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Shooting is a deep tradition in Switzerland, going back to the legend of William Tell and his defiance and assassination of a Habsburg governor. In many ways, Switzerland remains what America could have been: an armed, neutral federation, as Jeffersonians intended. Unlike in post-Lincoln America, the Swiss federal system is intact, with significant power in the cantons, although the French-speaking minority and some EU-minded urban leftists have been trying to delegate more power to Bern. The nation is also a democracy, as the people themselves still have the right to call national referenda.

During the second world war, Hitler said he wouldn’t mind going down in history as “the butcher of the Swiss,” and the people prepared to fight the most intelligent and organized guerrilla defense in history. Elaborate plans were drawn up; tunnels, bridges and highways were mined, households dug bomb shelters, and women were trained in anti-aircraft weaponry. The citizens had orders to consider all reports of surrender enemy propaganda, regardless of the source, even if reportedly from the president (a rotating functionary whom many would not know by name anyway).