Wanted: Help in Contacting ProTELL Swiss Rights Organization

Gun Watch ^ | 18 December, 2015 | Dean Weingarten

[marktwain]

I am researching an article on suicide and guns in Switzerland, but I need some help obtaining numbers from about the reduction in Swiss militia in the 2004 drawdown, and how the numbers of guns in peoples homes may have been reduced.

It would be very helpful to obtain some detailed suicide data as well, particularly for the militia.

Unfortunately, I do not speak or write German, Italian, or French.  I am sure that there exists a ProTell member who could assist me, but I have not found any  way to contact them.

An alternate possibility would be a person who is fluent in German, French, or Italian who would be willing to work with me to find the data that I need.

I do not expect this to take more than a couple of hours of work.  The data is likely available on public records.

You can send me a private message if you are willing to help.

[marktwain]

There is a study that is getting a lot of play in the literature that claims that a reduction of firearms in Swiss homes permanently reduced the suicide rate there.

I believe I have identified significant flaws in the study, but I need detailed information from Switzerland to make the case in an article.

[T-Bird45]

Surely there’s some sort of liaison office at the NRA.

[Yaelle]

I will help. I speak German, French and schwiizerdüütsch and I don’t believe that stat. The suicide rate is high for other reasons and the suicides are not always with guns, or service weapons.

Let me see what I can find.

[marktwain]

It is another approach. SAF is a bit more likely for what I want.

Having worked with and seen both organizations in action, it is surprising how much gets done by a very few people.

What seems common sense is often not done because of limits of time and money.

[Yaelle]

First thing I've found is this chart showing the suicide rate in Switzerland per 100.000 residents.

[Yaelle]

Ok, I am on the run and can't translate the whole thing but here is the stat you need: most people do not use guns to kill themselves with. Everything in the left column are the methods of suicide. The top one is Shooting. Under it, it gives the type of gun used in the crime, but note that those are INCLUDED IN THE TOTAL SHOOTING NUMBER OF ONLY 17% of the suicides.

Under shooting is Hanging, 20%
Then jumping off something high 11%
Then last but definitely not least, Other Methods 52%!!!!!!!

This latter chart came from a 20 Minutes show where they were showing that " every second man killed himself with his military gun" ----- yes, this is true, OF THE 17 PERCENT THAT USED A GUN FOR SUICIDE. Duh. It's the gun in the house. Hope that helps.

[marktwain]

Do you know if that chart includes assisted suicides?

The Swiss started breaking those out in 1998.

By 2009, they were a quarter of all suicides.

In the Swiss system, assisted suicides are not government program, there is simply no law against them, if the person assisting does not have an interest in the other person’s death.

[smokingfrog]

According to figures published by the Federal Statistics Office in December 2010, shortly before the gun control vote, the number of deaths by firearm had dropped constantly in Switzerland since the turn of the century. From 466 in 1998, it fell to 259 in 2008 (last available data).

Mass killings are rare in Switzerland despite the large number of available weapons. The worst case happened in September 2001, when 14 people were shot inside Zug’s cantonal parliament. The last major shooting took place on January 2, when three people were killed and two injured in the village of Daillon, canton Valais, by a man who wanted to, in his own words, “deal with a family problem”.

If reports of gun violence are relatively few and far between in the Swiss media, it is because most cases are suicides, a subject the press traditionally avoids. In 1998, 413 people killed themselves with a firearm, a figure that dropped to 239 in 2008, even though the number of suicides remained stable. Switzerland’s gun suicide rate is only second to the United States.

http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/guns—guns—guns-_weapons-everywhere-and-more-than-you-would-think/34884568

[Moltke]

Also note that of the 17% only 8% used their military issued pistol or rifle.

8% of 17% = 1.36%

[Yaelle]

There are a lot of things that raise the young suicide rate in CH, mostly because there are many ways to be isolated; society is a bit more closed than in the USA. There is much more timidity among the populace and it’s still a paternalistic, obeying fathers, bosses, rules society. Yes, there are people who totally reject all that, but it’s still a big influence and you see dogmatic opposition which is also far from a casual, open way of life like we have here.

When I lived there, a young adult who probably did have his own army weapon chose to blow himself up on an elementary school playground as his little statement,

There is no way that the guns in the home cause suicide there. Even with guns in every home with a male adult, look at the fact that such a small % use their gun at all.

[Yaelle]

This is not from Switzerland but from Germany, disproving that reducing access to weapons lowers suicide rates. They give Canada and other countries as proof - they lowered access to guns, yet the suicide rates did not go down.

They call it a political myth.

http://www.fwr.de/statistik/stat-bundesamt-selbstmord/

I read another thing from Switzerland which was really pushing the myth, saying that the rate of suicide only went down after the military new laws for the military aged men, thus blaming it on the access to weapons. This crap comes from.... Wait for it... The American Psychiatry journal. You know, the BS lib doctors with axes to grind. The Swiss and other media are using a study from here to pull their anti gun crap. You probably have that study. Put walnuts all in it cause you know it’s fudge.

[Moltke]

Quite a bit of hard drug use as well, I hear. Used to know a guy on some car forum whose daughter OD’d on Heroin in Zurich. Sad.

[archy]

Also note that of the 17% only 8% used their military issued pistol or rifle.

Probably many of the older and more elderly former soldiers of the Swiss Army facing detierorating or eventually fatal health conditions would not have used their currently issued weapon, but rather the *old pattern* [alte artze] version which they were first issued in their younger days, purchased as they, like their owners, were retired from military service. Thus instead of the use of a current 5,56mm SIG 550 rifle for that final job, look for the use of an old 7,5x55 K31 straight-pull rifle or STGW57; similarly the older 9mm SIG 210/P49 [or a P1906/29 Luger!] instead of a double-action Pistole 75 or P.03 [or even one of the Glock 17s or 26s used by the Swiss ARD10 commandos]