Another Mass Shooting in Switzerland.

Yes, the Swiss do have gun crime. There was the 27 Sep 2001 Mass shooting in the Zug Parliament.

Today, Five people were shot in the village of Daillon in Valais canton with three deaths.

This will call into question Switzerland's relatively liberal gun laws (by European Standards).

More on this incident here.Here is a list of some of the most serious violent crimes involving firearms in Switzerland from this story:

24th May 2011: In Schafhausen BE the 35-year-old Swiss tenants shoots in eviction from housing a 39-year-old policeman with his army pistol. Another policeman he injured his arm. The offender was released on medical grounds from the army, but was not properly disarmed.

8th September 2010: The 67-year-old Hans Peter Bieler Kneubühl resisting the eviction of his house and barricaded himself inside. When police anrückt, he shoots at a policeman and seriously wounded him. The pensioner has a whole arsenal of weapons but no firearms license.

30th April 2006: The former skier Corinne Rey-Bellet and her younger brother Alain in Les Crosets VS from estranged husband shot himself with his service pistol. Then the offender commits suicide.

29th March 2004: A 43-year-old farmer in Escholzmatt LU shoots his wife, his brother, his wife and the social director. Then he directed himself Tathintergrund were family problems.

27th September 2001: The 57-year-old Friedrich Leibacher shoots out of anger at the authorities in the Zug cantonal parliament 14 people with an assault rifle and a pump action shotgun, then he shoots himself

Second April 1993: A 54-year-old employee of the Berne Bedag computer science at work runs amok and shoots two people before killing himself. Apparently he had family problems and difficulties at work.

31st August 1990: An engaging in financial difficulties Zurich Bijoutier shoots in a shooting spree in Zurich and Rickenbach TG five people, including his wife and two children. He also wounded four people before killing himself.

16th April 1986: The head of the City of Zurich Building Inspection, Günther Tschanun shoots, after tensions at work in the Zurich building department four colleagues and wounded a fifth. He is sentenced to 20 years in prison.

The Third Man - Cuckoo Clock Speech against Democracy, Peace & Brotherly Love

Stick to William Tell and the myth of the Universal Military, the reality is mush more depressing.

Switzerland conquered?

I know the image is of William Tell, the expert marksman with the crossbow who saved Switzerland from foreign invaders, but were the Swiss ever conquered?

Yep! More than once for that matter:

The Old Swiss Confederacy had acquired a reputation of invincibility during these earlier wars, but expansion of the federation suffered a setback in 1515 with the Swiss defeat in the Battle of Marignano. This ended the so-called "heroic" epoch of Swiss history

But the Swiss didn't just fight furreners:

The success of Zwingli's Reformation in some cantons led to inter-cantonal religious conflicts in 1529 and 1531 (Wars of Kappel). It was not until more than one hundred years after these internal wars that, in 1648, under the Peace of Westphalia, European countries recognized Switzerland's independence from the Holy Roman Empire and its neutrality.

Still, that didn't stop 'em fighting each other:

During the Early Modern period of Swiss history, the growing authoritarianism of the patriciate families combined with a financial crisis in the wake of the Thirty Years' War led to the Swiss peasant war of 1653. In the background to this struggle, the conflict between Catholic and Protestant cantons persisted, erupting in further violence at the Battles of Villmergen in 1656 and 1712.

But, the ultimate humiliation occurred during the Napoleonic era.

In 1798, the revolutionary French government conquered Switzerland and imposed a new unified constitution. This centralised the government of the country and effectively abolished the cantons and Mülhausen and Valtellina valley separated from Switzerland. The new regime, known as the Helvetic Republic, was highly unpopular. It had been imposed by a foreign invading army and destroyed centuries of tradition, making Switzerland nothing more than a French satellite state. The fierce French suppression of the Nidwalden Revolt in September 1798 was an example of the oppressive presence of the French Army and the local population's resistance to the occupation.

When war broke out between France and its rivals, Russian and Austrian forces invaded Switzerland. The Swiss refused to fight alongside the French in the name of the Helvetic Republic. In 1803 Napoleon organised a meeting of the leading Swiss politicians from both sides in Paris. The result was the Act of Mediation which largely restored Swiss autonomy and introduced a Confederation of 19 cantons. Henceforth much of Swiss politics would concern balancing the cantons' tradition of self-rule with the need for a central government.

In 1815 the Congress of Vienna fully re-established Swiss independence and the European powers agreed to permanently recognise Swiss neutrality. Swiss troops still served foreign governments until 1860 when they fought in the Siege of Gaeta. The treaty also allowed Switzerland to increase its territory, with the admission of the cantons of Valais, Neuchâtel and Geneva. Switzerland's borders have not changed since.

Guess having all those guns didn't help keep the peace!

Joseph Chalmers On Switzerland

Thomas Paine's Common Sense did not go without criticism; however, Joseph Chalmers', a Maryland Tory, response has been neglected with the passage of time.

Thomas Paine, in Common Sense says:

Where there are no distinctions there can be no superiority, perfect equality affords no temptation. The republics of Europe are all (and we may say always) in peace. Holland and Switzerland are without wars, foreign or domestic; monarchical governments, it is true, are never long at rest: the crown itself is a temptation to enterprising ruffians at home; and that degree of pride and insolence ever attendant on regal authority swells into a rupture with foreign powers, in instances where a republican government, by being formed on more natural principles, would negotiate the mistake.

Interesting that Switzerland is seen as a Shangri-la without war and that modern minds have taken that belief and attributed it to them being an armed nation.

Chalmer's response:

the rugged and incult deserts of Switzerland preclude not ambition, sedition, and anarchy. Her bleak and barren mountains do not so effectually secure precarious liberty, as daily vending her sons to the adjoining nations, particularly to France, by whom the Thirteen Cantons could be subjected in as many days, did that court meditate so senseless and delusive an object. Nugatory indeed, if we confider, that France derives more substantial advantage from the present state of Switzerland, than if she exhausted herself to maintain numerous battalions to bridle the Can tons. ' A moment, let us suppose, that our author's asserverations of Holland and Switzerland are as real as delusive: his inferences do not flow from his premises; for their superior advantages do not arise from their popular government, but from circumstances of peculiar local felicity, obliging the princes of Europe to defend them from the omnipotent land force, if I may so speak, of France. After impotently attacking our sovereign and the Constitution, he contradicts the voice of all mankind, by declaring, that America " would have flourished as much, and probably much more, had no European power taken any notice of her."

Likewise, it was most likely that the advantage of having a neutral Switzerland was far more beneficial to German interests than any actual attempt at unification.

Could the "Cheese eating" French ever conquer Switzerland? Stay tuned for the next exciting post on this topic.

Swiss Nazi Sympathies

What if the real reason Hitler didn't invade Switzerland wasn't that it was well armed, but that he really didn't have any need to invade?

I tried to get Dog Gone to address the issue of Nazi symapthisers in Switzerland, but she didn't think they were that important. Unfortunately, like most of Europe, Switzerland had its fascist movement, in this case the Schweizerischer Vaterländischer Verband (Swiss Patriotic Federation or SVV, French: Fédération patriotique suisse, Italian: Federazione patriottica svizzera) was a right wing organisation influential in Swiss politics before World War II.

Wikipedia discussess the SVV:

The SVV was set up in 1918 by Dr. Eugen Bircher to oppose 'international emigration', which in effect became anti-Semitism, with the group holding The Protocols of the Elders of Zion as fact, alongside a similar work Aufklärung zur Flüchtlingsfrage (Shedding Light on the Refugee Question).[2] Bircher's position as a colonel in the Swiss Army was such that he was able to bring many high ranking officers in to the SVV, with Henri Guisan amongst those to join up.[2] Although not specifically Nazi in its outlook it did nonetheless seek to maintain cordial relations with Nazi Germany.[2]

Effectively open in its existence its membership was largely a closely guarded secret and as such the group became influential in driving government policy.[2] Its influence was such that it was the only organisation with Nazi sympathies that was not closed down by the Swiss Federal Council in 1945.[2] It was not dissolved until after it got caught up in a bribery scandal in 1948.

High-ranking officers within the Swiss Army had pro-Nazi sympathies: Such as General Henri Guisan, Colonel Arthur Fonjallaz and Colonel Eugen Bircher. General Guisan being the commander of the Swiss military.

There was a Swiss Nazi movement which was quite small, numbering only a few thousand. The party was temporarily banned in 1936 to prevent disturbances after the assassination of Landesgruppenleiter Wilhelm Gustloff of the Swiss Nazi Party by a Jewish student. Many Swiss were quite sympathetic to the racial agenda of the National Socialists. There were a variety of indigenous fascist parties in Switzerland, such as the Nationale Front and the Eidgenössische Soziale Arbeiter-Partei. Additionally, the Auslandsorganisation der NSDAP (Foreign Organization of the Nazi Party) was active in Switzerland, exploiting attitudes that were "anti-Jewish, anti-Free Mason, anti-Marxist, anti-pacifist, anti-democratic, and anti-liberal." And despite the paucity of support for the idea of joining Hitler's Reich, there were many Swiss who envisioned some kind of role for Switzerland in the Nazi New Order.

Also, Attempts by SVV to affect an Anschluss with Germany failed miserably, largely as a result of Switzerland's multicultural heritage, strong sense of national identity, and long tradition of direct democracy and civil liberties.

But, that didn't mean the Swiss were totally neutral, Donald Waters wrote a book on Swiss neutrality called "Hitler's Secret Ally". The Swiss bolstered the Nazi regime in many ways, ways that can be summarized by the following categories: border policies, opportunities for trade, and financial transactions. Behavior in all of these categories was either immoral or amoral, but Switzerland's closing of escape routes over its border is probably the most troubling. Because the Swiss feared that the appearance of "softness" with respect to its borders adjoining Nazi Germany would be an incentive for Hitler to attack (to undertake "Operation Tannenbaum"), they were highly vigilant in guarding against those attempting to cross those borders into Switzerland without the appropriate visas--in particular Jews.

Switzerland's pretend neutrality was useful to the Third Reich in that it could be used for trade and as a route for off loading its booty onto the world market. Because of the Germans' need for foreign currency and their hostility toward modern art, they were eager to dispatch impressionist and expressionist paintings to Switzerland. Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of German-Swiss art trafficking involved works looted from French Jews by the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (this was a plundering unit, under the leadership of the Nazi "philosopher" Alfred Rosenberg, that stole cultural property from "enemies" of National Socialism throughout occupied Europe.

But, it was far more important that Switzerland was also Germany's banker for its stolen gold. a December 10, 1941 report from the British embassy in Washington to the U.S. Treasury Department noted that "every leading member of the governing groups in all the Axis countries have funds in Switzerland. Some have fortunes." A Nazi official responsible for foreign exchanges estimated after the war that German assets worth 15 billion Reichsmarks entered Switzerland.

So, why did Germany need to invade Switzerland when it was pretty much on the side of the Germans?

See also:

• Co-Opting Nazi Germany: Neutrality in Europe During World War II
• Switzerland's Role in World War II

Swiss Myths continued - part deux (or for the gun zombies, part DUH!)

Swiss Myths: European History of WW II 101 - for the gullible, ignorant, fact-averse gun zombies

It is appalling that the gun lunatics are so very illiterate in history, but more pathetic is that they are willing to believe any tripe put in front of them that promotes their gun fantasy, their obsession with "must have guns" to the exclusion of all pertinent facts and critical thinking.

I have used the term fetish object - which refers to an object where the fetishist attributes powers and capabilities to objects that are unrealistic and unreasonable, even delusional, that exceed objective reality parameters, and that reflect an obsession. 

That fetish relationship obstructs rational thought, and apparently obstructs the ability of the gun loon/ gun zombie from accessing any facts which contradict the compulsive and irrational belief in what guns can do in real world situations.

So in confronting the idiocy of notions like the Japanese didn't plan to invade the mainland United States because of civilian guns, or the notion that Hitler and Mussolini weren't planning to invade Switzerland because they were afraid of the Swiss being armed, let me provide a much needed reality check -- and some WW II era European history.

I can rattle off, from my very excellent high school world history classes, a raft of reasons why Hitler didn't get around to finishing off the Swiss.  Fear of Swiss shooters was not on that list, because it doesn't belong there. 

As of 1943, as evidenced in primary source historic military memos, while it was thought in Nazi Germany that there would be losses involved, there was no FEAR of the Swiss military OR armed Swiss citizenry.  There WAS a fear of sabotage -- blowing up expensive and important infrastructure.
The Nazis in fact generated a plan back in the late 1930s for invading Switzerland, and as late in the war as 1943 the Nazis were making lists of who they would execute WHEN they got around to inading Switzerland.  And they had drawn up plans of partition with the Italians for who would get what parts of the country WHEN, NOT IF, that happened.

What stopped Germany from invading Switzerland was that they were losing the war on two fronts, and they no longer had the resources to do so -- but they still had the desire and intent to invade. 

What stopped Germany from invading Switzerland EARLIER, when they were still winning, was primarily money.  Because they were going to have Switzerland surrounded on all sides, early in the war, the Nazis were convinced they could easily invade and conquer Switzerland later, using a combination of invasion and seige warfare - starving them out over time, not only in the sense of food, but of other important resources in which the Swiss were not self-sufficient.

Wars are not won only by the kind of guns one can keep in private homes or carry.  Wars are won by the possession of war materials -- Switzerland lacked any petroleum industry, Switzerland lacked any rubber source - the Alps are not noted for their rubber plantations, and Switzerland lacked any substantial steel industry.

From the New York Times:

"In the whole of Switzerland there is only one workable deposit of iron ore, which supplies the material for a single blast furnace whose daily capacity is a couple of hundred tons."

Ground wars are all well and good, but a significant part of WW II was the air war.  Switzerland airspace was violated, per Wikipedia, 197 times by the Germans, and numerous times by the U.S. and allies.  The Swiss air force was small, and their planes were bought from Germany, not made in Switzerland.  So......as any resistance by the Swiss Air Force took place, WHERE do you think their replacement parts were coming from?  WHERE do you think they were planning on getting their replacement aircraft?  And given the small size and difficult terrain, where do you think their replacement pilots were going to be trained?

Even if you posit that the Swiss could reverse engineer their own manufacture of replacement parts, or entire replacement planes (you have to construct what the pilots know how to fly) - what do you gun zombies think they would make those parts or planes out of -- swiss cheese instead of steel or aluminum? 

Aluminum is made of Bauxite, and in case your education did not include basic geography - note, Switzerland is conspicuously NOT on this list:

Resources of bauxites, the raw material for aluminium, are not widespread throughout the world. There are only seven bauxite-rich areas: Western and Central Africa (mostly, Guinea), South America (Brazil, Venezuela, Suriname), the Caribbean (Jamaica), Oceania and Southern Asia (Australia, India), China, the Mediterranean (Greece, Turkey) and the Urals (Russia).

The glimmer of understanding should be flickering about now -- Swizterland did not have the resources or the manpower to repel a German invasion, their guns and military not withstanding.  To believe that the posseession of firearms intimidated the Germans not to invade is incredibly stupid and ignorant.

But lets look at the assumptions about Germany invading Switzerland a little closer, courtesy of the web site History of Switzerland, Switzerland's Role in WW II:

Economic dependency

A small but industrialized country with virtually no raw materials

Switzerland's industry always depended to an extraordinary extent on exporting machinery, watches, chemicals and pharmaceutics. The high population density, hard conditions for agriculture especially in the alpine region and a scarcity on raw materials are responsible for a notorious deficit in food production and a notorious trade deficit. During the 20^th century tourism, transport services andfinancial services (banking and insurance) had to provide for a favourable balance of payments. During World War II imports fell from 30 % of the net national product (average value at the end of the 1920's and again during the 1950's) to 9 %, exports from 25% to 9% and tourism to almost zero.(Independent Commission of Experts Switzerland - World War II, final report, p. 55-58)

In real estate, and in world geography