To follow up, what I have observed happen in politics in my short life is that technology has made gathering social data so much more efficient (and even possible) so that political and issue oriented campaigns make compromise impossible (and I promise this has to do with the OP).
It used to be that each side would stake out a reasonable position and you would fight for the middle and come to an agreement whereby each side got a little and gave a little, neither were fully happy or sad, and most of the time that worked. Not always. If you have a choice between having 1 child or 0 children, 1/2 of a child is not a good solution, but usually it works. For example, I think we should spend $30k on a new car but my wife thinks $40k is what we should spend. We probably get around a $35k car.
With a little bit of new social data, you can push the Overton Window to improve your negotiating position. I find out that my wife (analogy to the rational voting public) won’t be too offended if I make an opening offer of $20k; she does the same thing and goes to $60k. Now maybe we can still come together, but it is harder.
But today we have super duper data with the ability to influence everyone over the internet. To improve my position more, I say we don’t even need a new car and tell all of her friends and family (analogy to the irrational voting public), researching what hits their hot buttons, lying to them if need be, and convince them that we don’t need a new car. She does the same to my friends and family and they think we need a Lamborghini.
However, by doing this we have engaged in a duel with each other with flame throwers at 2 paces and ensuring that neither of us are happy.
I think this San Jose gun law is an attempt to push the Overton Window (by the politicians, not the OP) by redefining what is reasonable. Then the gun people push back even harder (permitless carry, nationwide carry, silencers, repeal the NFA) and compromise will never be reached.
Well, reasonable gun owners are only about 40% of the population, have the other 58% of the population been effective at getting common sense gun laws passed?
Simple math proves they exist, if nothing else. Perhaps you consider math to be "alleged?
I can’t read this as anything but a personal attack, as zero of my comments have suggested any of the above. As I have no reason to respect this sort of ‘argument’, and the OP has been been largely found lacking in any sort of legal merit on multiple fronts, I’m bowing out of the thread, since it’s descended into the usual back-and-forth between the the two POV regarding guns.
But in terms of my (anecdotal) personal feelings, yeah, this is why the gun owners who favor various sorts of legislation don’t say anything. It’s not just that we are minimally affected by it, but if we do say anything, the extremes of both sides tend to attack so why invite abuse?
I want to congratulate the posters here. In general, we all tried to keep to the new law, and it’s ramifications. We tried to not get off into the “same-old, same-old” tired arguments other posters have complained about.
By and large we concur here that the new San Jose law is bad. Some think there may be some good ideas that could be used in a better version, and that is fine, but a good number of us are in sorta agreement.
This was, by and large, a good gun control debate. Let us try for this kind of quality next time too, OK?
I’d be OK with treating guns like cars - licensing required, insurance required, minimal medical standards, etc. But not if the associated fees were so high only rich people could have them.
Right come with (or should come with) commensurate responsibilities.
This overused position has been debunked. First, cars and guns are so different from each other that there is no reason to treat them alike. Second, there are no requirements to buy or possess a car–only when you operate it on the public highways does licensure, insurance, etc. come into play. So your proposal would end the Brady background checks for gun purchasers which I am sure you are not in favor of.
Further, as it pertains to this law, it seems to not do what others earlier had proposed which is hold a gun owner responsible for intentional, illegal uses of the gun. My homeowners insurance already would cover me for any accident, so would I have to buy this extra insurance in San Jose?
The article simply says that I would be “considered liable” until a theft is reported. Liable for what? The insurance only covered accidental uses as said in the very same paragraph, so it seems that if a guy steals my gun, I don’t report it, and he murders 50 people with it, I am not responsible—nor could I be under any tort theory.
So the law seems to do nothing except add additional expense to gun owners, which was the only purpose anyways–harassment.
There is a concept called “analogy” which you might want to look into. Practicing medicine and cars are also are “so different” from each other but both require licensing. It’s a concept. Check it out. I would hope that licensing for firearms would be appropriate to firearms, just as licensing for doctors is appropriate for doctoring, and licensing for motor vehicles is likewise geared towards that activity. That does not mean, nor does it even imply, that licensing and rules for all of the above are identical. Which is good, because they aren’t and shouldn’t be.
Not everyone owns a home and thus not everyone has homeowner’s insurance. If your homeowner’s has you covered, great. If a person does not have such insurance then I don’t see where requiring an equivalent insurance is an outrageous request.
When I was actively flying airplanes I carried liability insurance specifically for my aviation activities. It was not actually required, but it struck me as a good idea at the time. As it happens, my medical insurance at the time would also cover me for injuries incurred from aviation but for pilots whose medical coverage did not they often purchased additional insurance for that possible occurrence. Really, none of this is a new idea or limited to firearms.
If my car is stolen, I don’t report it, and subsequently it is used in a bank robbery then I should not be surprised if the police knock on (or down) my door. If my car is stolen and I do report it stolen and then it is used in a bank robbery then my legal position is going to be quite different, and probably more positive from my viewpoint.
Folks, may I point to @DrDeth’s excellent post at # 185 - where he was glad we at least tried to discuss the merits of the law rather than just hitting the same damn ruts in the road? We discussed the proposed law in depth, and whatever your view on gun control as a whole, jumping right back into the same tired analogies and arguments, let’s look at this particular piece of legislation.
Which, as passed, is bad legislation. As @UltraVires points out, it is in defiance of existing tort law regarding use by a non-permissive owner, requires insurance that does not exists at the time the law passed and should be covered (to the extent needed at all) by existing policies, and even adds a new tax on a constitutional right (whether you agree it should be or not) to be forwarded to as a ‘yet to be named nonprofit’ which no oversight or accountability (since it doesn’t exist!)???
This is a bad law, regardless of the perceived virtue - it is AS WRITTEN harassment and politics. And this leaves out the other hundred plus posts in the thread that point out the other issues with such a balkanization of legal requirements.
To use another, IMHO equally bad recent law, a new state could follow up on the abhorrent de facto abortion ban in Texas by saying that providers must carry a brand new insurance policy to cover the mental anguish of people seeing persons entering into and out of an abortion clinic for mental suffering, and to cover losses to the state for miscarriages, and an additional $100 fee per abortion to be paid by the party requesting it to be paid to a church-based non-profit to be doled out for child raising subsidies, marriage counseling, and creationism education.
I do not see any way in which the legislation -as written- (cannot stress that point enough) is a good faith effort. Perhaps there are individual pieces that can inform future legislation, but that is clearly not the intent of this law - especially as they require institutions that do not exist at this time.
Since there is no liability insurance that would cover what San Jose wants, this amounts to a total gun ban.
And, you don’t have to have insurance or a license for your car if you keep it at home and do not drive it on the public streets. Just like if you want to carry a CCW, you need a license.
No insurance will cover you for what happens after your gun is stolen.
Yes, questions will be asked, however, a stolen car used in a robbery is so common, the police will just ask a few questions and thank you- if you say you left the keys in it, they will say to each other “what a idiot” once they get back in the car. But you won’t be liable. If that car is used in a crime, and even used to kill someone- you will not be liable. Your insurance may pay for damages to the car, but that is about it.
Good post, thank you.
Also note CA laws make the State the only government that can make gun control laws.
That’s a very strange observation, when you consider the rate of gun violence in every other civilized country in the world compared to the US, wherein the US is just totally off the charts.
Do you feel that every other country on earth has successfully addressed all these other “root causes” unrelated to guns? If so, why isn’t the US doing the same? Or is it, just maybe, that it really is related to guns?
That’s because cars and guns are different tools used in different ways with different hazards.
The law under discussion may well be a badly written law intended to serve a biased political agenda, but that does not mean that the core ideas are entirely without merit.
I get that people are uncomfortable with requiring licensing to exercise a right, but no right is completely unlimited. Want to be a radio DJ? You need a license for that, even though you have a right to freedom of speech. That’s just one example.
Trying to drag the conversation back to the legislation at hand, I think the key issue (and it was brought up before, by myself and others) is the ludicrous segmentation of the governing laws. I am in the minority of the gun owners of my circle that would prefer more federal level laws - because of the hodgepodge we get when it’s at the state level.
Which is why I find the segmentation of the CITY level to be absurd. If we MUST use the car example, would you like to buy a car, get it insured under your normal policy, then be told after driving across the street into an adjacent city/incorporated area, that you were in violation because you didn’t have the RIGHT insurance, and were now subject to an additional fine, required to pay for the new insurance to operate your car, and that if stolen in this town, and used in a hit-and-run you were liable for that accident because you hadn’t had a chance to call the police since you were at work all day? I know plenty of people who work in a different city than their residence, even if it’s all contiguous.
That alone makes this a bad law, and bad precedent for future legislation. If we can impose laws to this degree on a city level, then considering the issues we already have with rural vs urban population tendencies, I would expect as a not so random example, every rural city to pass de facto bans on abortion and no permit required concealed carry - complete with fines to enforce said options.
It’s exactly that that makes it make sense for there to be city level laws.
Rural people are not going to accept the laws that a city wants to keep its citizens safe, and city people are not safe operating under the laws that the rural people demand.
It only makes sense for rural and city to not be under the same laws, they have different needs and priorities. It’s actually pretty absurd that anyone thinks that they should be.
Nice oxymoron.
Not that I agree with the slippery slope you warn against, though I suppose it is possible that some areas may pass stupid laws in order to try to spite people who don’t live there.
So this is a too be desired outcome? Each ever-smaller group of individuals in the former United States of America will self-determine? Each single community can decide, as it sees fit, to write their own laws and constitution that will govern both the people who live there, pass through, or work there? So if I’m in the 49.9% minority of whatever population I can be forced to worship a ‘Divine Being’ I despise, unless I have the wealth or power to move to another area, which, oh wait, I may not have the right to do so if said 50.1% write laws to say I may not?
This isn’t a slippery slope, this is the logical conclusion of each area picking its own rules while somehow NOT subject to the governing state or federal laws.
This is not to say that differing areas DON’T have different needs, but those are normally subject to said State and Federal laws, that allow such communities to co-exist within a framework in which we can continue to operate.