Because the use of a gun changes over time, and it also does nothing for the hundreds of millions of guns already in circulation. If I have my gun in my house safe and take it out only when I go to the range, that’s a lower liability than if I CCW 24/7.
There are people that do not carry insurance on their cars as well, does that mean that auto insurance should be bought as a bond when you buy the car?
We have uninsured motorist coverage. I’d say you do the same with guns. You figure out what percentage of people aren’t paying their premiums, and pass that cost onto the ones that do. Then your law abiding gun owners can encourage their friends to not be freeloaders. I wouldn’t go take the guns away, but if your gun ends up being used in a way that requires an insurance payout, and you don’t have insurance, then there should be civil and maybe criminal consequences.
They would have a hard time pretending that they had a proper gun safe. And if they have a proper gun safe, then why would they not use it? And they aren’t escaping liability, their insurance is still paying for any damages, it is up to the insurance company to decide if this person should be paying higher premiums for not securing their weapons properly.
Most people are going to secure their guns, because they are valuable objects that they don’t want stolen.
We were talking about your proposal for arbitrary categories of use, not locking them up. People already lie about insurance. When you make a claim, you really only have to have receipts for big ticket items, but for many cases the insurance company takes your word for it. They have to rely on people’s inherent honesty, really, and assume some loss due to dishonesty. Similar here, some people would claim a cheaper category many would not, but you seem to think it’s a fixable problem and an inherent dishonesty of gun owners as a class.
Or if you wish to talk about safes, I’m not sure what evidence you would have of safe storage. Owning a safe is not evidence nor does any sort of insurance require strict receipt keeping standards.
I mentioned in the thread how existing guns could be insured in the same way. It’s hard to enforce but probably worthwhile.
If so, convince your insurance carrier and you’ll get lower rates. But you yourself note how easy it is to change usage. Your insurer has to price in that uncertainty.
How do you figure out who is paying premiums without registration? How do you know if your friends are paying for insurance? How much do you think your premiums would drop if you signed up one of your friends for insurance? If damages from guns are covered regardless of whether the individual has insurance, why would anyone bother to sign up?
I knew a paranoid guy who kept unlocked pistols in his house in case of home invasion. He had a gun safe and I’m sure he would have told his insurance company they were duly locked up if they had been stolen.
If you have dangerous items in the house, don’t you get a higher rate for swimming pools or Pit bulls. Can’t homeowners insurance mandate a rider for having guns in the house? Not necessarily liability insurance, but a red sports car has higher insurance rates than a dodge caravan.
WADR you haven’t addressed it - you have just said you don’t want to talk about it. I am asking you to address the principle.
Sure they do. Nobody wants to die after they go to the doctor, and doctors don’t intend to kill them. Nonetheless, they sometimes die, thru no fault of their own, nor any fault of the doctor. Why not impose strict liability on the doctors? They have a lot more money than the average patient. It’s not fair to expect the patient to bear the cost of dying. Of course, it’s not fair to the doctor either, but you don’t seem to want to address that.
Again, why is strict liability not good policy for other inherently dangerous activities?
If you want to propose a sweeping change in tort law like this, and someone points out a few of the objections, it doesn’t help if you say “well, I just don’t want to talk about that”.
Your insurance company provided the lawyer and would pay the damages, because they have a duty to you to defend and indemnify . My point (and I’m not sure that it matters) is that they insurance company is not directly liable to the “victim”.
Car insurance (and car accidents) is so ubiquitous and commoditized that we have a pretty streamlined process and so these sorts of distinctions are less clear (in the one accident I was involved in, I dealt entirely with the other guy’s insurance company). But there are huge disputes over this type of thing when it comes to other insurance products.
But, if you and I are in a car accident (it’s your fault, of course), then I sue you for damages. If your insurance company refuses to defend or indemnify you, then *you *probably have a claim against the insurance company. I’m stuck trying to recover from you personally. (Leave aside assigned claims and subrogation).
The gun insurance proposal alters this. As I understand it, if you shoot me, then your insurance company is directly liable to me. I assume the point of this is to ensure that a deep pocket is on the hook for damages. But it means that, if the circumstances are not covered by your policy, then the insurance still needs to pay me (because it is responsible for the damages) and then recovers from you (if it can). In an ordinary insurance relationship, the company simply refuses to indemnify you in that situation.
(I have no particular problem with liability insurance for firearms. Where I have concerns is when we talk about extending it beyond the types of conduct that are typically insurable.)
This is the only relevant part of your post and the only part I’ll answer. Strict liability is a good policy for highly hazardous activities and it is the law now. I would mention examples but I have better things to do with my time than debate every aspect of tort law with you. My proposal is to (1) treat owning and storing guns as an activity subject to strict liability, and (2) adopt an insurance mechanism that gives people recourse when they are harmed. I believe this will reduce the harm of guns and transfer the risk of owning guns from the innocent person back to the person(s) who own them. You clearly disagree. Fine. I would look forward to hearing your proposal to mitigate the harm of guns in a better way. I can’t think of one and you haven’t offered any.
I am volunteering to discuss gun liability insurance. I am not volunteering to discuss car insurance or medical malpractice. If you want my opinion, you can pay for it.
T&C, I think what most people are saying is that your idea, while it has some merit, is not workable as you outline it - at least under current insurance law and practice for liability coverage. This would be an entirely new insurance concept. You can’t say “it would be like ‘X’”, because there is nothing today to compare it to. Some of the issues that would have to be resolved are:
In no case currently is an owner of anything responsible for it’s use after it is stolen.
Currently, the legal occupier of a property (owner, renter, etc.) is under no obligation to secure the premises to prevent illegal entry. Even if I leave my front door wide open, no one has the right to enter without my permission and doing so is illegal. Anything they take is considered stolen, regardless of where it is in the property. Your proposal asks that gun owners, and gun owners only, be legally liable for securing their property against theft.
3)It’s not trackable nor enforceable under the current system, because there is no gun registry in the US and, therefore, no reliable way to trace ownership
A one time bond might be easier to implement but, given that there is no currently no registry, what legal and verifiable method exists to establish the end of my liability?
It would provide coverage for accidents only because, as I said before, no insurance company is going to write a policy/bond that says in effect “You can now go shoot people at will and we will cover the expenses for any and all victims”.
In no other case can a Constitutional right be denied based on an inability to obtain insurance/bond or pay a fee. This would be analogous to a poll tax or poll test.
All of the above, and probably much that I’m not considering, require MAJOR changes to current law and/or practice. It’s not as simple as saying “We should do this” then waiving away any issues. None of the issues are insurmountable, but they are significant and would likely require a change to the US Constitution.
If you are talking about a lifetime bond insurance for the gun, then there is no rate change, you just pay for it when you buy it. You can also change usage with your car. They ask you how often and how far you drive it, and base their rates accordingly.
I never said anything against registration. You would know if your friends are paying for insurance by asking them, for one. Also, if you require firing ranges to check for proof of insurance that would help. As to why anyone would bother to sign up, did you miss where I said that there would be civil and possibly even criminal penalties for not having insurance?
All of these questions have been asked, and fairly well answered when it comes to car insurance.
And people do lie to insurance companies. And if he lies to them about having them in the safe, and they find that he made false statements under the penalties of perjury then there are severe penalties to that. Insurance companies investigate things. If they find that the safe wasn’t forced, and that there are witnesses that say that he leaves them unlocked all the time, then they charge him with perjury, and sue him for damages. You can even throw something in like most states do with auto insurance, in that if you are found to be driving without it, you lose your license for some period of time.
But it’s not just me. If I lend my car to someone, and they get in an accident, then my insurance covers that. If someone steal my car, and they get in an accident, then my insurance covers that. The coverage is on the car, not the owner.
The claim is against the driver of the car, because that is the person who is allegedly at fault, and so that is the person who needs to be defended, but the policy is on the car.
What other insurance products are similar to car insurance at all? Car’s a fairly unique thing that allows any random person to suddenly cause injury and loss to some other random person. Health insurance is nothing like it, home insurance is very different (there are some times when your home or things in your home can cause damage, but not in nearly the same way), in fact, the only thing comparable to cars in their ability to randomly cuase damage at any time through accident, neglect, or intent, is guns.
Why would it not be covered under the policy? The policy would be specific that if the gun causes harm to someone, whether it be you on accident, you on purpose, or caused by someone else who has your gun with or without your permission, pretty much the same as car insurance.
Of course the point is so that someone with the resources to pay out claims is responsible for paying out claims. If it is left to the gun owner to pay out claims, they probably will not have the resources to cover the damages inflicted b their gun, just as you probably do not have the resources to cover the damages you can cause in your car.
What kinds of conduct are beyond what is typically insurable?
Thanks Doctor Jackson. I appreciate your helpfully engaging with the issues rather than trying to distract and divert.
People can be responsible for cars after they are stolen. This is not an entirely new concept. Even if it were an entirely new concept, so what? Antibiotics, radio broadcasts, and the internet were all entirely new concepts at one time. We can change with the times to make our lives better.
It doesn’t actually create an obligation to secure your property. It does put liability on your insurer if you fail to secure your guns. Accordingly, it gives the insurer an incentive to give you an incentive to secure your guns. Hopefully gun owners will do so and reduce firearms deaths.
It works even without tracing ownership. The insurer is on the hook for the gun forever (or until it is subsequently reinsured), so it doesn’t matter who owns it. The authorities will keep a list of the serial numbers of insured guns, which the insurers will provide to them. There don’t need to be any gun owners’ names on the list of insured guns. Insurers can choose to insure guns anonymously if they are willing to underwrite the policies for anonymous owners. The obligation would be on all gun owners to get a policy. If they fail to do so and the police catch them with an uninsured gun, they can be prosecuted and punished. The mechanism for insuring new guns is basically handled in the distribution process. Dealers have to insure their guns and their insurance stays on it until the buyer subsequently insures it.
My system works by transferring liability to the insurer. The insurer’s liability ends when the gun is subsequently insured by a new insurer. Insurers would be continually estimating their liability for their policies, and they would be able to offer refunds of premiums to gun owners when the guns are reinsured by a new insurance carrier. This could happen when you resell the gun and the buyer agrees to get a new policy. If the new buyer is demonstrably safer than the old buyer, the new buyer might be able to get insurance for less than the old buyer. Guns then become cheaper for safer buyers, and there are incentives to move guns into the hands of safer buyers. Insurers could also offer to premium refunds to gun owners who can find cheaper policies elsewhere.
Insurers could also end their liability by destroying the gun. If it no longer exists, it’s not going to cause any harm.
If you are the gun owner, you are liable to the insurer if it has to pay a claim based on your tortious actions. Otherwise, you bear no liability. Your liability is to the same degree as it is today, but to a different party (the insurer rather than the person harmed).
The final way an insurer’s liability could end is if the insurer goes bankrupt. If so, the owner needs to find a new policy or the same uninsured gun penalties as noted above apply. Be sure as a gun owner when you pick your insurer, you rely on a solvent one.
Insurers will write policies that cover intentional acts if that’s what the law requires. Such insurance will likely be costly but only because guns are very risky and people seem to use them to commit intentional violent acts all the time.
“Cite please?” would probably work, but I’ll engage further.
This isn’t a tax. Premiums are paid to a private entity and the government has no say in those rates. It’s not really analogous to a poll test given that the government has no real say in who qualifies for an insurance policy and who doesn’t.
This doesn’t deny people Constitutional rights. It protects them. I have a Constitutional right to my property, including a property interest in the sanctity of my body and a liberty interest in not being dead. This provision helps to protect those Constitutional rights. When Constitutional rights conflict, the government generally must balance those interests. I don’t know how the Supreme Court would come out in that balancing test but I know how I believe it should.
I don’t think it would require a change to the Constitution. It would require a change to the law but that seems obvious from the OP.
While you were posting, I posted how insurers can effectively change rates. They can offer to refund policy premiums if they believe that your change in behavior will lead to lower claims going forward. So, they might pay you to take a safety class or to buy a gun safe. They might give you an enormous rebate as you age if you will agree to store your guns in a safe deposit box and transfer the guns upon your death to the insurer (so it can either resell them under some new policy or destroy them). They might think of a million ways to make guns safer and reduce gun deaths that I can’t imagine. That’s between the insurer and the gun owner.
The problem is, the problem for all of us, is that your guns will outlive you so they can’t rely on your promises alone to give you a refund if you still own the gun. Think about that - the gun you buy today could still be triggering externalities 200 years from now. My plan makes the original purchaser on the hook for the externalities for the gun’s entire lifetime. Under our current system, we just ignore them.
You didn’t oppose gun registration but you didn’t explicitly call for it either. We don’t have comprehensive gun registration today. Under my system, we could probably live without it.
Or stairs? Or roller blades? Or…Let’s just cut the crap, shall we? This argument of “There’s hundreds of things that kill people, so either require insurance on everything or nothing!” is nothing but diversionary bunk.
If you are arguing based on a principle, yes, you should be able to defend the principle against counter-examples. “I don’t want to talk about that” is not reasoned refutation.
First, automobiles are an *analogy *to illustrate the point. I am not interested in picking nits on an analogy.
As I wrote, firearm owners are effectively “free riders” in the system. IMHO, firearm owners should stop sucking at the government teat and show they are in fact responsible owners. I honestly don’t think it is feasible to mandate how a firearm should be secured from accidents or theft. What is feasible is that there is insurance against failing to secure that firearm. Otherwise, firearm owners make a judgement call on what it means to “secure” the firearm, and if that falls short they get a free pass.
Just for this hijack. Smokers were recognized as a public health risk decades ago despite strong lobbying from the tobacco industry. The government funded research that clearly demonstrates that both first hand and second smoke is a harmful “epidemic”. Taxes went up on tobacco products, smoking is banned in most (all?) government buildings, most (all) workplaces are smoke free, public education is in place, and the number of smokers is dropping, and related deaths are dropping. There is significant progress on the smoking related health front and it’s not the scourge that it once was. We can’t say the same about firearm related wounding and deaths in the US.