Your first sentence does not lead to the conclusion your second sentence jumps to.
No, my cite does not say that.
Yes, some by stealing some by borrowing some by the black market, but only a tiny % are purchased legally thru a gun store.
Scarborough said that about “3 percent of murders and crimes are committed with guns from people who actually (legally) purchase those guns.” Recent studies that look at prisoners who had a gun when they committed a crime found that between 3 and 11 percent purchased the weapon at a store or gun show.
No analogy holds up to all relationships, that’s why it’s an analogy, not a simulacrum.
There is no question as to whether that sort of insurance exists. The thing we are debating is whether it should.
Not everyone has homeowner’s insurance.
Do you believe that guns can be purchased legally in America only through a gun store?if so, you are wrong. Do you believe that buying a weapon is the only way in America to possess a firearm legally? If so, you are wrong. Please stop asserting that every gun not bought thorough a gun store was stolen or that all such guns were illegally obtained. This is wrong, and you are saying it either because you are ignorant of the truth or lying about it.
You can get weapons in America legally by buying them from a gun store, buying them from a private party, trading with a private party for guns, or borrowing them.
If you followed the links on your citation to your sources, you would have found the Chicago Crime Lab study here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0091743515001486
That study, which is one of the sources of your misused statistic, says: “60% of [surveyed criminals’] guns were obtained by purchase or trade. Theft is unusual.”
I will assert again, based on sources relied upon for your irrelevant statistic, that 60% of crime guns were bought, not stolen. I don’t have access to the full study, so I don’t have further information. I don’t know how many additional guns were borrowed. I have no idea what the number of legally purchased guns that are used in crime is. It seems, based on your incorrect assertions, that you don’t know either. Please stop pretending that you do.
“Free riders” on the system. Firearm owners do not bear the bulk of costs associated with injury or death, whether accidental or deliberate. If someone is shot, they don’t have personal insurance, they go to the ER and the cost is picked up by society. They may lose their job and go on unemployment insurance and/or welfare. If they are permanently crippled and unable to work, then go on social security disability. These are all costs that are covered by society, and not the firearm owner. (Setting aside the case where the person that fired the gun has assets or insurance that would actually cover the total damages).
With firearm insurance, these costs would be borne at least in part by the insurance premiums and coverage. I’m assuming rates will be different for various firearms based on actuarial tables, method of storage, demonstrable skill, etc, which would incentivize firearm owners to be more responsible.
DrDeth and others effectively say “we are responsible firearm owners, but if something were to happen we will not take responsibility” nor do they seem willing to consider an insurance option nor proactively suggesting solutions other than the US needs less firearm regulation.
IMHO most of these so-called “responsible firearm owners” are proactive about criticizing others for sucking at the government teat. Pot kettle black
Sure, criminals can buy guns from a fence or from a criminal associate or from a strawman buyer. But they *don’t *buy them legally thru a licensed firearms dealer.
The idea here seems to be requiring insurance on guns bought thru a firearms dealer, not thru a fence, who certainly wouldn’t bother with such insurance.
So of guns used in a crime, only a tiny percentage would have your mythical insurance.
If someone is shot by a criminal, the chance that that criminal would have insurance on his gun is tiny, less than 10%. If someone is shot deliberately by a policy holder, a person who isnt normally a criminal- the insurance would not pay out, due to it being a deliberate act. So, your mythical insurance would be nearly worthless. It would pay out on- accidental shootings.
Most gun owners either have NRA insurance or homeowners insurance which would cover a gun accident. So, yes, we take responsibility. But no, we’re not gonna take responsibility for a gun being stolen and used to kill someone.
We are not willing to seriously consider the insurance discussed here for the same reason we’re not willing to discuss hunting seasons and bag limits on Unicorns- **because both unicorns and the insurance discussed here are totally mythical. **
And of course, most gun owners arent stupid. We realize that this is merely a reasonable sounding way to further push a gun ban. Just like in California, they passed a reasonable sounding law that would require Microstamping technology as soon as such became possible. Of course, our wonderful Kamala Harris decided that such technology was feasible and immediately banned all new guns which dont possess it- which is all new guns, since the technology is not feasible. (and oddly, would rarely help Law Enforcement catch killers anyway). So yes, it sounded reasonable, but was only another gun grab. Just like this mythical “gun insurance” is.
And if you do want a serious alternative, how about a modest increase in the gun excise tax, which would go to the Victims fund?
Ok, I thought that’s what you meant, but wanted to be certain.
I’m not too sure the way gun owners insurance has been proposed in this thread is really feasible. I know that there are advertisements for liability insurance for gun owners, specific to owning and using a gun, but I don’t know what those policies cover or would cover. The typical benefit amount I’ve heard is from 500,000 up to 2million dollars.
What I’ve seen posted so far is a call for a national registry of firearms and who owns them. This so that somehow someone can be legally forced to provide insurance against criminal or accidental misuse and injury. On a national level, I see this as working out much like the ACA, unwieldy, ineffective, expensive and increasingly expensive as time goes on. If left on a state level, the states could tailor the regulations to fit their needs. Idaho doesn’t have the same gun control needs as Wyoming which has different needs than Pennsylvania etc. A policy that’s a good fit for NYC, where there is a higher population density and different social and cultural rules for getting along, might be horribly expensive and maybe useless or maybe even detrimental in say, Montana. OTOH, how likely is it that you might shoot the neighbor’s cow on accident while shooting at a mountain lion preying on your sheep herd if you live in Boston?
Oh, I forgot to ask, does this requirement for insurance remain in force until the next owner insures it or until you provide proof of sale to the government/insuring agency?
With a decent overhaul of the victims fund to make it easier for victims to get payouts, and a large enough tax to cover it, sure.
My proposal is to cover forever every gun that goes through a gun dealer. Since the bond stays on the gun, it doesn’t matter whether it later is resold by a fence/stolen/sold in a private party transaction/given to a friend or whatever. If you can’t understand that, I won’t explain again.
Where do you get 10%? It’s mythical insurance that pays out for intentional acts. Please stop imposing your own myth on how my proposed insurance works and engage with the policy. Or don’t. We know your views.
Cite please? You’ve also already conceded that your liability insurance doesn’t cover your intentional acts. I hope if you shoot me, it’s not on purpose.
Nowhere do I propose a gun ban. It will make guns more expensive and presumably less common. I understand you disagree with that view but under my proposal, there is no reason to ban guns altogether or any particular gun.
How much should that be? I suspect what you find reasonable is much less than is necessary to rectify gun harms.
I haven’t called for a gun registry. My proposed gun insurance could be completely anonymous so not even the insurance company knows who owns the gun. One problem with state-level policies is that guns sold in one state harm people in other states. Google “the Iron Pipeline.”
It remains in force forever. It is only cancelled if a subsequent insurer issues a policy on the same gun. You (the gun owner) don’t provide proof of insurance to anyone. The insurer tells the government which guns are insured. If the government finds that you have a gun in your car, for example, they can check the serial number to see if it’s insured. If it is, great. If not, you’ve violated your insurance requirement. Likewise, if you are buying a gun, you can check the master insurance list to determine whether the gun is insured. If yes, you could either do nothing (relying on the old insurance) or try to find insurance that is cheaper than the old insurance and collect the premium refund.
How much do we set the tax at?
The appropriate level to keep the victim’s fund funded.
I don’t know what that would be, as it would require more figures than I believe we have access to no matter how hard we looked. We need to figure out how much it actually costs to cover the medical needs of all the victims, cover disabilities, and lost wages for death benefits.
Then match that against the guns and ammo that are bought.
You use this analogy, but it’s pretty terrible. Firearm owners should bear responsibility for the harm they directly cause. You are attempting to impart liability for harm caused by others. To illustrate:
[ul]
[li]Person A and B are firearm owners.[/li][li]Person B commits a crime and harms person C.[/li][/ul]
What you are suggesting is that Person A is somehow liable for the harm that C suffered. That’s not a free rider problem. That’s a you trying to impose collective guilt problem.
Unless person A advocated for policies that make it easier for A to get whatever gun, whenever he wants that allowed person B to get a gun when otherwise he wouldn’t have.
Ok, first, thank you for being patient with me on this, I know you’ve explained this all before.
So Gunz-N-Ammo buys a .45cal semi-automatic pistol from Colt. Before Colt ships the gun do they pay a bond? Do they require Gunz-N-Ammo to provide proof of purchase of a bond?
Now Gunz-N-Ammo has a shiny new Colt .45 sitting on the shelf ready for purchase. Me, being a person who enjoys recreational target shooting and exercising my rights, decide to purchase that pistol. Not so fast says G-N-A, before we can let you walk out the door with it, we need proof of purchase of a bond, so we can get our bond money back. Ok, I whip out my handy dandy pop for a bond, they make a copy to file with the paperwork and away I go. Couple years later, I decide that I don’t need so many guns, so I decide to sell the Colt .45 since I didn’t like it as much as I thought I would. Joe from work, a fine upstanding fellow, happens to be in the market for exactly that pistol. I sell it to him, and being buddies I tell him I can wait a few days for the pop for the bond. Disregarding the social fall out of it, he never provides one, in fact he never even gets one. So am I screwed out of my bond money? That’s part of the problem I’m having with your proposal, who pays the bond and how is that money returned when ownership changes? How do you prove you don’t own the gun anymore so that you can get your bond money back? That last part strongly implies records of ownership, thus a registry.
Yes, in a sense. Colt requires Guns-n-Ammo to get a bond. When Colt gets an order for a particular gun, Colt checks the master list of bonded guns to make sure there is a bond on it. If so, it can ship the gun. If not, it holds onto the gun until it shows up on the list. The list doesn’t have to say who paid for or took out the policy. It can be anonymous.
I would recommend that Guns-n-Ammo say, “Not so fast, we need you to insure the gun and the new insurance must show up on the master list before we’ll sell you the gun.” Once Guns-n-Ammo sees the new policy on the list, it can release the gun to the new buyer secure in the knowledge that it’s policy will be refunded.
Alternatively, Guns-n-Ammo could say “This gun costs $500 by itself or $2,500 with insurance.” If, as a buyer, you can get cheaper insurance than $2,000, you will insure the gun as above. If not, you will just get the gun with Guns-n-Ammo’s insurance attached.
Guns-n-Ammo doesn’t need a copy of the policy or any information from you. It just needs to check the master list of insured guns.
Yes. But if you were worried that he wouldn’t pay you back for the bond, the easier thing to do would be to price the gun with the insurance policy attached. Let’s say the insurer says that they will pay you $1800 if you get replacement insurance on the gun. You tell Joe, the gun is $400, plus $1800 for the insurance. He pays you $2200 and you are fully satisfied. He can then either keep your insurance (and no new records are created), or he can seek a new replacement policy for less money and keep the difference. Or, you could let him get new insurance, then, when you see the new insurance on the list, you release the gun to him and get the refund from your insurer. L Or, you could collect $400 from him and his promise to get new insurance. That’s really no different than selling a car and agreeing to take payments. You can do it but it is generally stupid when there are so many more secure ways to close the deal.
[QUOTE=guestchaz]
So Gunz-N-Ammo buys a .45cal semi-automatic pistol from Colt. Before Colt ships the gun do they pay a bond? Do they require Gunz-N-Ammo to provide proof of purchase of a bond?
This is my second correction of my own post this morning. I should be clear that Colt doesn’t pay a bond on guns it manufactures but it won’t sell a gun to someone else until the gun is insured. I don’t think we have a real problem with in the U.S. with licensed manufacturers diverting guns into the black market so it’s probably unnecessary now to require them to have insurance on guns they make.
We have shown that only 3-11% of guns used in crimes are bought legally from a registered gun dealer. I understand what you’re trying to get at, but you are basicllay arguing that Unicorns are silver, not white, since both unicorns and your “gun insurance” are equally mythical. No such insurance exists, nor is likely to exist.
My cite that shows only 3-11% of guns used in crimes are legally bought from a registered gun dealer.
97% of homeowners have homeowners insurance.
https://www.uphelp.org/news/after-disaster-uninsured-homeowners-have-little-fall-back/2012-02-01
We dont really know how many gun owners belong to the NRA, but it’s not a small %.
“Nowhere do I propose a gun ban.” " It will make guns more expensive and presumably less common." * Which is, indeed** a gun ban.** A “gun ban” doesnt have to mean a ban on all firearms, it can mean laws set for to reduce the number of guns in circulation, which is exactly what you intend with your mythical "insurance. "
No. If I credit your citation, you have shown that criminals obtained their guns legally from a registered gun dealer only 3-11% of the time. My proposal covers guns, essentially from birth, if they were ever owned by a gun dealer. So, if the 89%-97% of remaining criminals:
- Stole a gun from a gun store,
- Stole a gun from someone who bought it at a gun store,
- Bought a gun that had been purchased at a gun store,
- Traded for a gun from someone who bought it from a gun store,
- Bought a gun illegally from a gun store,
- Borrowed a gun that had been bought at a gun store, or
- Did any of these things with an old gun that any owner insured after the law comes into effect…
the gun would be covered. Is it your position that this universe of guns is zero? If so, I’d ask you for a citation. I believe that this covers pretty close to the entire universe of new guns and potentially some huge portion of the used guns. Even if it covered only a small portion of injuries, you still haven’t explained why getting restitution for that portion of gun violence victims is worse than getting it for essentially none.
I cannot comprehend your unicorn analogy but I will beg you not to try to explain it to me.
The problem with your position is that my proposal isn’t a prohibition on any guns. You can own and use any gun you want. If gun prices go up because the cost of metal rises, is that also a ban? No, it’s just something that makes guns more expensive. Please don’t arbitrarily redefine the word “ban” to suit your purposes. It makes it hard to discuss the proposal in good faith. My proposal restructures liability laws. It is actually similar in that way to the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act.
My proposal isn’t intended to actually increase* the price of guns. It merely readjusts who pays the real price of guns between gun buyers and gun crime victims.
- There will be some overhead for insurers to underwrite policies, take premiums, interact with the gun insurance list, and pay claims. This is a real transaction cost of the proposal that does make guns somewhat more expensive. I don’t have the ability to estimate how much that would cost but free market competition among insurers would hopefully minimize this cost.
Except of course, your proposal can only effect new guns brought into circulation from gun stores, not the 300 million already out there- not to mention your proposal is based on a type of insurance which is entirely and completely mythical and non-existant.
“The power to tax is the power to destory”. Using your own figures of* "the gun is $400, plus $1800 for the insurance. "* meaning adding 400% to the price of a gun-is an effective ban. How about $1Million dollars? Or a billion?