# Why arming all your citizens is a stupid idea. **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 16, 2018, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-arming-all-your-citizens-is-a-stupid-idea/808905 "2018-02-16T00:43:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2018, 7:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-arming-all-your-citizens-is-a-stupid-idea/808905/81 "2018-02-17T07:50:04Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > If over 3 million teachers carry guns, how many additional murders and suicides will take place by virtue of having so many additional guns in schools? I don’t suggest that we arm all 3 million of them. Let the fraction that are already trained and armed, and made it through previous years without murdering anyone or killing themselves also carry in schools. I suspect it will lead to very few if any “additional murders and suicides”. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2018, 7:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-arming-all-your-citizens-is-a-stupid-idea/808905/82 "2018-02-17T07:51:50Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > I love the way conservatives use any convenient circumstance to posit ridiculous cause-and-effect theories. It doesn’t have to make sense, it just has to support their agenda. > > Do more guns result in more gun violence? Academic studies prove the obvious, that [of course they do](https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/10/2/16399418/us-gun-violence-statistics-maps-charts). But what gun nuts like to talk about is places like Vermont – lots of guns per capita, and not a lot of gun violence, and never mind that it’s a sleepy rural state with more wolves than people. Or Switzerland, never mind that guns there are so tightly regulated that it would give the average NRA nutter conniption fits. > > Same with gun violence trends. It has gone down, not because of CCW licenses being issued, but for a variety of reasons including the powerful driver of changing demographics that has _reduced crime rates across the board in all western democracies_ – all those countries (and all the non-western ones) that don’t have a lot of guns and don’t have a lot of gun problems and never did. The point I’m making is that the claimed correlation - that more guns will lead to more gun violence - is a bunch of bullshit. We’ve got a bunch more guns, in more places, carried by more people, and the claimed correlation, that we’d see more violence, didn’t materialize. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2018, 7:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-arming-all-your-citizens-is-a-stupid-idea/808905/83 "2018-02-17T07:59:59Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > I love the way conservatives use any convenient circumstance to posit ridiculous cause-and-effect theories. Just to clarify, I’m not _positing_ a ridiculous cause-and-effect theory, I’m _debunking_ one. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2018, 8:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-arming-all-your-citizens-is-a-stupid-idea/808905/84 "2018-02-17T08:42:23Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > The point I’m making is that the claimed correlation - that more guns will lead to more gun violence - is a bunch of bullshit. We’ve got a bunch more guns, in more places, carried by more people, and the claimed correlation, that we’d see more violence, didn’t materialize. IOW, if you can find any data point that naively seems to support your political position — even something like all the households that already have five guns buy a sixth gun — then actual controlled scientific studies that reach a conclusion opposite to your partisan desire become “a bunch of bullshit.” Got it. Hey, I can play this game too. I let go of my helium balloon and it fell _up_, not down. Newton’s gravitation is just a bunch of bullshit, I guess. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2018, 10:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-arming-all-your-citizens-is-a-stupid-idea/808905/85 "2018-02-17T10:59:29Z")
> [@XT](#): > > I wasn’t the one who couched the OP in broad brush terms. Yes, afaik Swiss gun ownership is tied to a lot of things, one of which is the defense of the country. Another couple thing it’s tied to is adequate training (even non-military carriers must pass tests), and gun control (all those military weapon holders aren’t actually issued \*ammo \*any more, for example). > [@](#): > > So…would arming all their citizens be a stupid idea for the Swiss? Would that be a yes or no from you? Provided it’s done the way it currently is in Switzerland, that’s a big yes from me. Switzerland is the ideal gun situation for me - fairly liberal as to issuing, fairly tight on control. I’m actually \*very \*pro-gun, for a liberal extreme-left pacifist. Just not pro- demonstrably stupid gun culture, like the US’s. ---
**Author:** ![Lamoral](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lamoral/32/16078_2.png) [@Lamoral](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamoral)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2018, 12:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-arming-all-your-citizens-is-a-stupid-idea/808905/86 "2018-02-17T12:00:34Z")
The culture of the US is so anarchic and dissimilar to Switzerland’s, the idea of expecting the Swiss system of gun ownership to work properly in America is like the pro-gun version of the idea that America could just ban all guns the way Japan did, which I see advanced by all too many deluded left-wingers. ---
**Author:** ![Silver\_lining](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aca169/32.png) [@Silver\_lining](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Silver_lining)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2018, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-arming-all-your-citizens-is-a-stupid-idea/808905/87 "2018-02-17T13:20:13Z")
> [@XT](#): > > How does your theory stack up wrt Switzerland? Just curious. Sounds a bit cheesy to me 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Settimo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/eada6e/32.png) [@Settimo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Settimo)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2018, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-arming-all-your-citizens-is-a-stupid-idea/808905/88 "2018-02-18T20:12:56Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#): > > Vultures? 😛 > > I really hate how people say ‘culture’ is the difference and then completely fail to actually address the real cultural differences. If the USA has a different social contract than _die Schweiz_, and we get different and worse results than they do from the same proportion of firearms in the populace as they have, then giving us the same proportion of firearms is not such a great idea. > > I think most Yanks who want guns for themselves and use the ‘culture’ excuse are trying to convince us that they, somehow, in isolation, are trustworthy gun owners, and that their strong religious upbringing or something is a reasonable substitute for actually being indoctrinated and regulated as part of a militia. Well, it’s not. > > To outsiders, the Vegas shooter looked exactly like the folks we’re expected to trust, until he started spraying the crowd. > > (ETA: Sadly, some people seem to think that being white and speaking the right dialect and going to the right church are enough cultural markers for society to allow some individual his own personal gun. If that’s what you mean by ‘culture,’ you are exactly wrong.) ``` Yeah, I can see my post was taken by some as basically the opposite of intended. The "excellent question" was meant to set up **XT** for a bit of ribbing with my follow-up question. In short I agree with you **foolsguinea** , in spite of how my post seemed. I was stating that **XT** by citing Switzerland was actually making a great point AGAINST their own apparent position. There's tremendous influence of American culture on mass shootings (evidenced by Swiss lack of such shootings), ergo American culture needs to change. But the pro-gun orthodoxy keeps swatting down anything, *anything* at all being done to alter the views/perceptions/associations around these devices (here in point, the AR-15), whether those efforts regard laws restricting their use or otherwise. ``` ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2018, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-arming-all-your-citizens-is-a-stupid-idea/808905/89 "2018-02-18T21:23:01Z")
> [@Settimo](#): > > Yeah, I can see my post was taken by some as basically the opposite of intended. The “excellent question” was meant to set up **XT** for a bit of ribbing with my follow-up question. In short I agree with you **foolsguinea** , in spite of how my post seemed. > > ``` > I was stating that **XT** by citing Switzerland was actually making a great point AGAINST their own apparent position. There's tremendous influence of American culture on mass shootings (evidenced by Swiss lack of such shootings), ergo American culture needs to change. But the pro-gun orthodoxy keeps swatting down anything, *anything* at all being done to alter the views/perceptions/associations around these devices (here in point, the AR-15), whether those efforts regard laws restricting their use or otherwise. > > ``` Except that has nothing to do with why I used them as an example (I didn’t cite them :p). Since it seems no one gets it, I’ll explain. The US doesn’t arm it’s citizens, unless we are talking about those citizen soldiers in the military…in the US to date as part of our formal Constitution a citizen (with some restrictions) is allowed the choice of whether they want a firearm or not. Switzerland does army it’s citizens (or did anyway) and for a very good reason…it was part of their defensive mindset. The rational being that if they were invaded, they would need their citizens to be armed to assist in repelling the invaders. So, you see, the OP, while he THOUGHT he was talking about the US, was actually talking about a country much like Switzerland…and it’s not a very stupid idea to arm your citizens in such a case. In fact, it was the opposite. As for ‘pro-gun orthodoxy’, you obviously know zero about my position or what I do or don’t think on this subject. You really need to watch that jerking knee as it might do you a mischief in the future. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2018, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-arming-all-your-citizens-is-a-stupid-idea/808905/90 "2018-02-18T22:22:11Z")
> [@XT](#): > > Except that has nothing to do with why I used them as an example (I didn’t cite them :p). Since it seems no one gets it, I’ll explain. The US doesn’t arm it’s citizens, unless we are talking about those citizen soldiers in the military…in the US to date as part of our formal Constitution a citizen (with some restrictions) is allowed the choice of whether they want a firearm or not. Switzerland does army it’s citizens (or did anyway) and for a very good reason…it was part of their defensive mindset. The rational being that if they were invaded, they would need their citizens to be armed to assist in repelling the invaders. So, you see, the OP, while he THOUGHT he was talking about the US, was actually talking about a country much like Switzerland…and it’s not a very stupid idea to arm your citizens in such a case. In fact, it was the opposite. > > As for ‘pro-gun orthodoxy’, you obviously know zero about my position or what I do or don’t think on this subject. You really need to watch that jerking knee as it might do you a mischief in the future. The point is is that Switzerland has much more strict gun laws. You have to get a permit before you buy each gun, and part of that application is mental evaluation. You have to have a permit to buy ammo. If you transfer your gun to someone else, you have to record that transaction and report it to relevant authorities. Carry permits are very hard to get, and require not only the ability to demonstrate competence with both situational awareness and firing, but also a need. Do you think any of those would fly in the US? ---
**Author:** ![Settimo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/eada6e/32.png) [@Settimo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Settimo)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2018, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-arming-all-your-citizens-is-a-stupid-idea/808905/91 "2018-02-18T23:31:48Z")
> [@XT](#): > > Except that has nothing to do with why I used them as an example (I didn’t cite them :p). > > ~snip~ > > As for ‘pro-gun orthodoxy’, you obviously know zero about my position or what I do or don’t think on this subject. You really need to watch that jerking knee as it might do you a mischief in the future. OK, I understand your point re the OP, the Swiss’s truly arming their citizens while the US holds it as an option. But for my point, Switzerland is a marvelous example of double-edgedness re gun control/laxity arguments, considering the remarkably low degrees fetishization and mass-shootery over there given high ownership levels, ergo bringing them up works in its way contrary to your (evidently) pro-gun stance. (p.s. look up the word cite; and where did I say I thought you were part of the pro-gun orthodoxy? if memory serves, I do seem to recall your showing some nuance in views in a previous thread, but I definitely count high on the mischief scale posters whose every other post supports broad gun use in the US but then demurs when asked to pin down their position.) ---
**Author:** ![rock\_party](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e19b73/32.png) [@rock\_party](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rock_party)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2018, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-arming-all-your-citizens-is-a-stupid-idea/808905/92 "2018-02-19T00:01:03Z")
Had to do lots of driving last Friday and was feeling masochistic and had Rush on the radio. He must have said 50 times how the left wants to take away all your guns. This is just flat out not true. There should be restrictions on owning guns by felons, people who threaten, ect. and they should be enforced. The NRA has positioned themselves as ANY GUN RESTRICTION IS TO BE FOUGHT. Please say after me, “not the “left” doesn’t want to take away all your guns.” ---
**Author:** ![Lamoral](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lamoral/32/16078_2.png) [@Lamoral](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamoral)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2018, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-arming-all-your-citizens-is-a-stupid-idea/808905/93 "2018-02-19T00:05:00Z")
There’s no collective “the left”. (There’s not a collective “the right” either, but they are, in the main, closer to being unified in their views than the left is.) Some _people_ on the left are, indeed, talking about banning all guns, or banning almost all of them…these people should not be involved in politics, for the sake of us all. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2018, 6:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-arming-all-your-citizens-is-a-stupid-idea/808905/94 "2018-02-19T06:58:50Z")
> [@Settimo](#): > > (p.s. look up the word cite; and where did I say I thought you were part of the pro-gun orthodoxy? if memory serves, I do seem to recall your showing some nuance in views in a previous thread, but I definitely count high on the mischief scale posters whose every other post supports broad gun use in the US but then demurs when asked to pin down their position.) It mean’s ‘citation’. I didn’t use them as a citation in my post. I used them as a thought example to counter the OPs broad brush. Of course, since the OP wasn’t really about generalizations and in fact was focused on the US folks just went with it. I never demur about what my position is. I don’t even know what’ supports broad gun use in the US’ means. If you mean by this that I acknowledge the reality that the majority of my fellow Americans still support the right of private citizens to keep and bear arms, then I guess that’s true. No idea why that puts me on some ‘mischief scale’. > [@](#): > > OK, I understand your point re the OP, the Swiss’s truly arming their citizens while the US holds it as an option. But for my point, Switzerland is a marvelous example of double-edgedness re gun control/laxity arguments, considering the remarkably low degrees fetishization and mass-shootery over there given high ownership levels, ergo bringing them up works in its way contrary to your (evidently) pro-gun stance. Not really, no. My stance is that, as with many things, societies choose to allow citizens the right to choose certain things that we collectively know, for a fact are going to cause a non-zero number of deaths. Is it a good idea to allow citizens to smoke cigarettes or drink alcohol? When we know that by doing so a lot of people are going to die? To me fire arms are in the same category…as a society the US has chosen to allow this behavior and by doing so accepts the consequences. This is all neither hear nor there to the point I was making, however. See, you don’t actually understand my point. You are still thinking that the Swiss example had something to do with the US or US culture or US ‘fetishization and mass-shootery’, and really it had nothing to do with any of that. It doesn’t contradict either my point or my ‘pro-gun stance’ in any way. The Swiss example was a counter to the OPs broad brush, not some sort of excuse or whatever proving the US should (or shouldn’t) allow citizens to have guns. It’s funny…this thread is almost like a left wing dog whistle. I heard it too of course…what the OP REALLY meant was that it’s stupid for the US to allow citizens the choice of whether or not they can or should have a gun. The irony, to me, is that even though he was obviously crafting this to be a denunciation of the US and the 2nd it really didn’t relate to either, it was instead a nearly incoherent morass of gibberish about kids, gumballs and .44 magnums and about ‘right-wingers’ and the OPs conception of what they think (which the OP thinks is stupid of course). So, my Switzerland one liner was aimed at the title of the OP for the two reasons stated…first, the US doesn’t arm all or even some of it’s citizens, and second, examples of countries that actually do this aren’t exactly ‘stupid’. Now, having said all of the above and drunk as a skunk if you would like to have a discussion about what the OP really meant, i.e. that it’s stupid for the US to continue to allow citizens in good standing the choice of whether they want a gun or not I’d be fine going there next…after I sleep off the effects of a few to many glasses of fine tequila. ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2018, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-arming-all-your-citizens-is-a-stupid-idea/808905/95 "2018-02-19T14:21:36Z")
> [@Mosier](#): > > Like every other country with generous socialist public policy and low/no poverty, Switzerland has very little crime. Gun or otherwise. I think you also meant to add, “And with a very homogeneous population and very restrictive immigration policy,” right? Because those are the two things that give Switzerland an easy way to be generous socially and highly successful financially. Longstanding stability of a tightly-knit and very bright population. It’s also why “we all own guns” works just fine in Switzerland. ---
**Author:** ![Lamoral](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lamoral/32/16078_2.png) [@Lamoral](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamoral)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2018, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-arming-all-your-citizens-is-a-stupid-idea/808905/96 "2018-02-19T14:28:48Z")
See also: Japan, another country that routinely gets trotted out as an example of “it works there so it can work here.” They are a monoculture; I actually view them as an example of a non-Western country that was able to successfully resist any kind of colonialism, and for this, I admire them and their I think their insistence upon remaining a monoculture is admirable in some ways. But they do have their own problems. As I understand it, there are some serious issues there with suicide and a lot of unemployed men who are depressed. I think if a lot of guns magically appeared in Japan tomorrow, there would be problems. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2018, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-arming-all-your-citizens-is-a-stupid-idea/808905/97 "2018-02-19T15:01:21Z")
> [@rock\_party](#): > > … Please say after me, “not the “left” doesn’t want to take away all your guns.” So how many of my guns does the left want to take away? (I assume that’s the purpose of “all” in this sentence) ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2018, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-arming-all-your-citizens-is-a-stupid-idea/808905/98 "2018-02-19T15:15:38Z")
If the answer were “the ones you don’t need”, would you be willing to list the ones you do need? ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2018, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-arming-all-your-citizens-is-a-stupid-idea/808905/99 "2018-02-19T15:18:07Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > If the answer were “the ones you don’t need”, would you be willing to list the ones you do need? No, that would be like listing the free speech I “need”. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2018, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-arming-all-your-citizens-is-a-stupid-idea/808905/100 "2018-02-19T15:20:23Z")
So why should you not be dismissed as just another absolutist? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-arming-all-your-citizens-is-a-stupid-idea/808905.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-arming-all-your-citizens-is-a-stupid-idea/808905.md?page=6)