Why is there no law to make sure that all gun owners be required to carry insurance coverage against accidental injury to others.
I think that if an owners gun is in anyway accidentally used to cause injury to another person, he or she must be held liable and their insurance coverage must see to it that the njured party gets adequately compensated.
It would probably be unconstitutional. Requiring gun owners to have an insurance policy would probably be ruled an infringement of their right to carry a firearm.
You can do it with automobiles because there’s no equivalent constitutional protection to own a car.
Reported for forum change.
In the meantime, replace “gun” with; radial arm saw, chainsaw, lawn dart, floor jack, etc.
In aggregate it’s not a big enough issue, or at least isn’t seen to be. If it was, the OP’s proposal would already be in place. Yes, some folks are out of luck in certain situations, but there’s lot of other non-firearm related examples of such injustice that is allowed to occur (see **kayaker’s **post or for fun, owning pitbulls without insurance). Can’t make the world perfect or fair in everyone’s eyes.
Plus probably not enough votes to make it happen. In short… bigger fish to fry.
Regular homeowners/renters insurance already covers guns.
Generally, home owners insurance covers liability in the event of an accidental shooting. There is not really a market for additional liability insurance for accidents. The NRA sells insurance for self defense shootings which are not covered under most home insurance plans.
Since this involves politics, let’s move it over to Great Debates.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
I’m not arguing with you here, you’ve laid out the conventional and accepted argument. I just wanted to add that I’ve never found that argument convincing. It’s akin to saying guns should be free because requiring people to pay for them would be an infringement of their right to carry a firearm.
To be more scientific, you’re talking about a very small dataset.
So if you go to CDC and find gun-related injuries/deaths:
-take out suicides
-take out immediate family events (no one sues their immediate family)
-take out self-defense related events (hard to win a suit the law says the shooting was justified)
-take out crime related events (criminals don’t take on insurance)
-take out accidental self-inflicted events (I’m not responsible if you as an adult take my gun from my house/closet and shoot yourself, same as if you took my circular saw and cut your arm off)
Now you’re left with a much smaller number of incidents that insurance might be applicable to.
-Factor out cases where individuals have umbrella or other policies already.
-Factor out cases where the gun in question was illegally acquired and so the owner isn’t going to follow any insurance requirement anyway
-Factor out cases where the parties don’t want to bring a lawsuit for whatever reason
-Factor out cases where the sued party has enough assets to cover the damages (e.g. a non-crippling injury that fully heals with no lasting effects on the body)
That’s the size of the issue you’re trying to fix and it’s not big enough to warrant a federal law.
My homeowners insurance covers accidents with all of these things.
I wonder if it covers concealed carry events outside the home. Say a licensed gun owner drops their weapon in the grocery store causing it to discharge and hitting somebody. I doubt the gun owner’s homeowners insurance would cover this.
Probably not. But then, it wouldn’t cover me carrying my DeWalt saws all outside and accidentally hurting or killing someone with it either.
How often does a person with a carry conceal license actually drop their gun, have it accidentally discharge and hurt or kill someone? My WAG is that this happens about as often as someone choking to death on a tooth pick in the US, which explains why insurance isn’t required. However, if it is happening often (say, more than a 1000 such incidents a year), I’m willing to see the evidence.
Some things involve a balancing of rights. Here, we have to find a balance between gun rights, and the rights of gun manufacturers to get paid for their work and property.
As would mine; however, I’m not required by law to carry homeowner’s insurance.
And the reason we wouldn’t balance gun rights and the right of people injured by the negligence of a gun owner is…? I agree with XT’s point about the relative paucity of these incidents making insurance unreasonable, for the record (though his calculation is a bit off).
Most handguns are designed to be drop-safe. They won’t discharge if you accidentally drop them.
A lot of long guns aren’t drop-safe, but people don’t tend to carry shotguns and hunting rifles into grocery stores.
Is the OP saying that gun owners should carry insurance against unauthorized use of their guns? For example, guns are unsecured in the home and little Johnny gets it and shoots someone? Or Big Bad Bob breaks in and steals the gun and uses it in homicide or sells it to someone who does?
I understand that. But since guns aren’t free you have to make the case that adding the cost of insurance is going to have an actual impact on the right to own them.
I would think that I ought to be afforded a rebate/savings on my health and homeowner’s insurance if I do not own any guns. Other “risky” activities are reflected in insurance premiums.
Would it be unconstitutional for registered gun owners to be charged higher premiums? My strong suspicion is that some significant percentage of self-inflicted gunshot injuries, and in home shootings are from folk who own guns.
Why would you factor out every one of those? Even most life insurance polices cover suicide after a certain period. Like car insurance, the cost of non-compliance should be rolled into the coverage of the law abiding as long as significant penalties exist for being uninsured. The reason this should be the case is because even having a gun legally has negative societal externalities that need to be paid for by someone.