hunters supported adopting stricter European Union-style regulations on private gun purchases, which passed easily in a referendum.

5. You won't find guns in any regular store, nor is there any flashy advertising.

6. There is no such thing as a Second Amendment regarding gun rights in Switzerland.

Switzerland: So Many Guns, No Mass Shootings

Switzerland’s Responsible Gun Nuts Pt. 2

PS
It's true—and honestly a bit worrying—that there's also been a spike in handgun requests here. 😢

"Oh, don't worry, they're shooting." 😂

casualtiger2 said:It's a strange kind of "love." I've met hundreds of Swiss people—both professionally and personally—but not one single person ever talked to me about this passion,
let alone showed off their collection (not even counting public carry).
1. After WW2, anyone who finished military service was required to take their service weapon home—it was based on the idea of national self-defense against foreign threats.
For 99.99% of Americans, the idea that they'd need a gun to defend themselves against their own government is just absurd; maybe except for those extreme anti-vaxxers, far-right types, or leftists nowadays.

That's really what drives the stats on gun ownership and this supposed "love."

2. For quite some time now, fewer and fewer veterans are actually taking their service weapons home (which, by the way, has to be kept under lock and key, separate from ammunition).

3. Knabenschiessen is more like a carnival target shoot where you win a toy than some deep expression of firearm passion.

4. Even hunters supported adopting stricter European Union-style regulations on private gun purchases, which passed easily in a referendum.

5. You won't find guns in any regular store, nor is there any flashy advertising.

6. There is no such thing as a Second Amendment regarding gun rights in Switzerland.

Switzerland: So Many Guns, No Mass Shootings

Switzerland’s Responsible Gun Nuts Pt. 2

PS
It's true—and honestly a bit worrying—that there's also been a spike in handgun requests here. 😢

It might be a bit of a shock to realize that in the US, the homicide rate per capita is actually pretty similar to what you see in Switzerland, even though Americans have about five times as many guns per person.
A curious little statistic, isn't it?
Of course, that’s mostly if you're looking at white Americans living outside the major cities controlled by the Democrats, where gun ownership and carrying are strictly regulated, while the whole illegal weapon epidemic is mostly concentrated in the urban ghettos.

I know I’m just spinning my wheels here, but I figured I’d throw this out there:
List of countries by intentional homicide rate

Number of intentional homicide victims per 100,000 people.
74. USA - 5 (Back in 2018—it's almost certainly higher now)
173. Switzerland - 0.6

The Swiss disarmament initiative group

disarmament initiative
Back in 1989, the initiative pulled about 35.6% of the vote (and while more Swiss people have likely leaned toward disarmament since then, they probably haven't hit that 50% mark yet).

What they actually managed to pull off, though, is strict control over weapons exports—especially when it comes to conflict zones.

hiddeneagle98 said:If Americans actually stepped up and implemented a needle exchange or a supervised drug program similar to what they do in Switzerland, it would absolutely gut the black market overnight.

Across most of Europe, you see standard substitution therapies available, things like methadone or Subutex. But Switzerland is really in a league of its own because they actually allow people to access heroin in a clinical setting. I’ve watched women walk into these clinics in the morning and be back at their jobs by the afternoon. They aren't just drifting through life; they’re integrated into society rather than being total parasites.

But where is the US leadership on this? Instead of actual solutions, they just keep shoving people into prison cells and perpetuating this endless "war on drugs." If you walk into a clinic without top-tier insurance, they won't even give you the time of day.

unknown

The US makes money off this entire mess, so why would they ever give anything away for free? Who else is crazy enough to hand out freebies?

Roger Fowler said:The US makes money off this entire mess, so why would they ever give anything away for free? Who else is crazy enough to hand out freebies?

That’s true, but all that profit is essentially driving refugees straight to our borders...

Most of Central America is effectively under the thumb of cartels that pull in massive amounts of weapons—guns that are so easily sourced from the US—and in many cases, these groups are actually better armed than the local police forces, even going so far as to threaten the military itself. It leaves ordinary people with absolutely nothing left... they don't have the means to defend themselves, so they're forced to either submit to the chaos or look toward the US for a lifeline...

casualtiger2 said:I know I’m just spinning my wheels here, but I figured I’d throw this out there:
List of countries by intentional homicide rate

Number of intentional homicide victims per 100,000 people.
74. USA - 5 (Back in 2018—it's almost certainly higher now)
173. Switzerland - 0.6

The Swiss disarmament initiative group

disarmament initiative
Back in 1989, the initiative pulled about 35.6% of the vote (and while more Swiss people have likely leaned toward disarmament since then, they probably haven't hit that 50% mark yet).

What they actually managed to pull off, though, is strict control over weapons exports—especially when it comes to conflict zones.

Are you just throwing around the Strawman argument now? Acting like you didn't even see what I actually wrote? I guess... maybe that's just how you want to play it.

I suppose there's that group dedicated to the Swiss disarmament initiative... or something like that. I can't quite remember if they're actually making any headway, but it feels like one of those things that just keeps circling the drain. Maybe. It’s all a bit much, isn't it? All this talk about dismantling everything when the world seems to be spinning faster than ever. Just my two cents, I guess.

The disarmament initiative... I don't know. It feels like one of those things that sounds noble on paper, right? Just a grand idea floating around. Maybe. But then you start looking at how things actually work in the real world, and I guess it all gets a bit complicated. It’s easy to talk about peace when there isn't any actual pressure, but I suppose we'll see where that leads.
Back in '89, that disarmament initiative managed to pull about 35.6% of the vote. I suppose the number of Americans favoring total disarmament has likely climbed since then... maybe... but I'd bet my last dollar it's still sitting somewhere below the 50% mark.

Every nation has an army, I suppose... though whether it’s actually their own or just someone else's acting on their behalf, that's the real question. It's all a bit murky, isn't it?

brightheron64 said:That’s true, but all that profit is essentially driving refugees straight to our borders...

Most of Central America is effectively under the thumb of cartels that pull in massive amounts of weapons—guns that are so easily sourced from the US—and in many cases, these groups are actually better armed than the local police forces, even going so far as to threaten the military itself. It leaves ordinary people with absolutely nothing left... they don't have the means to defend themselves, so they're forced to either submit to the chaos or look toward the US for a lifeline...

If the cartels were actually under US control, we already saw how things played out with the rogue Escobar and his messy end. And when it comes to those crossing the American borders illegally, they're often met with much harsher realities compared to the situation in the European Union, where anyone can wander in legally or illegally and somehow you're expected to apologize to them.

gun VIOLENCE ARCHIVE 2021
Maybe we should just rename this thing—something like "Weapon Culture and US Gun Laws"?

High school shooting in the US; three students killed, six others injured