Well, I CAN have it both ways, but that’s another issue. I’m not asking to have it both ways here…I’m asking what problem are we trying to solve? If it’s a lot probability event with little monetary damage, then why would we ‘require’ this insurance (leaving aside the obvious reason)? Car insurance solves a real, tangible issue…we don’t do it to make cars more expensive to have and use, we do it to protect the drivers of vehicles in accidents. Over 40,000 Americans die each year in car crashes, and many times that are injured. Cars are big and expensive items and cause a lot of damage when they crash into each other and into other things.
It would still be a government requirement that a person would have to comply with in order to own a firearm.
There are government regulations that I feel don’t meet the standard of infringement. You could enact a requirement for all guns to be registered, in my opinion, because such a requirement wouldn’t prevent anyone from owning a gun. And the government can charge a sales tax on gun purchases, as long as it’s the normal rate, because that’s a general source of revenue that’s neutral on the product being sold.
But I don’t see how an insurance requirement can be considered as something other than an infringement. It would be specifically linked to guns. And some people would be unable to obtain such an insurance policy.
Wouldn’t it have to be a tax? Obama tried to claim that the federal government could charge a fee if citizens didn’t buy something he thought they should, but he had to change his tune when it got into court. So it became a tax.
Regards,
Shodan
Do you consider your car insurance a tax? This isn’t something everyone is required to get, only people who want to own guns. I would assume people could self-insure somehow, and as mentioned already plenty of people already have liability insurance through their home-owners policy. I’m sure NRA would be able to offer a low cost plan that gun owners wouldn’t object to.
I know that this scheme is unworkable anyway, there are millions of guns in people’s hands already and this can’t be made a requirement without some requiring registration of all those guns, and we know that won’t fly, so it’s a moot point, but I don’t see anything wrong with the principle.
We hashed this out in the Obamacare debates. You don’t need insurance if you own a car; you do if you want to drive the car.
See also “…shall not be infringed.”
Regards,
Shodan
Factored suicide out because the OP was specifically talking about liability insurance for 3rd parties who were injured. The rest were adjustments to get to cases where 3rd parties were injured and and the gun-owner would both be reasonably liable and likely to carry required insurance (i.e. a responsible citizen and not a criminal).
If we generalize the OP to include all types of insurance payouts and cover any and all damages to any and all persons, then you would certainly adjust accordingly, but that’s not what the OP seemed to be driving at.
I don’t see that as any more infringement than a public toll road. There are plenty of other infringements on the right to bear arms that are based on reasonableness, this one doesn’t seem unreasonable to me. If it bothers you that much I’d have no problem with a means test on the requirement.
In what way is an insurance requirement an infringement? Should the government be prohibited form taxing the purchase of firearms?
The problem being solved is that we have more guns than people in the U.S., and those guns are used to cause more harm than good in my opinion. More specifically, lax guns laws, the existence of demonstrable negative externalities, and the absence of almost all accountability leads to physical and economic costs that largely fall on the shoulders of the victims of gun violence and society as a whole rather than the responsible parties. That issue could be partially remedied by making stakeholders financially culpable just as we do land owners, car owners, and business owners (to name a few). Yes, attributing those costs would probably mean fewer guns and a higher costs, but that would probably result in fewer deaths and more responsible gun use.
Really? IANAL but it sure seems to me that if you shoot your spouse there’s nothing to stop your spouse’s parents from suing you for wrongful death. And IIRC, nearly half of all handgun deaths in the US are from one spouse shooting the other, so it’s not a small fraction here.
I’d be more concerned with the numerous cases where a gun owner THINKS it’s justified but it really isn’t. I read recently about a study where they asked hundreds of gun owners to describe, in their own words, a time when they used their handgun in self defense, then showed those descriptions (with names redacted) to a judge. In the majority of the cases, the judge said it really wasn’t self defense at all, but often amounted to assault, menacing, or extortion. And that’s only hearing the handgun owner’s version of events! Just imagine how lopsided it would be if the judge had heard the other person’s side of the story.
Umm… by that same logic, when you’re trying to justify auto insurance, you should ignore all the car crashes that happened when one party or the other wasn’t following all the traffic laws. Frankly, I’d love to see a case where a criminal gets arrested for armed robbery, and then on top of that they also get charged with carrying a handgun without insurance, so two convictions there.
And as I pointed out above, the big difference is that you don’t have a constitutional right to own or operate a car. So the government can infringe upon that by requiring insurance.
Also correct.
Regards,
Shodan
Here’s another way to look at this issue. Requiring auto insurance isn’t for the purpose of putting a financial burden on all drivers and encouraging them to give up their cars. But it DOES put an extra burden on drivers who have lots of accidents and/or get lots of tickets. Auto insurance gives drivers an incentive to keep a clean record, take driver safety classes, and stay out of accidents. The same could be said for gun insurance. Don’t look at it as trying to reduce the number of guns, but rather as giving gun owners an incentive to take gun safety courses, keep their guns securely locked away, keep a clean criminal record, and avoid shooting people. The few irresponsible gun owners out there would either have to clean up their act or pay much higher insurance premiums than everyone else pays.
Right…and it is completely unkown for shitty drivers to just go ahead and drive uninsured and/or unlicensed?
So something like this happens, who is responsible for her being made whole?
And yet another one…
OK, so… what’s your point? Home insurance would cover that event just as it would for the 350 children killed by falling TV sets.
Personally think that every individual should be required to carry a separate policy for the gun they’re carrying around and it cannot be one that is enveloped in a home insurance cos then that gets spread around to folks who ain’t carrying guns.
You seem to be suggesting there are some bad drivers who don’t get insurance therefore it’s pointless to require drivers to have insurance. And, by extension, there would be some bad gun owners who wouldn’t get gun insurance therefore it’s pointless to require gun owners to have gun insurance. Interesting argument.
What is the problem we are trying to solve here? Are there thousands of people who are injured by negligent acts of gun owners (remember, insurance never covers intentional acts)? And of those, are a sufficient number not compensated from the homeowners insurance or otherwise?
If there were a real problem here we could address it, but I can’t help but think that a handful of gun injuries per year that go uncompensated does not equal the need for a massive new federal requirement which IMHO is proposed only to make gun ownership more difficult. Just think of the poor! How many people will be denied the right to keep and bear arms because of this requirement?
If we look at the voter ID threads there is the complaint that going to get a free id card is too much of a burden. Why not the same rationale for guns?