Originally posted on 12/16/2012:

The right and gun lobby are always pointing at Israel and Switzerland as models for gun ownership. It not a very good argument. Gun ownership in Israel for example is very limited. In a country of about 8 million only about 40K are authorized to own firearms. It used to be everyone serving in the military took their weapon(s) home with them. They changed that in '06 and now the weapons are left in depots on base. Turns out they did a study and found the home was safer without a firearm in it. The suicide rate alone among military member went down 60%. Switzerland does it Canton by Canton (state by state) but many are moving to tighter gun control laws and they too have been requiring military member leave the weapon on the base.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...oting-utopias/