Errrm, isn't it the case that the default is that a Swiss citizen can own guns?
Which is the default for 2/3rds of the US population, and includes permanent resident aliens.
I know there are significant cultural differences, but when you come down to it, does the government trust the people or not? This is the touchstone for that question.
No, it's not 'the touchstone' for the question. It's a massive oversimplification to claim it's only or fundamentally about governmental trust. You hand-wave away the cultural differences, but they are highly significant when comparing the Swiss and the American experience of firearms held by the public.
Without answering my question about it being a default, you're misstating my position. Let me try again:
The touchstone of whether a government trusts it people is allowing them to keep and bear arms without conditions besides the usual disbarments for criminals and the seriously mentally ill.
This is only tangentially related to their actually doing so and why. 14-17% of American gunowners (if you assume there are only 75 million, which I think is low) do so at least to hunt. In Western Europe that's obviously a lot more limited due to population density. In Switzerland, a max of 600,000 or so can be issued the current service rifle (because that's how many were manufactured...) and serve in any capacity including the reserves, which by tradition is structured differently (e.g. personal weapon stored at home).
The best source I can find now for a relevant quote from John McPhee's La Place de la Concorde Suisse, written back in 1984 when this was very significant, is "Communist Swiss soldiers keep rifles and machine guns at home. It is said that this is not dangerous for political purposes; it is dangerous only for the wife."
The laws are definitely more strict. Every purchase requires a permit. If you sell a gun to an individual, you are required to keep record for 10 years.
Nevermind that Americans have no sense of civic duty.
Definitely. Americans never serve jury duty, volunteer for the military, maintain volunteer fire departments, donate to charity on an incredible per capita basis, work in food banks, volunteer to provide free medical/dental care to less fortunate countries, etc etc.
We're all just sitting around drinking out of our Buy N Large sodas watching the latest Kardashian life drama.
Is the permitting based on the "shall issue" principle? I.e. do the authorities determine if the applicant is not a banned individual and then automatically issue the permit? Or does the applicant have to jump through hoops?
