Well, technically depending on your state’s laws it can be that any sale of any object whether privately or by a commercial retailer may be subject to sales or use tax – but then it’s just a general sales tax, not a tax-on-guns.
Agreed. And I will take your suggestion not to keep contributing to the redo of general gun control debates.
But this point bears repeating. No insurance will cover intentional illegal acts. That is hundreds of years of law and it is for a purpose. Who should be able to buy civil immunity from a cold and calculated act of violence? It’s against public policy. If you (the general you) shoots someone, then the money to treat their injuries should come out of your (the general your) pocket, not from some insurance company’s pocket. People cannot insulate their bank accounts from things like that.
And the San Jose law, if applied as intended and advocated in this thread would do one worse. Not only is the criminal insulated from a judgment for intentionally shooting someone, he gets the benefit of an insurance policy that someone else paid the premiums for! And that “someone else” was the victim of the theft that the criminal perpetrated.
Does any of this make sense? Of course not.
Now, as I say that, I looked it up, and my state has done it somewhat for cars. The State requires that every car owner have a minimum of $25k liability insurance on their car. That amount hasn’t changed since the 1970s and is woefully inadequate in most situations. I have more than the minimum; I am covered up to $300k for liability and have also purchased it for damage to my own car in case I have an at fault accident my car will be repaired after the $500 deductible.
And I must buy uninsured motorist coverage! I have to pay if someone else violates the law by not having the mandatory insurance.
There is an exclusion for intentional criminal acts. But, a state statute requires that my car insurance cover the state minimum $25k even if I deliberately run over a line of school children.
So, contrary to my chest beating earlier, there is some precedent for this.
They kind of hide it:
(1) The liability of the insurance carrier with respect to the insurance required by this chapter shall become absolute whenever injury or damage covered by said motor vehicle liability policy occurs; the policy may not be canceled or annulled as to such liability by an agreement between the insurance carrier and the insured after the occurrence of the injury or damage; no statement made by the insured or on his or her behalf and no violation of the policy defeats or voids the policy.
W.Va. Code 17D-4-12 (f) (1)
Sure and because a cop writes the wrong thing in a warrant, a murderer goes free. Welcome to the cost of living in a society that respects individual rights.
So I am judged on what I might, but really would never do? You have no evidence to show I would do such a thing, and I deny that I would do it, but it is still a danger, even though it will indeed never happen?
I own a car. I could get drunk and accidentally kill you. You aren’t out advocating for making cars nor alcohol illegal because of this.
Maybe or might. I own guns that are over 100 years old. And how is it my fault if a third party does a bad thing?
That is a constitutional right just like the “abortion industry” (until later this summer). When the guns “end up” in the hands of a criminal, then enforce that law which we already have. Don’t pass another one that harms me.
No, the potential danger of the weapon is weighed against need of possession. The utility of automobiles is great when weighed against their miss use as weapons. The utility of weapons is miniscule when weighed against their miss use.
Not according to our Constitution. The balancing test has been had. You might disagree with Heller, as I do Roe and Casey, but our Supreme Court decides what the law is, and we live in a country where your statement is not factually correct.
And this is the attitude that makes you complicit in American gun violence; the perverse insistence that owning a gun is a right on the same level as freedom of speech or freedom of religion, making it impossible to do anything that might actually result in fewer gun deaths.
I didn’t make that decision, the founding fathers did.
And I get the argument, as I have made in other threads, that Scalia’s opinion in Heller was one of his weakest. It is so utterly without any neutral principle that it has caused confusion for 14 years.
But I do think that it is beyond debate that gun ownership is part of the traditions and history of this country such that it is a substantive due process right or a privilege and immunity of citizenship.
The founding fathers made the decision to write the 2nd amendment, the same as they made the decision to write the 3/5ths compromise. You’re the one defending their clearly disastrous decision more than two hundred years later.
We’ve done this in other threads. The north wanted to count slaves as ZERO. In any event, gun ownership has and continues to be a normal part of life for most of America, and we do so without shooting other people.
I can’t imagine why you think this is relevant to point out.
And that’s why school shootings will never stop.
But hey, what’s a couple busloads of dead children, when placed against tradition?
You brought it up. And people always say it. But it was the slaveholders who wanted blacks, held as slaves, counted as full people. The argument is that blacks were only counted as 3/5 of a person as if they should be counted as full people. Sure, your (general your) argument is in line with southern slave owners.
My guns haven’t shot any school children nor any humans at all. Why are these inanimate objects blamed for someone’s mental health problem?
I’m not blaming the inanimate objects. I’m blaming you.
So what did I do?
You help keep the entire country hip deep in guns, making it effectively impossible to keep them out of the hands of dangerous people. You prevent us from passing laws that could actually do something about gun violence.
I don’t like to personalize these arguments, but I do that simply by owning guns? You have the same ability as I do to purchase a gun. Why aren’t you equally “responsible”?
@Babale says upthread that she doesn’t trust that I won’t murder her or her family based on my word. Why then would she trust you or anyone else that you wouldn’t go purchase a gun and murder her?
Modnote: Please leave off the personalization of the Debate here. I will reopen this in 30 minutes as a cooling off.