# Why are gun owners not required to carry insurance? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 22, 2015, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-gun-owners-not-required-to-carry-insurance/735454 "2015-10-22T13:44:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 104
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2015, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-gun-owners-not-required-to-carry-insurance/735454/104 "2015-10-28T15:57:09Z")
[quote=“brickbacon, post:66, topic:735454”] The real problem is that gun crimes cost society billions of dollars and thousands of lives every year. [quote] Please explain to me WHY it shouldn’t be more difficult given the deleterious effects of gun ownership broadly speaking?{/quote] Because most of those deleterious effects you are talking about are not the result of legal gun ownership. You are imposing costs on one group of gun owners (legal gun owners) for acts that are largely committed by another group of gun owners (people who are not allowed to purchase guns). > [@](#): > > Yes, it’s a right, but many rights, like assembly for example have barriers that are intended to create some balance. I cannot protest anywhere at any time. Now, imagine if every protest signed off by the government was more likely to injure and kill multiple people than to have its intended effect. Don’t you think the government would step in to make getting a permit a bit harder? Why is that a bad thing? Are you under the impression that there are no barriers to gun ownership? That there are no regulations in place? > [@](#): > > So? The point of insurance is to make injured parties whole. Intent absent fraud is immaterial in the majority of case. That does not seem to be the intent of this proposal for insurance. Insurance companies would probably not vary premiums based on individual risk. Who the heck would you charge more? I suppose you could make some demographic determinations and charge young males more and older females less but it really wouldn’t be event based. The universe of people who have had accidental discharges and might therefore be subjected to higher event based premiums is vanishingly small. --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-gun-owners-not-required-to-carry-insurance/735454)._