National and Social Self-Defense and Its Tools

According to a joke heard while a forced laborer “building Socialism,” infidelity is against the public interest. Since marital infidelity tends to happen on the living room couch, these pieces of furniture should be banned. An equally idiotic argument is made seriously about firearms. Criminals use weapons: outlaw guns to avoid crime.

It is likely that the American reader is not aware of what follows. The right to bear arms to defend liberty by an armed citizenry is not uniquely American. Such a feature is also a component of Switzerland’s tradition.

Cognizant of the similarities between federal republican orders, the Founding Fathers copied from the Swiss. Later, in a process of renewal, the Swiss put the US' system’s lessons to use. Interestingly, the Swiss duplicated American federalism but felt that the original gave the government too much power. Therefore, they enhanced direct democracy (initiative and referendum) and replaced the “President” with a “Federal Council” of seven which acts as the collective head of state and as a cabinet. (The writer liked to provoke his hosts by listing, that there are seven major sins, seven dwarfs in Snow White –and seven in the Federal Council.)

Recent events connect the American and the Swiss case.

Freedom is only secured if society is enabled to defend liberty against its foreign and indigenous enemies. That means a strong military and — remember the 2nd Amendment — an armed society. The former is harder in Switzerland’s case than in the USA’s. Ignoring “size,” no “shining sea” shields Switzerland. However, geography does aid the Swiss because, if properly utilized, the mountains make the country defensible. Once the writer took a Moscow-trained fellow professor from flat Hungary into the mountains. Glancing down into the valleys, the guy kept exclaiming “with a cannon, I could stop from here an entire Soviet armored division.”

A complicating factor is, that with four languages, Switzerland is not a national state. Furthermore, it is located at the juncture of countries that liked to fight each other. In response, the Swiss evolved their concept of neutrality. Generally, neutrals signal that they can harm no one, and so they sustain puny armies. Thus, in general wars, they tend to fare poorly. Swiss neutrality is defined as “armed” neutrality: The country field the maximum sized army relative to its size.

In WW2 that meant that a five million people — surrounded by Hitler and Mussolini — had a 450 000 man military committed to defend the Alps converted into a fortress. Such a system could only function through supportive adjustments. An aspect of that is told by a personal experience. In a lecture -actually I am a crack shot- I mentioned that, although an alien, I may purchase a pistol and join the local gun club. Soon a young man stood before my door with a package. Unwrapped, a brand new ‘32 carbine with a “white” untreated shaft emerged. Frankly, I have never seen anything like that. The explanation was that his grandmother purchased seven carbines when the war broke out to have the household prepared in case that “they” come.

A component of total defense had been the militia-based army. Every male served — making everybody a reservist. In the interest of rapid mobilization and spontaneity, off duty soldiers take their arms home. (The weapon, including SIG assault rifles, can be kept after separation from active duty.) The system is rounded out by supportive elements. Reservists must pass target shooting tests regularly. This caused clubs to emerge for those that liked to shoot for fun beyond “The Obligatory.” Most villages have a facility for the sport whose 13th century founder is the mythological William Tell. The story of how he shot the apple from his boy’s head is famous.

The tradition of an armed society has lasted until after the Cold War. Currently, the “Wholesomes” (Greens and Reds) have concluded that, in a multicultural world, there is no enemy, there is nothing to be neutral for or against, and that the neighbors would have to protect them. Multicultural doctrinal assumptions complete a fantasy, namely, that all cultures being equal, there is nothing worth defending.

The “wholesome” crowd has scored TD’s against the system of an armed society. The military is downsized, and the acquisition of some weapons –such as modern aircraft- had been prevented. Claiming to be a pacifist and the OK of a shrink, frees you from the service. A welcome rescue for folks that think that taking an order equals slavery. In the nuclear age, new buildings — and also every community — had to build nuke-proof shelters. All this is gone. Now, a further move unfolds to protect world peace from a country that has not attacked anyone since 1515. The case provides us with the juncture to an analogous debate in America.

Behind unilateral disarmament is an assumption that harks back to the bit about the couches. Crime and war is made with weapons. To prevent them, the guns need to be taken away. Oddly, military ordnance is most rarely used criminally. Luckily so, because, the gun saturated country should, by liberal reckoning, self-exterminate. Attribute the theory’s failure to the fact that, most criminals here are migrants who, as victims of “discrimination,” acquire their weapons without government support.

Since the militia-system connects an armed civil society and its military, the attacks to eliminate the military and to disarm society, connect. Committed to deprive the country of its defense — it is not a member of defanged NATO — there is the “Society for Switzerland Without an Army.” Its thesis is that a disarmed Switzerland will induce a global stampede away from arms into the realm of peace.

Recently, the inwardly directed warriors for peace have formed their regiments to wage their “war for peace.” The plan is to outlaw privately held arms. Hunters and target-shooters are to deposit their weapons. Without guns, the reign of peace and security will dawn.

It is doubtful that the proposal can be made into a law. Mockingly, one might stipulate that the plan for a crime-free society will need to be boosted by a measure that legalizes all crime — except for not being PC. Amend that with immunity for persons that represent those groups from which criminals tend to originate.

Do doubt, whether the criminal element, armed by illegal weapons, will cooperate with mankind’s “wholesome” saviors. As far as this writer is concerned: He has in 1956 faced the Soviet Army equipped with a pistol and eight bullets. Therefore, there is no power on earth that could induce him to “disarm” unilaterally by surrendering his means of self-defense.