You have a gun? Get Insurance. (Y/N)

[AmbrosiaWriter]

California is considering a bill that would require gun owners to purchase liability insurance.

Is this a good idea? I'm honestly unsure as of right now.

I mean, people who want to exercise their First Amendment right to free speech (in terms of protesting or parades) often have to get permits and purchase insurance for the event.

Also, having a car, while not an amendment right, is often considered a necessity today (I know if you lived in my area and you didn't have a car you would be SoL in terms of anything.) People have to pay for insurance for cars as well.

What I am unsure about is whether or not this will help with gun violence or not. Giving incentives for educating, properly and safely securing, and being a responsible gun owner does seem like a good thing---

Yet even with car insurance premiums going through the roof with every accident, we still have people slamming cars around like they're invincible.

Or maybe I'm just an indecisive twat, who knows!

[Andara Bledin]

The primary problem I see is the same one with weapon registration: It provides the government with an easily-accessible list of who has what. This is directly counter to the intent of the 2nd Amendment.

While the spirit of this legislation is sound, I don't think the implementation is the right way to go about it. I suspect that it would be far more palatable were they to just add a damage tax to gun sales (applicable to everybody) that could be reduced with proof of training and/or safety classes.

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[Tanasi]

This much like all the other stuff suggested for gun control will only apply to law-abiding. Yeah yeah that again, before I'd agree to something like this I'd want to see an actual cost to the state for those that were shot by legitimate lawful gun owners. Once you remove the suicides and criminal uses the actual number is fairly small.
I say this because all money you can get from a successful suicide is the value of their estate, odds of getting money from criminals is slim to none so the state would have to pay regardless.
Now personally I carry liability insurance on myself and my wife. We're both credentialed firearms instructors by NRA and our state so the insurance isn't real expensive. Most folks that I know that carry and even just own have no more liability insurance that what's part of their homeowners policy if they even have that. Reality IMO this is just another form of control.

[TheHuckster]

I don't think the policy is going to help at all with gun violence. However, it might at least give victims settlement money which they can use to treat their injuries or pain and suffering from death of a loved one.

[Canarr]

The primary problem I see is the same one with weapon registration: It provides the government with an easily-accessible list of who has what. This is directly counter to the intent of the 2nd Amendment.

Where does it state in the 2nd Amendment that the government isn't allowed to know who has what guns?

A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

Well regulated... to me, that doesn't sound like, everybody should just have whatever guns they want, and it's nobody's business. To be well regulated, someone has to do the regulation, right? So, why should it be a problem if the government knows that you have two handguns and three rifles at home? Is there really the concrete risk that the government will move in and clear out all the frickin' guns in every home in the US? It's not like they even have the manpower for that.

Personally, I like the idea of mandatory insurance for gun owners. As a no-gun-owning, non-American, I like the idea that if the next half-senile vigilante in Florida who shoots out of a store entry after two fleeing wannabe-robbers accidentally hits me as I'm passing by, there is an insurance company behind him that will pay for my surgery. Because he's most likely broke.

The reason that insurance is mandatoy for cars is to make sure that the potentially large damage such a vehicle can inflict on others' health or property will be covered, even if the driver himself doesn't have the money to do that. Why should it be different with a gun?

[HYHYBT]

I have a somewhat different problem with the car analogy. You are NOT required to register or insure a vehicle in order to own it; only to use it on public roads. You generally can keep it at home all you like without insurance. If you have the land (as with, for example, a work truck on a farm) you can even use it, so long as you stay off the road.

So the analogy only works if you only have to buy insurance for when you carry the gun out in public.

(As for a gun safe... that's a great idea for extras, but if you're going to have a gun for self defense in an emergency then only an idiot would keep it locked up.)

[Andara Bledin]

I have a somewhat different problem with the car analogy. You are NOT required to register or insure a vehicle in order to own it; only to use it on public roads. You generally can keep it at home all you like without insurance. If you have the land (as with, for example, a work truck on a farm) you can even use it, so long as you stay off the road.

From what someone explained to me, this is actually an offshoot of some Constitutional right to be able to go places without restrictions. I've never done nearly enough research to know the veracity, but considering the fact that if you stay off of publicly-funded roads you don't have to observe any of that, I suspect it has some basis in fact.

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[BlaqueKatt]

Well regulated... to me, that doesn't sound like, everybody should just have whatever guns they want, and it's nobody's business. To be well regulated, someone has to do the regulation, right?

yup because firearms are 100% unregulated, I can head to a sporting goods store and buy a rocket launcher

So, why should it be a problem if the government knows that you have two handguns and three rifles at home? Is there really the concrete risk that the government will move in and clear out all the frickin' guns in every home in the US? It's not like they even have the manpower for that.

no but what stops certain cities from declaring bans and doing house to house searches because they have a list.

DO NOT SAY IT WOULD NEVER HAPPEN, IT ALREADY HAS!

Controversy arose over a September 8 city-wide order by New Orleans Police Superintendent Eddie Compass to local police, U.S. Army National Guard soldiers, and Deputy U.S. Marshals to confiscate all civilian-held firearms. "No one will be able to be armed," Compass said. "Guns will be taken. Only law enforcement will be allowed to have guns." Seizures were carried out without warrant, and in some cases with excessive force; one instance captured on film involved 58 year old New Orleans resident Patricia Konie. Konie stayed behind, in her well provisioned home, and had an old revolver for protection. A group of police entered the house, and when she refused to surrender her revolver, she was tackled and it was removed by force. Konie's shoulder was fractured, and she was taken into police custody for failing to surrender her firearm

It took 3 years, a lawsuit, and an act of congress to get the illegally confiscated firearms returned to their rightful owners.

[Hyena Dandy]

So, what you're saying is, it was not done legally, then.

If the government is going to do things illegally, then we don't need to discuss what laws will and won't apply. They'll just do them because they feel like it.

[Andara Bledin]

So, what you're saying is, it was not done legally, then.

The problem isn't necessarily that it was done illegally, but that it was done at all despite the fact that it was fairly blatantly unconstitutional. So much so that it didn't even make it past the state court level.

It was such an abuse of power that 22 states and the federal government rushed to pass what are essentially redundant laws to prohibit it from happening again despite it being unlawful to begin with.

That was exactly the thing that people who resist weapons registration fear.

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[Hyena Dandy]

If it's done against the constitution, it's done illegally. The constitution is the highest law of the land.

If the government is going to go out and seize all the guns, and they don't care if they do it legally, then they will just do that. The US government has enough resources to figure out who all the gun owners in an area are, and take them, if they want to.

I think the benefits of weapon registration outweigh the drawbacks.

[Greenday]

I think the benefits of weapon registration outweigh the drawbacks.

So what are the benefits? How do we really benefit from this?

[HYHYBT]

One other thing that, to me, doesn't make sense: it sounds like part of this insurance is to make people liable for what is done with their guns even by other people, even without permission. If somebody steals my car, neither I nor my insurance are responsible for anything that's done with it. Why should gun owners be liable for what thieves do?

[Racket_Man]

One other thing that, to me, doesn't make sense: it sounds like part of this insurance is to make people liable for what is done with their guns even by other people, even without permission. If somebody steals my car, neither I nor my insurance are responsible for anything that's done with it. Why should gun owners be liable for what thieves do?

The thing with the car is not exactly true. say your car is stolen. you make a proper report to the police and your insurance company. the police p[ut your vehicle on whatever list they put out for stolen vehicles, you insurance company compensates you for the lost vehicle and the State voids out your license plates.

said vehicle gets LOTS of parking tickets. Unfortuneately some cities (like Chicago maybe) do not seem to recognize that the vehicle is now NOT in your possession or under your control or legally owned by you and you are MADE finacially responcible for those tickets. in that they will HOUND you, take you to court (and possibly win) and report you to whatever agency(s) to make your life a living hell.

THis is almost as bad as actually paying for a legit traffic or parking ticket and 10 years later some scumbag company gets a hold of court records and HOUNDS you to pay for the ticket again (yes this does happen in my state and yes there is a legitimaticy to this underhanded action)

[Andara Bledin]

My father had his car stolen. He reported it. It had the tires swapped and was abandoned about three blocks from where it was taken. After being ticketed for three straight weeks it was towed and impounded and despite the fact that there was a valid police report on file regarding it, he still had to pay all fines and fees to get the car back. >_<

If the gun insurance is going to run the same way auto insurance does (this is both being in California), then having it won't do anything at all to protect the weapon owner in the case of theft.

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