Right-Wing Gun Lies (Israel/Switzerland)

The right-wing has been spreading a lot of lies to avoid any new gun restrictions at all. I think they know that most Americans want background checks on all guns sales (85% to 90%) and a majority want to see the sale of military-style assault weapons banned (54%), so they have been saying all sorts of things to try and change public opinion.

One of the things they have been doing to try and demonstrate that guns are not the real reason for the many thousands of gun deaths in this country every year, is to use the nations of Israel and Switzerland as examples. They want Americans to believe that large numbers of people in those countries are allowed to have guns, and since they don't have an inordinate amount of gun deaths, then guns can't be the problem in this country. The problem with that argument is that it just is NOT TRUE!

Janet Rosenbaum studied these claims for the National Institute of Health (NIH), and she found two things -- neither country has anywhere near the number of guns possessed by civilians per capita as the United States does, and both countries have much more restrictive laws on gun possession by civilians than the U.S. does.

The United States has an estimated 83 to 97 guns per 100 residents. That is far more than either Switzerland or Israel. Switzerland had about 16 guns per 100 residents in 2002, but they issued long guns to some residents when they reduced the size of their standing army. The ratio now is between 31 and 60 guns per 100 residents (and very few of those are handguns). Israel has far less than that, at only about 7.3 guns per 100 residents. And in Israel, most of those civilian-possessed guns are in the settlements (and are not handguns).

The laws for possession of a handgun by a civilian in both countries in much stricter than in the United States. While a citizen in the U.S. can own an unlimited number of handguns, in Switzerland and Israel a citizen can only own one gun -- and the ownership of that one handgun must be approved by the government (and Israel leads the world in turning down handgun permits by rejecting at least 40% of all applications).

In both countries, a citizen must demonstrate a justifiable need for a handgun before the government will issue a permit (and "home defense" is not considered a justifiable need). After satisfying the government that the need has been met, a Swiss citizen is issued a permit for six months, and then that permit must be renewed every three months. In Israel, a permit is issued for a year and must be renewed annually, or whenever the permit-holder changes residence, job, or national security status (and no one who takes psychotropic drugs or has been arrested for domestic violence, even if not convicted, can get a permit).

The NIH report concludes by saying:

Swiss and Israeli gun ownership is rare, regulated stringently such as by putting the burden of proof on permit applicants to demonstrate a specific need for a gun, and neither country encourages gun ownership.

By using these two countries as examples, the right-wing gun proponents in this country are hurting their own argument for less restrictions on gun ownership. Both countries have far fewer guns possessed by civilians per capita than the U.S. does -- and both countries have far more stringent rules about gun ownership and possession (especially of handguns). Personally, I think their gun laws make a lot more sense than ours do.