Mandate to buy gun liability insurance?

[cbelt3]

FWIW.. it's important to recognize that auto insurance came about due to tort issues.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_ins..._insurance

However if a firearm is used to injure or kill people, there are existing criminal laws to handle the problem. Many states allow 'personal bonds' to be posted in the place of insurance.

Requiring insurance as a financial guarantee against the commission of a heinous crime is a bit odd. Since I assume we're not selling 'license to kill', I'm back to my original thesis.

It's a back-channel way to ban gun ownership.

[rjmacs]

Bill in NC wrote:
Whether one agrees with it or not, Heller is the law of the land.

How do you mandate insurance given the above?

Wouldn't SCOTUS just treat any mandatory insurance scheme as the equivalent of a poll tax?

It depends on the burden created by the requirement. It's certainly not the equivalent of a poll tax. Rights, whether collective or individual, are not absolute. They can be infringed by the government, constitutionally, as long as the government has a compelling interest in infringing the right. Hence - the government can abridge the second-amendment rights of inmates, because it would be impossible to contain prisoners safely if they carried guns. The courts, including the SCotUS, determine the point of balance between the citizen's rights and the government's interests.

The constitutional case against requiring liability insurance is that the burden placed on citizens by the regulatory requirement is not justified by the government's interest in regulating gun ownership to provide for the public good. Arguments to the contrary certainly can be made, especially if such insurance would not be prohibitively expensive (and therefore, a de facto deprivation of any right to bear arms).

[SDGuy]

Acer wrote:
Please, no more car analogies. I'm getting motion sickness.

$tevie wrote:
I think we need a forum filter that blocks using the words "car" or "Australia" when posting on gun threads. We can call it The Dead Horse Rule.

[davester]

SDGuy wrote:
[quote=Acer]
Please, no more car analogies. I'm getting motion sickness.

$tevie wrote:
I think we need a forum filter that blocks using the words "car" or "Australia" when posting on gun threads. We can call it The Dead Horse Rule.

The car analogy is perfectly apt in this case. The only reason to exclude it would be that you don't wish that were so.

[max]

cbelt3 wrote:
Requiring insurance as a financial guarantee against the commission of a heinous crime is a bit odd. Since I assume we're not selling 'license to kill', I'm back to my original thesis.

You never know.
Maybe it is aimed to be a new source for income, a new government approved way to raise revenue, and btw a license to kill...

[SteveG]

Just one comment about 'hunting your own food'. You've been watching too much Davey Crockett.

Plugging your own varmints lasted about 10 minutes before farmers were settled down with their livestock. that is where almost all the meat has come from in European American history.

Now, if you are talking about trapping and shooting for furs (a different industry and a big one in the early days) then it's another story.

Like I said, the hunting phase of pioneering and settlement lasted about 10 minutes. No guns really necessary for feeding the hungry chill'uns.

[edit]And before you make a fool of yourself---buffalo HIDES, not buffalo meat. (No refrigeration,see?)

[davester]

cbelt3 wrote:
FWIW.. it's important to recognize that auto insurance came about due to tort issues.

That's a meaningless point. It came about because there was no way of ensuring that a victim of a car crash would be able to receive compensation, the exact same situation as with a gun.

cbelt3 wrote: However if a firearm is used to injure or kill people, there are existing criminal laws to handle the problem. Many states allow 'personal bonds' to be posted in the place of insurance..

Same with cars. What is your point?

cbelt3 wrote: Requiring insurance as a financial guarantee against the commission of a heinous crime is a bit odd.

Where do you come up with this stuff? There are many ways that guns cause harm...hunting accidents, self defense gone awry, overheated domestic arguments, theft of the gun and use by a criminal, undocumented sale of guns to criminals, etc. Insurance is a financial guarantee that the victim of a gunshot will have some mechanism for compensation, something that does not exist now.

cbelt3 wrote: It's a back-channel way to ban gun ownership.

No it's not. This is complete nonsense, and if true would mean that car insurance would be a back-channel way to ban cars. It's a straightforward way of injecting a little responsibility into the out of control firearms industry.

[$tevie]

Acer wrote:
I'm told guns accidents and homicides are very rare in the U.S., so this insurance should not be very expensive.,

There ya go. :-)

[freeradical]

If this foolishness comes to pass in California, I'll put purchasing firearms liability insurance at the top of my "to do" list.


:jest:

[Ca Bob]

Like so many other things, it's a matter of the details. If gun insurance is $25 per year for the first weapon and $15 for each additional weapon up to the first 20, that's not so burdensome. If insurance were $10,000 for the first gun and twice that for each additional gun, it would be burdensome for all but the people who fund the Republican Party (you can't expect me to not have a little fun with this, right?).

There are obviously lots of things that happen due to guns that are not the same as armed robbery or willful murder -- children find them and shoot each other, bystanders get shot accidentally when carriers accidentally fire them, guns get stolen and then get used in crimes.

Which of these could be something that would be insurable? Certainly the first two, and possibly the last one.

I think the OP remark attaching liberalism to insanity is simply abusive, but not uncommon among folks who attach the word liberal to anything and everything they oppose, and, in addition, oppose lots of useful, intelligent ideas. It's not a very winning argument.

On the other hand, I think it's fair to observe that the requirement to buy insurance can be used to harass gun buyers and gun owners. It's like the old saying that the power to tax is the power to destroy. Think of this as a tax on gun ownership, and the same arguments apply.