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Swiss voters on Sunday approved a measure to tighten the Alpine nation's gun laws, bringing the country in line with many of its European partners despite the objections of local gun owners, Swiss media reported, citing official results.
Switzerland's public broadcaster said more than 63% of voters nationwide agreed to align with European Union firearms rules adopted two years ago after deadly attacks in France, Belgium, Germany and Britain.
The vote Sunday was part of Switzerland's regular referendums that give citizens a direct say in policymaking. It had stoked passions in a country with long, proud traditions of gun ownership and sport and target shooting. Switzerland, unlike many other European nations, allows veterans of its obligatory military service for men to take home their service weapons after tours of duty.
The Swiss proposal, among other things, requires regular training on the use of firearms, special waivers to own some semi-automatic weapons and serial number tracking system for key parts of some guns. Gun owners would have to register any weapons not already registered within three years, and keep a registry of their gun collections.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Chocolate on Thursday May 23 2019, @03:25PM (29 children)
Are guns so much of a problem there?
Bit-choco-coin anyone?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 23 2019, @03:32PM (6 children)
They aren't much of a problem at all. But the EU Parliament doesn't respect Switzerland as an independent country, they're just a little scrap of land that thinks they're independent. Just more overbearing, arrogant creation of problems out of nothing, which is the only thing the EU Parliament ever does.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 23 2019, @03:45PM (1 child)
Next up to harmonize with the EU: Switzerland to open the gates to immigration!
Ha, never happen... or will it? ...
(Score: 5, Interesting) by PartTimeZombie on Thursday May 23 2019, @09:43PM
The Swiss will do whatever the Swiss want to do, just like they always have. Well, since 1805 anyway.
Despite what the various A/C's post here, the EU don't want to force the Swiss to do anything particularly.
If you filter everything through the American foreign policy view where you do what we want or we'll invade, then you wind up assuming the whole world interacts like that.
The reality is, the EU, the various European countries, and Switzerland have a friendly relationship. They listen to each other, and are quite capable of compromising if they need to.
Threats of violence are not the only way of achieving a result.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by NewNic on Thursday May 23 2019, @05:12PM
Switzerland has a choice: EU-style gun laws or leave the Schengen area.
Follow the rules or erect barriers.
lib·er·tar·i·an·ism ˌlibərˈterēənizəm/ noun: Magical thinking that useful idiots mistake for serious political theory
(Score: 5, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Thursday May 23 2019, @06:49PM (1 child)
What part of "Swiss voters" did you fail to grasp?
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 23 2019, @07:39PM
I'm gonna go with the "grasping" part which is intimately attached to the "critical thinking" parts.
I think the AC hokey-pokeyd one too many times.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Friday May 24 2019, @08:48AM
What a stupid statement. There is no pressure whatsoever on the part of the EU towards Switzerland.
What has happened is that there has been a debate in Switzerland regarding the accessibility of weapons by criminals. There have been several thefts of weapons from homes in the recent past. The Swiss have decided - without any influence from the EU - that there additional measures that can be taken that do not deprive those who have a justifiable need to keep weapons from doing so. Those who keep their weapons after military service are not usually permitted to keep ammunition for their weapons at home.
(Score: 5, Informative) by ikanreed on Thursday May 23 2019, @03:44PM (13 children)
Well, yes and no. They don't have america's mass shootings. They do have exceedingly high suicide rates, the second highest in the world, which a lot of pretty solid research connects to firearms per capita(of which they're also second highest in the world).
Obviously the research is epidemological, but the nature of the observed connection where regionally more guns reliably correlates with more gun suicide with a large effect size, and gun suicide correlates with higher overall suicide rate, though the mediating variables for that are more numerous. With an attached underlying theory based on findings that guns in the home correlate with suicide in home.
And while epidemiology isn't controlled experiment, a coherent model with consistent data for multiple layers of analysis is about the best you get from public health in general.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 23 2019, @03:50PM (7 children)
Astronomy has no controlled experiments but doesn't have the same issues. I'd say its more that people studying public health "don't like math", so they are incapable of making any sort of quantitative predictions to test their theories.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by ikanreed on Thursday May 23 2019, @03:58PM (6 children)
When you typed this up, did you ever ask yourself "Am I making a meaningful point?"
Of course people studying public health like math. That's what public health is: applying rigorous mathematical analysis to health trends. And most of these papers fit a fairly clear hypothesis, observation, conclusion paradigm.
(Score: 0, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 23 2019, @04:05PM (5 children)
Plugging stuff into SPSS/SAS isn't rigorous mathematical analysis. I mean real math where you start with assumptions and then derive a quantitative model that you believe may be more or less true (there will of course always be "perturbations").
Something like 99% of that field is just misinterpreting the coefficients of arbitrary linear models. Change the model, change the coefficients. If you include interactions you can even get stuff like a positive "effect" of guns when male/female is coded as 1/0, but negative "effect" when you use 0/1.
(Score: 5, Informative) by ikanreed on Thursday May 23 2019, @04:21PM (3 children)
Yeah, I can totally see wanting a non-linear model on this dataset [aphapublications.org]
Stop shitting out ad-hoc justifications for why the evidence and analysis is wrong, and if you're not completely and utterly full of shit posit a counter hypothesis and model that better explains the data. Or fuck off. One of those two. Not this lazy pseudointellectual shit.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 23 2019, @06:11PM
Sorry but you are not following at all.
1) The y-axis says "adjusted" suicide rate. These adjustments are probably including other variables in a linear model.
2) There could be some third variable that correlates with both suicide rate and gun ownership, if you further adjust for that this plot would look totally different. The variables included in such models are inevitably a matter of convenience, which is why these coefficients and plots don't mean anything. It all depends on what you include in the model.
3) I would definitely use a non-linear model for the purposes of prediction on such data. There is still quite a bit of scatter there, and you can probably do better than the linear model (but sometimes it isnt worth the effort).
As I said, 99% of public health research amounts to making this exact same error of interpreting coefficients of arbitrary statistical models meant only to be used to predict some outcome. And the issue is hardly limited to public health research. Scary to say, but random anon person on the internet knows better than all these PhDs, it is true.
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 23 2019, @06:20PM
Also, "linear" does not mean fitting a line. That may be another place you are confused.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_combination [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonlinear_regression [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 23 2019, @07:24PM
This guy has a really good analysis on all these graphs:
http://freakoutery.com/2018/07/everybodys-lying-about-the-link-between-gun-ownership-and-homicide/ [freakoutery.com]
and especially the tricks related to getting a line through the origin as in your pic:
http://freakoutery.com/2018/12/lying-with-gun-data-again/ [freakoutery.com]
(Score: 1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 23 2019, @04:21PM
Same AC. Try this:
"Treatment effect" is 1.17 vs -0.38. That is just a particularly egregious example though. In general unless you believe your model is "true" the coefficients have no meaning. You can still use an arbitrary model to make predictions, but usually you would just use gradient boosting or neural networks for that these days.
Now think about all the damage these people have probably done to society from drawing conclusions about pretty much random numbers.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 23 2019, @04:02PM (4 children)
"presence of guns correlates with gun suicide"
presence of rope correlates with rope suicide.
presence of drugs correlates with overdose suicide.
presence of knives correlates with knife suicide.
presence of bridges correlates with bridge suicide.
etc. etc.
You aren't talking epidemiology -- your talking tautology. Many of the countries with the highest suicide rates have low or no gun ownership. Countries with similar suicide rates have different levels of gun ownership. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_rate [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 1, Troll) by ikanreed on Thursday May 23 2019, @04:06PM
Man, that sure is a purposeful and willful disregard of the second half of the analyses you've got there.
You're one of those people who blockquote single sentences from posts to refute them aren't you?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by bob_super on Thursday May 23 2019, @06:58PM (2 children)
Effectiveness of suicide intent by guns is much higher than any of these other categories.
Lot of people miss or chicken out, when it's not as easy as pulling a trigger.
I'm all for letting people off themselves, if they want to and don't hurt anyone else in the process. That doesn't prevent me from acknowledging that guns are excessively good at turning a bad day into an irreversible mistake.
ANYWAY, reading the list in TFS, this has nothing to do with suicide.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 24 2019, @01:35AM (1 child)
It could be that the level of one's intent to commit suicide is at play. A serious person will choose an effective means while a person seeking attention or whatever, will not. How many people just looking for attention choose guns? And will banning guns have any effect on those who are serious and capable of choosing other just as effective means?
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday May 24 2019, @04:36PM
As my last sentence alluded to, the list of restrictions in TFS is not a "ban".
It's also not a "reduce suicides" list. It's a "responsible ownership and traceability" list, driven by the open borders with the EU next door.
IF you're gonna have a lot of firearms in your society, that is a fairly reasonable list. The Swiss are typically not dreaming of armed uprisings against their violent dictator.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 23 2019, @03:47PM
For Switzerland, no. The country has lost much prestige since the 80s, but it is still a government of and for the people.
For the EU, yes. The union is run by unelected second-rate and retired politicians from the national governments, the Western members being under intense working by international capital and media elites. The people haven't got much chance there to influence their government at the ballot box, and their rights get eroded every day. Look at France: Would the government want a possibility of yellow vests arming themselves?
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 23 2019, @10:31PM (3 children)
Violence was very common before people got guns. Guns are the great equalizer.
We quickly forget why modern life is relatively peaceful, then we blame the guns for the rare remaining violence. Britain is now facing an uptick in violence, having decided that there is no right to defend yourself with a gun.
(Score: 2) by pipedwho on Thursday May 23 2019, @11:13PM (2 children)
Violence is correlated with political oppression and general economical unrest. It has nothing to do with criminals being scared of return fire.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 23 2019, @11:46PM
Political oppression and unrest have nothing to do with people attacking the criminals who are responsible and fester under such circumstances? I can't believe this was said non-AC.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 24 2019, @02:02AM
Not quite so over the span of history. Britain experienced a steep drop in violent crime with the introduction of the wheel-lock and an even greater drop with the introduction of the cheap flintlock (*). Since ending the English right to bear arms in the early 1900s, murder has crept up and assaults have exploded -- as in 200x or more.
Let me find the citation:
Carlisle Moody: overview: https://billlawrenceonline.com/carlisle-moody-handguns-stop-murders/ [billlawrenceonline.com]
Actual study: http://economics.wm.edu/wp/cwm_wp158.pdf [wm.edu]
It makes sense when you think about it. Before firearms, the average 40 or 50 year old stood no chance against a hulked up 19 year old with nothing but fists, a stick or a knife. After the gun, the playing field was leveled and even if the ruffian also carried a gun, it was still a mere even fight. Take away the guns, and the thugs get free pickings -- just look at Britain and the change in assault rates: 2.39/100k in 1920, to 419.29/100k in 1999.
(*) From the study itself:
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 24 2019, @12:58AM (2 children)
It's not about violence, crime or terrorism, it's about disarming the citizens for when EUSSR sends in a policing action to enforce one of their decrees.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 24 2019, @08:50AM (1 child)
FTFY
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 24 2019, @06:48PM
the united arab emirates? what