Why are gun owners not required to carry insurance?

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@TriPolar

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.

Its not akin to that at all. Not imposing costs on exercising right is not the equivalent of paying for the exercise of that right.

Imagine a requirement that everyone who posts anything on the internet has to carry libel insurance. Or just those people who have websites.

This is not the same as paying for everyone to have a website and a server to maintain it.

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@Really_Not_All_That_Bright

In what way is an insurance requirement an infringement? Should the government be prohibited form taxing the purchase of firearms?

No more than they are from taxing the sale of a magazine.

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@Clu-Me-In

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.

That’s just special pleadings. An insurance company might ask about gun ownership to determine premiums (just like they ask you how you heat your home and whether you have a dead bolt), but it seems like you are simply trying to increase burdens on gun ownership for the sake of increasing those burdens.

[Damuri_Ajashi]

[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.

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@sbunny8

I’m not convinced that homeowner’s insurance is sufficient because there is no requirement that gun owners have it. Someone who rents an apartment and doesn’t carry renter’s insurance can still go out and buy a gun. Heck, someone who is homeless could own a gun. Surely you don’t think that homeless people have homeowner’s insurance.

Surely you don’t think that the homeless person is going to have gun insurance, even if it was legally required.

Televisions, no. But we already live with the rule that people who have swimming pools in their back yard pay higher premiums than people who don’t. I say the same should apply to guns.

It already does. Your insurance company can ask you if you have a gun to determine your premiums (considering they cover gun accidents), but they don’t because the risk is so remote that it would be silly to price that into the premium. Unless you are going to force legal gun owners to pay for the criminal liability of others (and crimes are generally not covered by insurance) you are talking about a difference that is so small that insurance companies do not charge a higher premium. Pools represent far higher risks than a gun in the home.

You pay an extra rider on your liability insurance, if you already have it, or you are required to buy an extra policy specifically for the guns. People who don’t have guns wouldn’t pay those premiums, just like people who don’t have swimming pools don’t pay the premiums that people who have them do.

I don’t think you understand how insurance works. If insurance companies thought it was useful to segregate the risk of loss from gun ownership, they would but they don’t. I recently changed my homeowners insurance policy and they asked me how I heat my home, if I have a dead bolt, how far I am from a fire station, etc. they didn’t bother to ask me about gun ownership because it has a negligible effect on liability.

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@brickbacon

No, it shows I have a basic understanding of economics. The reality is almost and “tax” is gonna reduce demand somewhat. That is not my intention, as much as it is an acknowledgement of the likely outcome. That said, I have zero problem with that. The fact is there is zero positive benefit to having roughly as many guns as people in this country and almost no barriers to almost anyone getting one.

No, I don’t deny that I want people to consider and shoulder the costs of gun ownership. That said, I don’t think the costs would be prohibitive. Let’s just do some back of the envelope math. There are roughly 30k people killed with guns, and 70k injured per year. The average life insurance payout is around 235k, and about 75mm report owning guns. Let’s for the sake of argument say 50% of those deaths and injuries payout at 235k/person and roughly 2/3 of people comply and buy insurance. That’s 235k x 50k/50mm or roughly $235/year or around $20/month. Certainly not cost prohibitive for the average person.

There are a lot of guns I can buy for less than $235.

Until just now I thought you were talking about a meaningless insurance premium for gun accidents, the sort of thing that is already covered by my home insurance. now I see you are trying to have gun owners bear the cost of all gun deaths. So I have a few questions.

How would you pay out on suicides? How do you know that suicide would not have occurred but for the gun?
How would you pay out on a murder committed by a felon who did not have gun insurance?

Please show me ANY other area where we do something like this? You are basically trying to lay blame for all gun deaths (including gun crime) at the feet of gun owners generally.

Regardless, that is beside the point. Please tell me why you think this is unfair or a bad idea?

I can’t think of any insurance that pays out for my criminal acts. If I rape you in my basement, my homeowner’s policy is not going to pay you for the harm you sustained. I go to jail and you can sue me but my insurance company is not going to stand in front of me and cover my liability.

If I use a gun to rape you in my basement, there is not an insurance company in the world that will cover me for that. I am on my own, no one will offer that policy.

For the same reason my mortgage rates are affected by deadbeats in Las Vegas, my car insurance rates are affected by car theft in the inner city and drag racers, and my health insurance rates are affected by smokers and chronically ill people my company also happens to insure.

And in which of those cases is the insured committing a crime that you have to pay for?

This is not that complicated. You and the “gangbanger in Detriot” are essentially part of the same risk population due to you both owning a deadly weapon.

And there it is.

You basically cannot differentiate between legal gun owners and murderers.

Your owning a gun makes you a risk to have it stolen and used in a crime, accidentally shooting yourself or someone else, or just committing a crime yourself. All those factors will be weighed and your risk with be commensurate with your premium amount.

Insurance companies are simply not going to cover criminal liability like that.

I sincerely believe it is a reasonable regulation to reduce gun crime and make victims financially whole.

You can believe whatever you want but it is inconsistent with how our law works in almost every other area.

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@brickbacon

Additionally, my system would require insurance providers to establish a fund, kinda like the vaccine injury compensation, in order to be a licensed provider of gun liability insurance. The theory used to justify this is that since we are mandating gun owners theoretically insure 300mm or so guns, we need insurance companies to be incentivized to shoulder ALL of the costs. Otherwise you would never be able to hold anyone accountable since not every gun used in a crime is recovered, traceable, or registered in any place.

Except in this case, the insurance company would be handing over the majority of all payouts to cover the liability of uninsured criminals. I can’t think of any insurance scheme where the majority of payouts are made on behalf of people who never paid premiums.

The legal market for guns props up the illegal market for guns. As a participant in the former you have a responsibility for the latter.

This seems to be the underlying assumption that you use to justify assigning financial liability to legal gun owners for the acts of criminals. This assumes that criminals would not have guns if people were not legally allowed to purchase guns. I don’t think that is even remotely close to correct.

I also don’t think that these deaths disappear in the absence of guns. I don’t think suicides drop by 18,000/year if we could magically make all the guns disappear.

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@sbunny8

What you’re describing reminds me of Worker’s Comp insurance. Employers are required by law to have an insurance policy specifically for the purpose of covering on-the-job injuries. And (in Oregon, at least) there is a fund set up for workers who get injured and then find out that their employer didn’t have the required insurance. It’s called the Worker’s Benefit Fund, and it’s paid for by a payroll tax. Here in Oregon, the tax is 3 cents per hour worked, regardless of how much the employee gets paid per hour.

So, here we have an example where I, a responsible employer, and my accident-free employees, are contributing money to help injured workers whose employers are breaking the law. Frankly, I don’t see a problem with it. I’m happy to do our part to help other people, knowing that it could be us who need the help some day. For example, suppose I were one day late sending in my insurance premiums and that just happened to be the day that one of my employees had an accident. I’m glad to know they wouldn’t be left high and dry.

And how would you feel if over 50% of the workers comp claims came from uninsured employers?

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@Lumpy

This. Eliminate people who are uninsurable to begin with and the vast majority of gun owners who will never get in trouble. The remaining number of people facing liability for negligence/ wrongful action is minimal.

The problem is that many see gun owners as implicitly responsible for all gun violence, for insisting that guns be legal at all.

They see gun crime as an externality of gun ownership. They think that gun crimes are a side effect of legal gun ownership.

[robert_columbia]

@watchwolf49

You must have a lot of people on your ignore list. I don’t think it’s incoherent and although a better list could be put together, this one is good enough to get the point across…

Thank you. My point was that there are a lot of things that people do and that people own that have the potential to cause damage. Singling out guns is largely a political move by people who want to get rid of guns, not people who are really into finding ways to reduce safety risks among the general public.

Once in a while, someone not paying attention will bump into another person on the street and cause that person to fall and suffer injury. Why are we not required to show a current Walker Insurance sheet in order to buy shoes? The answer is not that there is no danger, but that there is no political will to make Walker Insurance required.

[sbunny8]

@Damuri_Ajashi

And how would you feel if over 50% of the workers comp claims came from uninsured employers?

That depends. If the non-compliance rate was over 50% and nobody was trying to do anything about it, I’d be pretty upset. But if the non-compliance rate was over 50% and those who were breaking the law faced a significant risk of being caught and fined, I’d probably be okay with it. In Oregon, the CCB goes after construction companies who pay their workers under the table and fines them for not paying Worker’s Comp insurance. But the CCB only targets the construction industry. I don’t know how big the problem is in other sectors. Anyway, if the CCB just shrugged and said “eh, what can you do?” then I might be upset about having to pay into the Worker’s Benefit Fund.

[brickbacon]

@watchwolf49

Knives have a few positive functions outside law enforcement, I don’t think we’ll be registering butter knives any time soon. But the subject at hand is insurance, not regulations.

True. If knives were as deleterious with as little upside as guns, and they were constitutionally allowed, then I would be for insurance or some other type of regulation. They are not, so the point is moot.

@watchwolf49

I’m not participating in that risk pool, gangbanger caps gangbanger how do I get sued?

You wouldn’t get sued. Why do you not understand this point? Just like a business whose owner must contribute to worker’s comp, a fund that will pay out in an injury that had nothing to do with her, doesn’t get sued when said injury happens.

@watchwolf49

What risk does the law abiding gun-owner cause? Do any of your counter-examples include felonies?

They facilitate the illegal gun market in a number of ways I’ve already outlined.

@watchwolf49

Most of the cost of gun violence comes from people who don’t follow the law to begin with … the murder itself is 25 to life, I don’t think financial penalties are much of a deterrent.

Financial penalties aren’t there as a deterrent for criminals; they make victims whole.

@watchwolf49

I come up with $2m per gun related death, and that includes suicides.

How do you come up with that number if people self-insure for far less?

@watchwolf49

That’s a lot of money to give to the gangbanger’s whore.

Stay classy!

@Damuri_Ajashi

Because most of those deleterious effects you are talking about are not the result of legal gun ownership.

Again, the line of demarcation is essentially meaningless.

@Damuri_Ajashi

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).

This is what most market based insurance systems do to a large extent. Someone is always “punished” for someone else’s behavior, actions, or decisions. And many times, those actions are illegal. For example, ER care for people who OD on illegal drugs, incidences of mortgage fraud bidding up mortgage interest rates, and auto insurance rates being higher due to theft and fraud.

@Damuri_Ajashi

Are you under the impression that there are no barriers to gun ownership? That there are no regulations in place?

There essentially aren’t. Just as despite the fact that there are numerous drug laws with harsh punishments, there are no barriers to obtaining most drugs.

@Damuri_Ajashi

Insurance companies would probably not vary premiums based on individual risk.

Of course they would. It would be trivially easy to do so.

@Damuri_Ajashi

Who the heck would you charge more?

People with kids, those who refuse to lock their guns or take a safety course, those who live in high crime areas, etc.

[brickbacon]

@Damuri_Ajashi

How would you pay out on suicides? How do you know that suicide would not have occurred but for the gun?

Statistics and surveys regarding the legality of various methods of attempted and completed suicides. The payment amount would likely be determined based on assignment of culpability, the amount in the fund, the expected earning lost, the number of survivors, etc.

@Damuri_Ajashi

How would you pay out on a murder committed by a felon who did not have gun insurance?

Similar to the above with an increased emphasis on going after those who allowed the gun to reach the hands of the criminal. In those cases, I would require the insurance company to go after the assets of those individual to recoup their payouts.

@Damuri_Ajashi

Please show me ANY other area where we do something like this? You are basically trying to lay blame for all gun deaths (including gun crime) at the feet of gun owners generally.

Asked and answered multiple times.

@Damuri_Ajashi

I can’t think of any insurance that pays out for my criminal acts.

Most insurances pay out for your criminals acts if you are covered. What they don’t do is pay out for acts that would result in you enriching yourself as a result. for example, my home insurance would likely pay out for injury I caused to someone else on my property even if my actions were illegal.

@Damuri_Ajashi

If I rape you in my basement, my homeowner’s policy is not going to pay you for the harm you sustained.

Because that is an intentional criminal act committed by the insured. Not all illegal acts are intentionally criminal.

@Damuri_Ajashi

You basically cannot differentiate between legal gun owners and murderers.

I can, I just don’t think it’s materially more important than the other factors are play which make them part of the same risk pool regarding insurance.

@Damuri_Ajashi

Except in this case, the insurance company would be handing over the majority of all payouts to cover the liability of uninsured criminals.

How do you know that? Where do you think criminals get guns? In the fact majority of cases, it’s from someone who had an moral obligation to protect society by ensuring the gun wasn’t used for criminality.

@Damuri_Ajashi

This seems to be the underlying assumption that you use to justify assigning financial liability to legal gun owners for the acts of criminals. This assumes that criminals would not have guns if people were not legally allowed to purchase guns. I don’t think that is even remotely close to correct.

Wrong. It’s a matter of degree. There would be FAR fewer guns in criminal hands if every legal gun owner up and down the line was financially responsible for making sure they weren’t used in crimes. Denying this is just willful blindness.

[watchwolf49]

@brickbacon

True. If knives were as deleterious with as little upside as guns, and they were constitutionally allowed, then I would be for insurance or some other type of regulation. They are not, so the point is moot.

Huh? Because knife ownership isn’t constitutionally protected, you don’t think they need liability insurance … you can see where one might think this is solely because you yourself own knives. If you say the point is moot, then you acknowledge that the point was completely valid at some time in the past, but due to a change in circumstances, the point is now invalid … what is this change?

@brickbacon

You wouldn’t get sued. Why do you not understand this point? Just like a business whose owner must contribute to worker’s comp, a fund that will pay out in an injury that had nothing to do with her, doesn’t get sued when said injury happens.

Horsefeathers … I own a business and provide a service to the general public. I don’t carry Workers Comp Insurance because I have absolutely NO RISK of any of my employees getting hurt on the job … simply because I have NO employees. It doesn’t matter how many workers get hurt on the job, doesn’t cost me one red cent. The same is so with Brenda here under my pillow, there’s no risk she’ll be used in a crime, plain waste of money me buying insurance for her. When I leave on holiday she spends the time at the neighborhood Neo-Nazi’s house with her playmates.

Consider the employee who suffers a seizure on the job. We rush him to the hospital and they determine the cause was a heroin overdose. Do you honestly think Worker’s Comp is going to pay for this? Hell no, the worker was injured committing a felony that isn’t job related … Worker’s Comp won’t pay anything for the treatment.

@brickbacon

They facilitate the illegal gun market in a number of ways I’ve already outlined.

You’ve not made the connection … how does Brenda under my pillow facilitate crime anymore than shoes on my feet facilitate bank robbers running away with shoes on their feet?

@brickbacon

Financial penalties aren’t there as a deterrent for criminals; they make victims whole.

No, the insurance payouts make the victims whole, or are you suggesting the insurance companies not make payouts leaving the criminal justice system to do so?

@brickbacon

How do you come up with that number if people self-insure for far less?

$20 a month, 300 million guns, 30,000 victims … do the math yourself … I come up with $2 miilion each victim.

@brickbacon

Stay classy!

No, 14th Amendment’s equal protection under the law … unless you’re seriously suggesting only upper middle class survivors get any payouts, and the lowest classes get nothing …

---

It’s pretty obvious here that you’re not thinking this through … you seem completely focused on requiring gun insurance solely to limit gun ownership. Your suggested enforcement mechanisms are at best impossible to implement, the payouts are mostly going to crack-whores … and we haven’t even started on whether such a program is even constitutional in every state of the union.

Dude, when you’ve got 2/3 of each house of Congress and 3/4 the States to agree to this … come back and explain how you’re going to take guns away from people … without getting shot yourself.

[Really_Not_All_That_Bright]

@robert_columbia

Why aren’t people who dig wells on their property not required to have hole insurance to make stupid kids who fall in it whole again?

Frankly, this whole post makes the pro-insurance argument look a lot better so I should really just let it fall on its own. But since you ask, real property owners are generally not required to carry liability insurance because the property itself serves as a sort of bond.

Why aren’t people who wear short skirts required to carry wardrobe-malfunction insurance in case they accidentally “flash” someone who needs psychiatric help to recover from what they see?

Because accidentally flashing someone is not a negligent act.

Why aren’t white people required to carry oppression insurance in case they accidentally discriminate against a minority?

See above.

Why aren’t computer owners required to have hacking insurance that pays out in case their computer gets hacked and used to perform a Denial of Service attack against an innocent victim?

It seems rather unlikely, but if you are concerned about it you might consider raising the issue with your legislators.

Why aren’t parole boards required to have insurance in case they accidentally release someone who goes on to commit a new crime?

Parole boards are state agencies and are backed by the full faith and credit of the state. However, they also enjoy sovereign immunity for the sort of acts you describe.

Why aren’t big box stores required to carry local small business elimination insurance?

They are required to carry general liability insurance.

[watchwolf49]

I’m officially changing my position on gun registration. It seems a good idea on the surface, but with what Brickbacon has laid out here, no way can I support anything that would help implement such a terrible idea as requiring gun insurance. This idea is so bad that it’s inevitable the US Congress will make it so …

[watchwolf49]

@Really_Not_All_That_Bright

Frankly, this whole post makes the pro-insurance argument look a lot better so I should really just let it fall on its own. But since you ask, real property owners are generally not required to carry liability insurance because the property itself serves as a sort of bond.

True … someone falls down the stairs you can just sign the property title over to them … unless of course the mortgage lender holds the title. I have a rental unit at half the square footage and twice the cost for you to move into.

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@sbunny8

That depends. If the non-compliance rate was over 50% and nobody was trying to do anything about it, I’d be pretty upset. But if the non-compliance rate was over 50% and those who were breaking the law faced a significant risk of being caught and fined, I’d probably be okay with it. In Oregon, the CCB goes after construction companies who pay their workers under the table and fines them for not paying Worker’s Comp insurance. But the CCB only targets the construction industry. I don’t know how big the problem is in other sectors. Anyway, if the CCB just shrugged and said “eh, what can you do?” then I might be upset about having to pay into the Worker’s Benefit Fund.

What if there was simply nothing they could do about it because the non-compliant employers are simply criminals like drug dealers who engage in severe OSHA violations. And your workers comp covered things like the medical costs and disability associated with a drive by shooting of some street dealers that work for a distributor. And these costs accounted for the overwhelming majority of disability claims made to your workers compensation fund?

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@brickbacon

Again, the line of demarcation is essentially meaningless.

Again? I missed it the first time you explained it. Can you do so again?

This is what most market based insurance systems do to a large extent.

No its not. Insurance companies segregates risk pools and considers some risks uninsurable. State insurance pools might do otherwise a la uninsured motorist pools but the uninsured motorist accounts for an insignificantly small percentage of the insurance pool.

Someone is always “punished” for someone else’s behavior, actions, or decisions. And many times, those actions are illegal. For example, ER care for people who OD on illegal drugs, incidences of mortgage fraud bidding up mortgage interest rates, and auto insurance rates being higher due to theft and fraud.

You keep using these same examples as if they were analogous in any way.

The harm caused by people who are not paying into the pool overwhelms the harms caused by people paying into the pool. Do you think this is the case with any of the other situations you describe? I could be the best risk in the world but I would be paying about as much as the worst risk in the world because the people not paying into the pool would account for the overwhelming majority of the risk being paid for.

There essentially aren’t. Just as despite the fact that there are numerous drug laws with harsh punishments, there are no barriers to obtaining most drugs.

OK, let me rephrase that, do you think there are no barriers to LEGAL gun ownership? Or do you not distinguish between legal gun owners and criminals?

Of course they would. It would be trivially easy to do so.

No they wouldn’t because most of the risk being paid for is not the risk that the insured presents. Most of the risk being insured is the risk that is presented by uninsured criminals.

Wait, let me take that back, suicides would be the largest cost. I suppose there would be some risk adjustment for people with a high risk of suicide. Of course it makes you wonder why the heirs of someone who commits suicide with a gun would be entitled to a cash award while the heirs of a suicide committed by jumping off a bridge would be entitled to nothing.

People with kids, those who refuse to lock their guns or take a safety course, those who live in high crime areas, etc.

People with kids are not statistically different enough from people without kids. As a matter of fact having kids is probably inversely related to gun violence compared to people who don’t have kids. We know that single people are more likely to become victims of gun violence if they have a gun in the home. but once again. All this would be overwhelmed by suicides and criminals.

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@brickbacon

Statistics and surveys regarding the legality of various methods of attempted and completed suicides. The payment amount would likely be determined based on assignment of culpability, the amount in the fund, the expected earning lost, the number of survivors, etc.

What?!?!!

Similar to the above with an increased emphasis on going after those who allowed the gun to reach the hands of the criminal. In those cases, I would require the insurance company to go after the assets of those individual to recoup their payouts.

How do you “require” insurance companies to go after anyone?

Asked and answered multiple times.

That’s what you think.

Most insurances pay out for your criminals acts if you are covered. What they don’t do is pay out for acts that would result in you enriching yourself as a result. for example, my home insurance would likely pay out for injury I caused to someone else on my property even if my actions were illegal.

Because that is an intentional criminal act committed by the insured. Not all illegal acts are intentionally criminal.

OK, so this insurance wouldn’t cover the intentional criminal acts of others, (just the unintentional criminal acts, whatever the fuck that means)?

I can, I just don’t think it’s materially more important than the other factors are play which make them part of the same risk pool regarding insurance.

No commercial insurance company would put them in the same pool. You are shoehorning them in based on the fact that they both have guns. Its like making all men pay rape insurance. Actually its worse, its like making all men pay rape insurance where the majority of rapes are committed by transvestites that avoid the insurance by pretending to be to be women.

How do you know that? Where do you think criminals get guns? In the fact majority of cases, it’s from someone who had an moral obligation to protect society by ensuring the gun wasn’t used for criminality.

Wait. Are we now going to require insurance premiums for anyone that has ever owned a gun because the gun they once owned might one day be used in a crime? We don’t even do that with the uninsured motorist funds.

Wrong. It’s a matter of degree. There would be FAR fewer guns in criminal hands if every legal gun owner up and down the line was financially responsible for making sure they weren’t used in crimes. Denying this is just willful blindness.

This is just crazy. I’m going to back away slowly and just chalk it up to another case of gun control fever gone wild.