Political Memes

The US has roughly 1.2 guns per person. Switzerland has 0.27. Canada is a better comparison with 0.34. No country in the world is really in the same league as the US. The US is more than double the next country: Yemen.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_civilian_guns_per_capita_by_country

While other countries do sometimes have a few guns, they all have much stronger gun laws. In Switzerland a gun is never something you can use for self-defence or home defence. It has to be safely stored at all times except when you're going out hunting or going to a shooting range. If your weapon is lost or stolen you have to report it to the police immediately. If you are going hunting or going to a shooting range, your gun has to be unloaded.

In Canada it's relatively easy to get a hunting rifle, but pistols are more or less illegal. If you're a sport shooter you can get one, but if you're driving to go shooting it has to be locked in a box in the trunk of your car.

The US one of the only countries where it's acceptable to use a gun for self-defence. It's one of the only countries where people think they have a right to guns. Almost every other country considers it a privilege that can be taken away if someone doesn't actively demonstrate that they're handling these dangerous things safely. In almost every other country it's illegal to have a loaded gun on you when you're not at a gun range, with a few exceptions made for police, bodyguards, etc.

The US also has extremely violent media compared to the rest of the world. In the US there are ratings to try to protect kids from seeing sexual content, but violence is mostly OK. In most of the rest of the world it's violence that's not OK but sex is no big deal.

Swiss only have guns because it is the gun from their military training, which currently is mandatory.

They may have guns, but they do not have ammo.

I've always said America doesn't have a gun problem. We have a culture problem. I could go on and on, but as a gun owner concerned with the law, you can't believe the stupid shit I've seen posted online.

Switzerland requires training courses and other regulations we don't have have afaik, though not an expert, which likely helps a lot.

America as a non homogenous society, and always has been rife with divisions as well. These divisions easily, even subconsciously stoke fear into people, prompting a bigger draw towards self defense.

Early pioneer spirit also drilled it into the American consciousness. Needed a gun to defend your farm/animals from predators or other people when law enforcement didn't exist or was hours away back in the day. Also leads to guns being in the family, needing back ups, a gun for every able bodied person etc ...

So a big culture of self defense being the only viable defense for much of American history, consistent concerns about the "others" (for a large chunk of time also includes slave revolts), and relatively lax requirements (stemming from the other reasons mentioned) and boom. Crazy gun obsessed culture.