"Rifleman's culture" (Australia, Switzerland, etc.)

[superpunchy]

I was watching this brief video on the Steyr AUG and a guy in it said that the Australian military adopted this rifle because ".....they have a very strong tradition of being a rifleman's culture". Never heard that before.

I also recently read that the Swiss also have a very strong tradition of being "....a rifleman's culture". Again; that's a new one on me.

Other than the United States, What other countries have a very strong tradition for being "a rifleman's culture"?

 

[Jaws]

Switzerland has more fire arms per person then USA.

 

[dak0ta]

Canada.

 

[Jaws]

In Canada are around ten million firearms for a population of 33.5 millions.
Not bad. But our firearms laws are horrible right now.

 

[VHSBD]

The Australian media like to refer to your run-of-the-mill hunting rifle as "high power," and like most of the world's media, can't tell one gun from another. That, coupled with the fact that our government treats us all like 4 year olds (in most of Australia, we can't get even the smallest of home fireworks apart from sparklers), I'd say any 'rifleman's culture we may or may not have had is dead.

 

[Shear_stress]

Finland.

 

[Uncle Mike]

I don't care...I just want to live in Austria....

 

[NoirFan]

What do you mean by rifleman's culture? Does sub-Saharan Africa count? Certainly there's a lot of rifles - in daily use - over there.

 

[bgrav321]

South Africa used to have one. Look at the Boer War in the late 19th century/early 20th. Afrikaners with Mausers took on the British Empire and gave an excellent account of themselves. That's a dying culture though, because gun laws in SA are bad these days.

 

[j-easy]

is there any other developed nation with "better" gun laws than we have here in the united states?, i.e. less of them

 

[dak0ta]

Mexico? No laws?

 

[Jon_Snow]

Mexico's got laws, they just can't seem to enforce any of them.

 

[SHvar]

Mexico has FAR stricter laws than the US or any of the other countries listed. They have one gunshop owned by the government total, it takes an application process to buy anything. But criminals dont have regard for the laws, so they buy them where ever they can.
Id say Switzerland having a riflemans culture being closer to the truth (or at one time maybe), the entire population were its defense.
Israel, everyone has served time in the military, maybe.
But we as a country have the right to choose, therefore we CAN be far better.

 

[femoralis]

The USA has the greatest number of guns per capita in the entire world by a fair margin. We probably have the best gun laws in the first world, though the Swiss probably aren't too far behind. In one or two things, they are even better.

Isreal actually has pretty severe gun laws, except they do allow concealed carry for certain people.

 

[Z-Michigan]

Mexico has terrible gun laws. Effectively a ban on legal ownership if you aren't rich and connected. And you can see how well it works! (Sometimes you wonder if the result is in fact the intent.)

I'm not sure any country really has better gun laws than the US. I think Switzerland and Finland perhaps did for a time in the 1990's but all I read is that they are getting more restrictive. I would say that countries that are not much worse than the US overall, and in a few ways possibly better, include:
Switzerland
Finland
Austria
Canada
New Zealand
France
Israel
Czech Republic
Slovakia, Hungary ???
Sweden?

Leaving out 3rd world countries where people wander around with full-auto AK-47s whether or not it's technically legal.

Virtually all other countries have a comprehensive and often discretionary permitting scheme, but in many cases they actually have this concept called "fairness" that we seem to have discarded. I'm not saying I like permitting, just saying that if it's done in good faith it's not as bad as the politically motivated wildly unfair behavior that we're used to seeing with discretionary permitting.

As for an actual rifleman's culture, Switzerland has it to a great degree, and I think Finland and Israel have it to some degree. In all cases their survival has been greatly helped by knowing how to use weapons! Look up the "winter war" of Finland vs. Soviet Union if you want to see an incredible example.