You are saying guns damage about 100 Billion each year? :dubious:
Yes.
If someone were to steal your gun and injure someone else with it, I believe that your way of securing it was objectively unreasonable. I don’t see why you shouldn’t be responsible for the consequences. Asked another way, why should a gun crime victim who did nothing unreasonable herself, be the one to bear the cost when she gets shot with your gun? I would hold you liable for your personal decision to own a gun and the consequences that fall from that decision.
Both. The robber is not covered because of his crime. The shopkeeper is not liable because of his lawful activity. Contrast that with a shopkeeper who mistakenly shoots an innocent bystander while justifiably attempting to foil a robbery. The insurer is liable because the bystander was not engaged in crime and shooting an innocent bystander is a gun externality that we want to internalize to the purchaser. The robber is also liable, so the insurer can seek damages from the robber (good luck getting any). The shopkeeper is liable only if he was negligent when he shot. If he was justified and reasonable in his shooting, he is not liable.
I’m proposing that people bear the costs of their decision to own guns. I propose that they not be able to use poverty or bankruptcy as a means to escape bearing the full liability for their costs when the “unthinkable” thing that happens 14,000 times per year happens. Mandatory insurance prevents gun owners from doing that.
If you want real personal responsibility that covers all the potential externalities, we could a person to purchase a gun only if the buyer has enough in secured assets or a posted cash bond to cover the maximum amount of damage that the gun could cause. Then, if the gun caused injury, innocent victims could pursue those assets. If we use the Pulse Nightclub Shooting as an upper bound for how much damage a single .223 semi-automatic rifle can be used to induce, and a value of a life of let’s say $5 million, the required asset bond to opt of insurance would be about $245 million. If you think requiring a $245 million cash bond is a more viable alternative to a one-time insurance bond costing maybe $4,500, you are welcome to propose that.
I’m simply not worried about the robber’s plight. I think most of America isn’t. The robber can prevent his injuries by not robbing anyone. In his case, the risks of his conduct are fully internalized to him and to protect him, the system would allow him to impose externalities on others. That is counterproductive to my intentions. If you want to propose a different system that protects the robber, suggest it and see if it gathers more support than mine.
Yes, and I provided a cite. Do you have a better cite?
It doesn’t actually matter how much the damage is each year. If the costs are lower, the insurance premiums would be lower and my solution is even less burdensome to gun buyers so it’s more palatable. If the costs are higher, then the insurance premiums are higher but it’s even more important to internalize those costs to gun buyers since the higher the costs are, the less likely that gun buyers will be able to pay them out of pocket if they lack insurance. Either way, my solution still works better than any alternative I have seen proposed.
Do you feel the same way when someone robs a bank? Is bank security unreasonable when a robbery occurs? How about when a person dresses provocatively and gets sexually assaulted, is their manner of dress unreasonable too?
So now you’ve carved out suicide, and crime. That’s what, around 95% of firearm deaths?
For the remaining 5% plus related injuries, you’d have 40M+ ish people acquire an insurance product that would only exist because a law would have to be passed to force its existence.
How about when a child gains unauthorized possession of a firearm and kills them self, does the parent get the payout? What if they kill their sibling, parents get a payout? Seems like an odd result - would you carve those out too?
Post #?
#26.
What does this have to do with my proposal?
I most assuredly have not excluded crime from coverage. Covering victims of crime is largely the point. Covering perpetrators of crime is not. Please understand the difference.
An insurance company is liable to innocent victims of gun injuries. In your hypothetical, yes, the child’s estate is injured and can collect. You think it’s better that when kids die we just shrug and say “oh well” because what, kids don’t matter?
Are you asking about a case where the parents negligently entrusted the child with the gun and are also the heirs to the child’s estate? They effectively don’t collect. If they were negligent, the insurance company can pursue damages from them from their negligence and recover that amount due to the child’s estate. If the child had other beneficiaries of his estate who were not negligently responsible for the child’s death, they could collect.
It is not the robber’s plight I am concerned with. It is my plight that when I go to the hospital, part of my bill will be subsidizing his treatment.
The hospital can’t just let him die, and if there is $20,000 worth of medical bills generated, then someone has to pay that. Either gun owners can pay that through their insurance, or other healthcare seekers pay that through higher bills and insurance premiums.
Just as you insurance will sue you if they have to pay something out due to your negligence or intent, the insurance company can go after the robber to recover what they can from him.
Who would you suggest pays for the robber’s medical costs?
You said, “If someone were to steal your gun and injure someone else with it, I believe that your way of securing it was objectively unreasonable. I don’t see why you shouldn’t be responsible for the consequences.” I’m extrapolating to other areas where someone’s conduct could be connected to a bad outcome. Banks hold lots of money, and sometimes people steal it. With their ill gotten gains they do bad things, at times harming other people.
You’ve concluded that if someone steals a gun, then the storage was unreasonable and therefore the owner should be responsible for the bad outcomes that occur as a result of stolen property. I’m inquiring if you apply this rationale to other areas. Do you?
This isn’t at all how insurance works right now (insurance companies liable to victims), but we can go with that. What happens if there is no insurance company willing to write this policy? Would the government then underwrite it like they do with other forms of insurance?
I don’t propose any changes to the system that would affect payment of the robber’s medical costs so I suppose my answer is: whoever pays for it today.
I’m discussing gun liability insurance. I already expressed my opinion about stolen cars and that was far afield enough to derail the thread. I’m not engaging in this because my response is irrelevant to the proposal I’m trying to discuss.
If the insurance companies can set the premiums at whatever rate they want, insurance from private companies will be available. As long as my rates aren’t capped, I’ll offer it myself so there will be at least one provider. There is no need for the government to get involved in offering insurance or determining premiums. They should be involved only in determining the solvency and capacity of insurers to make good on their claims.
I did propose to cap liability under the policies at some level to help manage premium costs.
I would say that if someone steal your gun, then a bit of investigation to see if your storage was unreasonable is in order. If you have a gun safe, and there is either evidence, or at least your word that it was locked up with the guns in it, then it’s not your fault. If the gun was stolen from where you hide it between your couch cushions, it is.
Insurance is always liable to victims of accidents. If you hit someone with your car (complete accident), then your insurance company pays out to the victim to repair their car and tend to their medical bills. This is along with your medical bills, and repairs to your vehicle if you have full coverage.
Well, no one does pay for it today, the cost is just absorbed by the hospital, and passed on to people that can pay, raising everyone’s medical costs and insurance premiums.
I don’t think it is a derailment. You are arguing on principle, that if something I own gets stolen and used to hurt or kill someone else, I should be on the hook to pay for it even if I didn’t do anything wrong. If the principle is valid as a matter of justice or public policy, then it should be generally applicable. What is the distinction between gun ownership, and car insurance?
Or why not apply the same principle to medical malpractice. If the patient dies, the doctors have to pay for all his expenses, even if the doctor didn’t do anything wrong. Isn’t that just as fair as making the gun owner pay even if he didn’t do anything wrong?
Why isn’t the person who shot her liable for his personal decision to steal my gun and shoot somebody?
Or Joe Blow steals my gun and shoots Jane Doe. Jane didn’t do anything wrong - she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. But you don’t think she should pay anything, because she wasn’t in the wrong. So what? I didn’t do anything wrong either - I had my gun stolen. I shouldn’t have to pay either. Why do I own all the consequences of Joe’s action, and not Jane?
“If you didn’t own a gun, it wouldn’t have been stolen, and you own the consequences even if you didn’t do anything wrong.” OK - if Jane hadn’t been in the wrong place at the wrong time, she wouldn’t have been shot. She didn’t do anything wrong, but that doesn’t matter. You don’t have to do anything wrong to be liable - you own all the consequences no matter what.
Either fair’s fair, or it isn’t. If it isn’t for me, why is it for Jane?
Regards,
Shodan
I don’t think that’s right and I don’t think it’s a simple issue of pedantry. If I am in a car accident, I am liable to the victim. I also have secured a contract with an insurance company that requires it to defend and indemnify me from those claims (assuming it falls within the policy).
But the only person that the insurance company is actually liable to is me (on a contract basis). T&C’s proposal changes that (with respect to firearms). Now, the insurance company is directly liable to victim (for the lifetime of the gun). And (somehow) may have a right to recover against me for having to pay out on my behalf (which also isn’t how insurance works).
I’m not sure how significant this is, but it decidedly changes the way liability is assessed.
But you see it does: Here’s from the Mother Earth news article which is the real cite: *Direct costs account for $8.6 billion—including long-term prison costs for people who commit assault and homicide using guns, which at $5.2 billion a year is the largest direct expense. Even before accounting for the more intangible costs of the violence, in other words, the average cost to taxpayers for a single gun homicide in America is nearly $400,000.
However, those “costs” are the “costs” of having a police force, a justice system, and a prison system. Now sure, we can figure that with prison time, we can actually break that out. So maybe $200000?
Next numbers are “Indirect costs amount to at least $221 billion, about $169 billion of which comes from what researchers consider to be the impact on victims’ quality of life.”:dubious:
Also added in are the “costs” of a suicide, which accounts for over 2/3rd the figures.
So the real cost of a gun is about 1 cent.
I’ve only been involved in one incident like this, and in that incident, the victim sued both myself and my insurance company, my insurance company provided the lawyers, and they were the ones that would be paying out if the victim won. (They didn’t, because they were just suing me because I was near the accident, and I had insurance, and the actual person at fault did not.)
A much smaller claim, where I accidently collided with another car at low speed in a parking lot, where the whole side of their car was dented in (and my bumper had a tiny crack), my insurance company paid out straight.
I am not sure what you are trying to say is incorrect here, pedantically or not.
I don’t know that I am on board with the lifetime insurance bond part of the OP’s idea, but other than that, I do agree with insuring guns. Currently, your car insurance is liable to anyone that you cause harm to under covered policies.
As far as the insurance suing you after paying out a claim, that is exactly how it works. They will do so if they paid a claim that they can show was negligent or intentional on your part to recover their money.
I’m not sure how. Just like car insurance the gun is what is insured, not the owner.
I disagree. People will simply lie to avoid liability in your example. Both Doctor Jackson and The Lurking Horror admit that gun owners will lie to save themselves money. This would frustrate the my proposal’s goals of compensating innocent people for their losses due to gun violence and promoting the economically optimal level of security for guns. I also believe that gun owners collectively should bear the risk that someone will steal their guns rather than completely innocent people on the street who have the misfortune of losing a grim lottery.
I’ve already addressed liability for stolen cars and I won’t repeat myself. That’s not the point of this thread. I’m focusing on guns.
This is also tangential but I will note that doctors don’t impose externalities on unwilling people. I’m trying to mitigate the problem of gun violence victims failing to receive adequate compensation when externalities are imposed on them. You can propose everything you want about medical malpractice reform in another thread.
Under my proposal, he is. Unfortunately, that doesn’t adequately compensate gun violence victims because gun thieves tend to be poor and judgment proof. Your objection seems to be that the gun owner (or really his insurance company) is effectively jointly and severally liable. If you don’t like that, we’ll have to agree to disagree.
What I am proposing is essentially strict liability for the inherently dangerous activity of owning and storing a gun, with damages paid from a pre-paid insurance policy. Strict liability doesn’t require a finding that the gun owner was negligent. If you must say something the gun owner did was “wrong” to rationalize the gun owner’s liability, it’s that the gun owner chose to own and keep a gun. Strict liability finds you are liable for undertaking an activity that inherently creates danger for others. I will point out that we don’t usually think of living, which is all that Jane did, as imposing inherent danger to others so we wouldn’t find her jointly and severally liable for her own injuries. I think strict liability for inherently dangerous activities like owning and storing a gun is good policy. Again, if you disagree, say so and move on.
Where the hell are you getting one cent? If you really believe those are the damages, insurance like I propose is trivially cheap (just $1 per gun for over 100 years of coverage) and we can make everyone in the country whole for all the losses they will ever suffer from those guns. Why is 1 cent per year too much to protect against all the uncompensated damages from gun violence? What are you opposed to?
Of course, 1 cent is bullshit as I’m sure you realize. The $100 billion figure I cited actually came from a study of what people would pay to reduce gun violence by 30% and it was the lower estimated cost in the article I cited. Mother Earth News said that total damages from gun violence are $229 billion, and lost wages for victims of gun violence is $49 billion all by itself. I don’t know how that is split between suicide victims and homicide victims but roughly 40% of gun deaths each year are homicides, so let’s say lost wages for homicides is $20 billion. Add to that losses from medical care, pain and suffering, etc. I don’t know exactly what that totals out to. The Mother Jones News article is pretty unclear on their breakdown, so I didn’t use it. Again, it doesn’t even matter what the costs are. Either it’s higher than I estimated, in which case it’s more important to minimize those costs by creating incentives to internalize those expenses to the gun owning community or it’s lower, in which case insurance is cheaper and less objectionable.
“Gun owners”
“Admit”
“Frustrate”
Everyone will lie to save money. It shows the holes in your plan, not some nefariousness.
Can I ask why not? I think I made a decent case for it.
If we went with annual insurance rather than a lifetime bond, I think that people would just fail to keep their insurance policies up to date. The only way to police that is with comprehensive gun registration, which is unacceptable to gun owners and unnecessary under my proposal. This is what Massachusetts proposed a while ago.
Perhaps we could allow optional gun registration and annual insurance as an alternative to a comprehensive time-of-purchase bond. If you failed to renew your policy though, you would lose your right to own a gun. Who would repossess it? I wouldn’t want to have to police that and that could consume a lot of public resources. If the insurance company didn’t maintain responsibility for the gun in the case of lapsed policies, we’d still have lots of uncompensated gun injuries by the least diligent gun owners. People who don’t pay their insurance premiums probably overlap a lot with people who don’t have the resources to pay for the injuries their gun might cause. If people could buy just one year’s insurance, they could sell the gun into the black market, report it stolen, terminate the insurance, and escape any ongoing liability. This does nothing to prevent gun trafficking. What’s your better alternative?
It does not but thanks for playing. It shows holes in K9bfriender’s alternative that gun owners (or their insurers) should escape liability if they can assert that they locked up their guns. I don’t think they should be able to escape liability by pretending after the fact that their guns were locked up.
I have a really simple view. Gun owners bear responsibility until they either legally transfer the registration to someone else, or they officially report it stolen/missing to the police. There doesn’t need to be any kind of regulation mandating how the owner stores or secures the firearm. To help guarantee “responsible firearm ownership” or mitigate the financing costs if the responsible firearm ownership falls short, then firearm owners need to carry insurance.
At present, firearm owners are free riders in the system. If one draws an analogy with automobiles, auto owners have mandated insurance, including uninsured motorist. Vehicle owners may not pay the full costs to society but they are not free riders.