re: The Elephant in the Room

Then why are most of the conservatives in this board in favor of gun control?

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Switzerland may be heavily armed but their process of obtaining and retaining a gun is waaaaay more restrictive than in the US.

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And, since 2007, they don't keep military-issued ammo at home any longer. So many of the weapons in people's homes are useless. They aren't an apples-to-apples comparison to the US, but then what is?

OP assumes a singular distinction. Multiple differences can lead to the differences, including differences in wealth inequality, stress levels, population density, etc.

OP also claims it is lazy to blame these types of events on guns when other heavily armed countries don't have the same problem--but I would argue it is also lazy to not recognize the different in rates of violent crime between countries with high rates of gun ownership and those with low rates of gun ownership.

The lack of joy in our society is not good. Even our comedy is always attacking someone.

Cultural rot is a very real thing. Everyone has been told they are a victim of oppression of some sort. The media hatefully lashes out against "hate" every hour of the day. Everything has been politicized and people are more secluded than they ever have been.

The one part of our society which preached love, kindness, forgiveness, and accountability to something higher than ones's self since the founding has now been marginalized and has been labled hate speech.

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The underlying difference is that America has a different demographic make-up than Switzerland (a larger underclass, for one) and a more violence prone history.

Basically, guns in the hands of members of polite society will not induce more violence. But making them available to the violence-prone underclass will. It's a tough distinction and it's not easy to draw a line in the sand, but ghettos don't become less dangerous when more people are armed. The violence gets worse.

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This is a really good point. But it's still superficial. Why are we more violence prone? Why do we have more ghettos? Why do we have a permanent underclass?

These are questions, by the way, that both the left and right should be asking and trying to address.

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it's not the restriction of guns that allows criminals to kill innocents...it's the restriction of innocent's Lawful Rights to kill criminals that allows criminals to even exist in any number. The altruistic and tolerant State labels such actions as 'vigilantism' and inflicts severe punishment on vigilantes. However, at a given point of tolerant-based and painful consequence, the (tolerant) Law will be rejected, nullified or even rebelled against. From the Left, BLM's attack on Cops is an example. We have not seen this from the Right. Yet. But we will lest the Rule of Law be enforced.

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How is one single thing you said in this post relevant to what happened in Vegas?

Perp wasn't a criminal and no amount of law abiding people with guns could do shite to stop what happened.

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In order to purchase most weapons, the purchaser must obtain a weapon acquisition permit (art. 8 WG/LArm). Swiss citizens and foreigners with a C permit over the age of 18 who are not psychiatrically disqualified nor identified as posing security problems, and who have a clean criminal record can request such a permit. Foreigners with the following citizenship are explicitly excluded from the right to possess weapons: Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Macedonia, Turkey, Sri Lanka, Algeria and Albania.

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Honestly aside from our right to bear arms being secured in the constitution it seems we have similar disqualifying factors for gun ownership.

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Thus, what is that underlying difference? Is it mental illness? Is it general American stress levels? Is it [insert whatever you want here]?

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The difference is that this country lacks the wisdom to shame people for what they do; from kids to adults.

The second thing, after mourning the victims, is to shame this idiot and to shame pre-emptively anyone that considers doing something similar.