In the wake of the devastating school shooting in Parkland, Florida, an American former police officer and current Swiss resident argues it’s time for the US to follow the example of Switzerland in regulating firearms. As an American living in Zurich, I’ve watched news cycle after news cycle reporting mass shootings, domestic violence-related homicides, and accidental gun deaths in the United States. While the issue of gun violence has impacted every American in some way, I have had a more close-up view than most. Although these days I work in academia, I was previously a police officer in a large city in the western US. I am also a gun owner and a liberal member of the Democratic Party, facts that many Americans consider mutually exclusive. I carried a gun every day as part of my job and routinely witnessed gun violence in the form of assaults, homicides, and suicides. I still have two guns (locked in a safe back in the US) and a host of friends working in law enforcement. I ...
