I can’t see how. HO rates are set by private carriers, not the government (except certain riders like flood and storm insurance, which are typically regulated).
No, it’s not. Your right to free speech doesn’t mean the world owes you a printing press, does it?
Would it preclude a requirement to insure dangerous printing presses?
Insure them against what? The owners of commercial presses are generally going to be required to carry workers’ compensation and liability insurance.
Not all gun owners also own homes, so homeowner’s insurance would not always be a factor.
What problem, exactly, are we supposedly trying to solve by requiring gun owners to have insurance? The problem we were trying to solve by requiring drivers to have car insurance was that there are 10’s of thousands of accidents in the US each year costing billions, so having insurance mitigates the cost in damages, presumably. But there aren’t 10’s of thousands of gun accidents causing 10’s of thousands of potential law suits or damages, however, so I’m unsure of what requiring insurance would solve in the US. It SEEMS like this is just a back door way to add cost to gun owners in an attempt to put negative costs on them, perhaps to discourage people from personal ownership, but maybe I’m being too cynical here. What problem is the OP trying to solve with this proposal? Can we quantify why insurance should be required?
The problem is that most people do not have the resources to make someone else whole for serious injuries. That’s why people who own dangerous equipment like cars and guns have to insure it.
Right, but most people, even most gun owners which is a smaller subset, aren’t going to be in a situation wrt a gap in their coverage between what they already have and some low probability event wrt a gun accident outside of that coverage. Unless I’m missing something here, we are talking about very few such events happening overall, and even fewer happening in the gap between something like Home Owners and no coverage at all.
We can’t require coverage for every low probability event that COULD happen. Now, I’m game to make gun insurance that covers those sorts of gaps available (assuming it doesn’t exist already…and there is a market for it). Sort of like flood insurance is available, but not required in general.
I think you would be surprised at the number of people who have homeowners’ insurance (or don’t, rather).
Flood insurance is not required because it is first party coverage. If you don’t have it, only you get fucked if your house floods.
Probably…my WAG is about a third have it, including renters, but I haven’t looked it up. It’s not required but a good idea.
Even car insurance isn’t apparently required in all states, though. And we are back to it being a low probability event, even if every single gun accident in the US were liable for damages. My hang up in this is the required part…we don’t require insurance in every low probability event that could cause harm or damages, so why should we do that with guns? Even the example of cars it’s not required in all states, though it is in most (it’s still smart to get uninsured car owner insurance, though…I have that as a rider on my policy since there are a distressing number of folks in my state who skip the whole getting car insurance thingy).
No, the Constitution only prohibits governmental infringement of firearm ownership. The cost of buying a gun is between private entities.
So if gun shops started charging five thousand dollars for a gun, most people couldn’t afford them but it wouldn’t illegal. But if the government put a five thousand dollar tax on guns, it would probably be an illegal infringement on ownership.
Except Virginia, the states that do not require insurance coverage require uninsured drivers to post a cash bond that covers injured third parties in case of an accident.
Virginia is fucking weird.
Well you can’t have it both ways. If there aren’t thousands or incidences and lots of monetary damage, then insurance will cost very little, and thus it won’t be a burden. If there is a lot of aggregate damage done by guns, then gun owners should shoulder much of that burden as it’s largely a externality of gun ownership.
I’m not normally a betting man, but it seems to me almost inconceivable this would happen. Admittedly, no evidence exists one way or the other.
I’m sure this wouldn’t be ruled unconstitutional either, but I think it infringes what should be my right not to pay for gun accident liability insurance I’ll never need:
No, but a small subset of people do carry AR-15s, and those have floating firing pins and are therefore prone to discharge upon dropping, as are AK-pattern rifles.
There’s no requirement to have insurance because there’s no perceived need. I would also be willing to look at the incidence of accidental discharge resulting in injury or damage while carrying. Most of those “accidents”, though, would be some idiot playing with the trigger as the vast majority of handguns have a drop safety that cannot be defeated without the idiocy of its possessor. When that is the case it stops being a liability case and instead becomes a criminal matter.
It’s not a tax, it’s an insurance requirement, and not one likely to cost very much since it’s only covering accidental injury to others. Frankly I’d like to see the coverage extend far beyond that, but that’s what was specified in the OP.
Just because you have a right to own or do something doesn’t mean anyone is obligated to provide you with the means to exercise said right. Your right to freely assemble with others does not mean anyone is required to provide you with the means to get to where everyone is assembling. You have a right to worship as you see fit but if you’re part of a Neo-Pagan Egyptian reconstruction religion nobody is obligated to help you build a temple for Ra.
I can’t help but look at the insurance idea as another barrier to gun ownership.
It’s not a gang, it’s a club.
It’s both.
While the Second Amendment says the government can’t enact a law that infringes on gun ownership, it doesn’t say the government can’t enact a law that promotes gun ownership. There’s no wall of separation between the state and gun ownership.