Quote of the day—Gary North

It is true that the Swiss surrender their ammo back to the local armory at the end of each summer’s training. It is also true that the political tradition of democracy is so deeply ingrained that it would be impossible for any Swiss government to refuse to return those weapons the following summer. The Swiss are not a disarmed population. They simply let the government store the ammo during the year. The attitude is not that the government lets the citizens have access to weapons. The attitude is that the citizens allow the government to store the ammo.

Gary North
December 24, 2012
In Defense of the Second Amendment
[H/T to Chuck Petras @Chuck_Petras for bringing this to my attention.

There are some interesting observations and history in his post.—Joe]

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6 thoughts on “Quote of the day—Gary North

  1. Just expanding on the Swiss thing a bit, since I lived there for the better part of a decade: the Swiss need to give back issued military training ammo after annual training, as well as needing to use up (or return) subsidized training ammo at the range. In neither case can they take that specific ammo home.

    But there’s gun shops aplenty there and people can buy commercial, unsubsidized ammo (including stuff that’s compatible with their military rifles, as well as their private guns) and keep them at home as they please, and to use it for sporting purposes, competition, hunting, target shooting, etc.

    That said, it’s definitely true that the Swiss have a very different relationship between them and their government than do Americans and the US government.

    • Thanks for clarifying that. One hears much about the Swiss. Good to hear a first hand account.

    • How long ago was that? I seem to remember that there was a referendum that changed that a very few years ago……

      • I left CH and returned to the US in 2018.

        The confusion mostly stems from the fact that the Swiss used to have reservists keep their rifles and 50 rounds of government-issued ammo at home (so they could, so the theory went, fight their way to the armory for resupply in the event of invasion). The rules changed to where they’d keep the rifles at home but had to return the issued ammo. Part of this was politics, and part was the fact that they were surrounded on all sides by friendly EU countries and the risk of invasion was virtually nil.

        The government subsidizes the cost of ammo for training at the range (I’m not 100% sure that it’s only for training with the issued rifle, but everyone I saw buying the subsidized ammo had their issued rifles) but you need to either consume all the subsidized ammo at the range or return any unused subsidized ammo to the rangemaster for a refund. No buying subsidized ammo and using it to go hunting or whatever.

        You can still buy, keep, and use unsubsidized commercial ammo you purchase yourself at retail stores.

  2. The EU anti-gun forces have been busy in Switzerland for some years now, and more gun restrictions have been implemented. They’ll end up just as neutered as the rest of Europe at this rate.
    The EU has been threatening them with trading restrictions to force them to give up their arms. Hopefully the fallout from Brexit will scuttle some of that bullshit. Actually, there is some hope that the EU will dissolve over the stress of adding Brexit to the various problems they have engineered in Babel/Brussels.

    • There was some hope Brexit would be a good start, but that hope didn’t last long. The EU worked very hard to punish the UK for having the temerity to want to leave. If you look at their “negotiation” tactics, this is abundantly clear.
      A few days ago there was a wonderful op-ed about Brexit in the WSJ, by Joseph Sternberg. The headline is one gem: “The EU is based on the premise that voters can’t be trusted”. It’s worth digging up. Maybe this link works: https://www.wsj.com/articles/brexit-may-make-europe-safe-for-democracy-11580428655?shareToken=st5a4bb8ae719548ff983d494ae8675fdb
      I have a particularly cynical view, even more so than Sternberg: the purpose of the EU is to complete the work that Napoleon started. 🙂

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