Dear John:

By Laura MacInnis

GENEVA (Reuters) - The United States has 90 guns for every 100 citizens,
making it the most heavily armed society in the world, a report released on
Tuesday said.

U.S. citizens own 270 million of the world's 875 million known firearms,
according to the Small Arms Survey 2007 by the Geneva-based Graduate
Institute of International Studies.

About 4.5 million of the 8 million new guns manufactured worldwide each year
are purchased in the United States, it said.


"There is roughly one firearm for every seven people worldwide. Without the
United States, though, this drops to about one firearm per 10 people," it
said.

India had the world's second-largest civilian gun arsenal, with an estimated
46 million firearms outside law enforcement and the military, though this
represented just four guns per 100 people there. China, ranked third with 40
million privately held guns, had 3 firearms per 100 people.

Germany, France, Pakistan, Mexico, Brazil and Russia were next in the
ranking of country's overall civilian gun arsenals.

On a per-capita basis, Yemen had the second most heavily armed citizenry
behind the United States, with 61 guns per 100 people, followed by Finland
with 56, Switzerland with 46, Iraq with 39 and Serbia with 38.
Continued...

France, Canada, Sweden, Austria and Germany were next, each with about 30
guns per 100 people, while many poorer countries often associated with
violence ranked much lower. Nigeria, for instance, had just one gun per 100
people.

"Firearms are very unevenly distributed around the world. The image we have
of certain regions such as Africa or Latin America being awash with
weapons -- these images are certainly misleading," Small Arms Survey
director Keith Krause said.

"Weapons ownership may be correlated with rising levels of wealth, and that
means we need to think about future demand in parts of the world where
economic growth is giving people larger disposable income," he told a Geneva
news conference.

The report, which relied on government data, surveys and media reports to
estimate the size of world arsenals, estimated there were 650 million
civilian firearms worldwide, and 225 million held by law enforcement and
military forces.


Five years ago, the Small Arms Survey had estimated there were a total of
just 640 million firearms globally.

"Civilian holdings of weapons worldwide are much larger than we previously
believed," Krause said, attributing the increase largely to better research
and more data on weapon distribution networks.

Only about 12 percent of civilian weapons are thought to be registered with
authorities.

"Douglas W. \"Popeye\" Frederick" <Pop...@finalprotectivefire.com>
wrote:
> By Laura MacInnis
>
> GENEVA (Reuters)...
> On a per-capita basis, Yemen had the second most heavily armed citizenry
> behind the United States, with 61 guns per 100 people, followed by Finland
> with 56, Switzerland with 46...


I briefly heard on the news the other day that Switzerland is starting
to debate having their military reserve keep their weapons at home,
apparently due to a rise in suicides.

Could you take a look into it and let us know what's going on?



-hh

"-hh" <recscuba_google@huntzinger.com> wrote in message
news:1188380743.504363.61310@57g2000hsv.googlegrou ps.com...
> "Douglas W. \"Popeye\" Frederick" <Pop...@finalprotectivefire.com>
> wrote:
>> By Laura MacInnis
>>
>> GENEVA (Reuters)...
>> On a per-capita basis, Yemen had the second most heavily armed citizenry
>> behind the United States, with 61 guns per 100 people, followed by
>> Finland
>> with 56, Switzerland with 46...
>
>
> I briefly heard on the news the other day that Switzerland is starting
> to debate having their military reserve keep their weapons at home,
> apparently due to a rise in suicides.
>
> Could you take a look into it and let us know what's going on?

Sure.

Knee jerk mindless gun control advocates scared of other people being
armed, as usual.

See: Suicide rates in gun-free Japan.

Douglas W. Popeye Frederick wrote:
> "-hh" <recscuba_google@huntzinger.com> wrote:
> > I briefly heard on the news the other day that Switzerland is starting
> > to debate having their military reserve keep their weapons at home,
> > apparently due to a rise in suicides.
> >
> > Could you take a look into it and let us know what's going on?
>
> Sure.
>
> Knee jerk mindless gun control advocates scared of other people being
> armed, as usual.


That hardly sounds like the Swiss that I know. Afterall, don't forget
that this is the 'peace loving' and 'neutral' country that's quite
armed to the teeth (even Hitler didn't mess with them) and who (cough)
"accidentally" invaded another soverign country this past February.


Thanks, but I'll go do the research myself now.


-hh

"-hh" <recscuba_google@huntzinger.com> wrote in message
news:1188386164.488986.48210@57g2000hsv.googlegrou ps.com...
>
> Douglas W. Popeye Frederick wrote:
>> "-hh" <recscuba_google@huntzinger.com> wrote:
>> > I briefly heard on the news the other day that Switzerland is starting
>> > to debate having their military reserve keep their weapons at home,
>> > apparently due to a rise in suicides.
>> >
>> > Could you take a look into it and let us know what's going on?
>>
>> Sure.
>>
>> Knee jerk mindless gun control advocates scared of other people being
>> armed, as usual.
>
>
> That hardly sounds like the Swiss that I know. Afterall, don't forget
> that this is the 'peace loving' and 'neutral' country that's quite
> armed to the teeth

Hardly.

One rifle per man isn't a lot to brag about.

How many fighters and bombers do they have?

Tanks?

Aircraft Carriers?

Nukes?

How about intermediate or long range missles?

> (even Hitler didn't mess with them)

Out of convenience and collaboration.

Not out of the fear factor you imply.

>and who (cough)
> "accidentally" invaded another soverign country this past February.

Like Hitler into Poland?

Whatever it was, I must have missed it.

> Thanks, but I'll go do the research myself now.

Let us know what you find.

Reference it, maybe, to the Japan snip.

The Japs are about 1000 times as fierce as the Swiss, and virtually
unarmed.

How's their suicide rate?

>
>
> -hh
>

Harvard Journal Study of Worldwide Data Obliterates Notion that Gun
Ownership Correlates with Violence
Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy Confirms that Reducing Gun
Ownership by Law-Abiding Citizens Does Nothing to Reduce Violence Worldwide

By now, any informed American is familiar with Dr. John R. Lott, Jr.'s
famous axiom of "More Guns, Less Crime." In other words, American
jurisdictions that allow law-abiding citizens to exercise their Second
Amendment right to keep and bear arms are far safer and more crime-free than
jurisdictions that enact stringent "gun control" laws.

Very simply, the ability of law-abiding citizens to possess firearms
has helped reduce violent crime in America.

Now, a Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy study shows that this is
not just an American phenomenon. According to the study, worldwide gun
ownership rates do not correlate with higher murder or suicide rates. In
fact, many nations with high gun ownership have significantly lower murder
and suicide rates.

In their piece entitled Would Banning Firearms Reduce Murder and
Suicide? A Review of International and some Domestic Evidence, Don B. Kates
and Gary Mauser eviscerate "the mantra that more guns mean more deaths and
that fewer guns, therefore, mean fewer deaths." In so doing, the authors
provide fascinating historical insight into astronomical murder rates in the
Soviet Union during the Cold War, and they dispel the myths that widespread
gun ownership is somehow unique to the United States or that America suffers
from the developed world's highest murder rate.

To the contrary, they establish that Soviet murder rates far exceeded
American murder rates, and continue to do so today, despite Russia's
extremely stringent gun prohibitions. By 2004, they show, the Russian murder
rate was nearly four times higher than the American rate.

More fundamentally, Dr. Kates and Dr. Mauser demonstrate that other
developed nations such as Norway, Finland, Germany, France and Denmark
maintain high rates of gun ownership, yet possess murder rates lower than
other developed nations in which gun ownership is much more restricted.

For example, handguns are outlawed in Luxembourg, and gun ownership
extremely rare, yet its murder rate is nine times greater than in Germany,
which has one of the highest gun ownership rates in Europe. As another
example, Hungary's murder rate is nearly three times higher than nearby
Austria's, but Austria's gun ownership rate is over eight times higher than
Hungary's. "Norway," they note, "has far and away Western Europe's highest
household gun ownership rate (32%), but also its lowest murder rate. The
Netherlands," in contrast, "has the lowest gun ownership rate in Western
Europe (1.9%) ... yet the Dutch gun murder rate is higher than the
Norwegian."

Dr. Kates and Dr. Mauser proceed to dispel the mainstream
misconception that lower rates of violence in Europe are somehow
attributable to gun control laws. Instead, they reveal, "murder in Europe
was at an all-time low before the gun controls were introduced." As the
authors note, "strict controls did not stem the general trend of
ever-growing violent crime throughout the post-WWII industrialized world."

Citing England, for instance, they reveal that "when it had no
firearms restrictions [in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries],
England had little violent crime." By the late 1990s, however, "England
moved from stringent controls to a complete ban on all handguns and many
types of long guns." As a result, "by the year 2000, violent crime had so
increased that England and Wales had Europe's highest violent crime rate,
far surpassing even the United States." In America, on the other hand,
"despite constant and substantially increasing gun ownership, the United
States saw progressive and dramatic reductions in criminal violence in the
1990s."

Critically, Dr. Kates and Dr. Mauser note that "the fall in the
American crime rate is even more impressive when compared with the rest of
the world," where 18 of the 25 countries surveyed by the British Home Office
suffered violent crime increases during that same period.

Furthermore, the authors highlight the important point that while the
American gun murder rate often exceeds that in other nations, the overall
per capita murder rate in other nations (including other means such as
strangling, stabbing, beating, etc.) is oftentimes much higher than in
America.

The reason that gun ownership doesn't correlate with murder rates, the
authors show, is that violent crime rates are determined instead by
underlying cultural factors. "Ordinary people," they note, "simply do not
murder." Rather, "the murderers are a small minority of extreme antisocial
aberrants who manage to obtain guns whatever the level of gun ownership" in
their society.

Therefore, "banning guns cannot alleviate the socio-cultural and
economic factors that are the real determinants of violence and crime
rates." According to Dr. Kates and Dr. Mauser, "there is no reason for laws
prohibiting gun possession by ordinary, law-abiding, responsible adults
because such people virtually never commit murder. If one accepts that such
adults are far more likely to be victims of violent crime than to commit it,
disarming them becomes not just unproductive but counter-productive."

John Lott couldn't have stated it better himself.

"Douglas W. \"Popeye\" Frederick" <Popeye@finalprotectivefire.com>
wrote:

> By Laura MacInnis
>
> GENEVA (Reuters) - The United States has 90 guns for every 100
> citizens, making it the most heavily armed society in the world, a
> report released on Tuesday said.

Typical statistics. They compare it to the total population of the US when
they should have compared it to the population over some particular age
(perhaps 18?) since for the most part, any gun 'owned' by someone less than
18 is probably owned and controlled by their father (or parents, as the
case may be). Specified that way, we have over 1 gun per person old enough
to own a gun. About 26% of the population is less than 18 years old from
what I've read on one of the Census websites. Typically, more men own
firearms than women. A woman might own one or two firearms, but a man is
likely to own quite a few more since they get used for whatever type of
hunting he is inclined to participate in. It is not unreasonable to see a
man own a shotgun for waterfowl hunting, a rifle for deer hunting, a .22
rifle for small game / varmit hunting, a large caliber handgun for backup
purposes for certain types of hunting, and a .22 pistol for plinking. Once
a man's son is old enough, he'll usually buy him a .410 shotgun.

On 29 Sie, 11:45, -hh <recscuba_goo...@huntzinger.com> wrote:
> "Douglas W. \"Popeye\" Frederick" <Pop...@finalprotectivefire.com>
> wrote:
>
> > By Laura MacInnis
>
> > GENEVA (Reuters)...
> > On a per-capita basis, Yemen had the second most heavily armed citizenry
> > behind the United States, with 61 guns per 100 people, followed by Finland
> > with 56, Switzerland with 46...
>
> I briefly heard on the news the other day that Switzerland is starting
> to debate having their military reserve keep their weapons at home,
> apparently due to a rise in suicides.
>
> Could you take a look into it and let us know what's going on?
>
> -hh

AFAIK there is discussion and to change current law national
referendum would be necessary.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/...480545,00.html
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,...709342,00.html

Janusz

On 29 Sie, 13:16, -hh <recscuba_goo...@huntzinger.com> wrote:
> Douglas W. Popeye Frederick wrote:
>
> > "-hh" <recscuba_goo...@huntzinger.com> wrote:
> > > I briefly heard on the news the other day that Switzerland is starting
> > > to debate having their military reserve keep their weapons at home,
> > > apparently due to a rise in suicides.
>
> > > Could you take a look into it and let us know what's going on?
>
> > Sure.
>
> > Knee jerk mindless gun control advocates scared of other people being
> > armed, as usual.
>
> That hardly sounds like the Swiss that I know. Afterall, don't forget
> that this is the 'peace loving' and 'neutral' country that's quite
> armed to the teeth (even Hitler didn't mess with them) and who (cough)
> "accidentally" invaded another soverign country this past February.
>
BTW Switzerland is responsible for the "sovereign country" defense,
border and custom control etc.

Janusz

On 29 Sie, 13:31, "Douglas W. \"Popeye\" Frederick"
<Pop...@finalprotectivefire.com> wrote:
> "-hh" <recscuba_goo...@huntzinger.com> wrote in message
>
> news:1188386164.488986.48210@57g2000hsv.googlegrou ps.com...
>
>
>
>
>
> > Douglas W. Popeye Frederick wrote:
> >> "-hh" <recscuba_goo...@huntzinger.com> wrote:
> >> > I briefly heard on the news the other day that Switzerland is starting
> >> > to debate having their military reserve keep their weapons at home,
> >> > apparently due to a rise in suicides.
>
> >> > Could you take a look into it and let us know what's going on?
>
> >> Sure.
>
> >> Knee jerk mindless gun control advocates scared of other people being
> >> armed, as usual.
>
> > That hardly sounds like the Swiss that I know. Afterall, don't forget
> > that this is the 'peace loving' and 'neutral' country that's quite
> > armed to the teeth
>
> Hardly.
>
> One rifle per man isn't a lot to brag about.

Do you think that it would be better to take two rifles per man ?

>
> How many fighters and bombers do they have?
>
> Tanks?

Google swiss military - what a lazy guy
>
> Aircraft Carriers?

Maybe it would be helpful for you to have a look at the map of Europe.
Switzerland is landlocked country.
>
> Nukes?

What for?
>
> How about intermediate or long range missles?

What for?
>
> > (even Hitler didn't mess with them)
>
> Out of convenience and collaboration.
>
> Not out of the fear factor you imply.

Douggy, as usual your historical "knowledge" is amazing.

Janusz