The Hill - link provided by George Jefferson with the following narrow-minded observation: "How exactly would this bill ENSURE victims of gun crimes would be fairly
compensated as quoted in the article...Is it likely that all criminals
will carry such insurance on their already illegal guns?"
House Democrat Rep. Carolyn Maloney (N.Y.) has introduced a bill that would require gun owners to carry liability insurance.
The
Firearm Risk Protection Act, unveiled Friday, would require gun buyers
to have liability insurance coverage before being allowed to purchase a
weapon, and would impose a fine of $10,000 if an owner is found not to
have it. Service members and law enforcement officers, however, would be
exempt from the requirement.
“We require insurance to own a car, but no such requirement exists for
guns," Maloney said in a statement. "The results are clear: car
fatalities have declined by 25 percent in the last decade, but gun
fatalities continue to rise.”
Maloney said
auto insurance carriers incentivize drivers to take precautions to
reduce accidents, but no such incentives exist for firearm owners.
“An
insurance requirement would allow the free market to encourage cautious
behavior and help save lives,” she said. “Adequate liability coverage
would also ensure that the victims of gun violence are fairly
compensated when crimes or accidents occur."
“We require insurance to own a car, but no such requirement exists for guns,"
ReplyDeleteNot quite accurate, insurance is required for the car to be licensed to drive on public streets. You can own all the cars you want, just like Jay Leno and not need to insure them.
http://www.nbc.com/jay-lenos-garage/blog/jay-lenos-garage
"The problem is, while auto and home insurers have a financial stake in whether you wreck your car or your dog bites the letter carrier, they usually won't be out a penny if you shoot someone.
"Insurance ends at the point of intention," explains Lynne McChristian, the Florida spokeswoman for the Insurance Information Institute. "Firing a weapon is (usually) an intentional act, and no insurance covers an intentional act. You can't decide to drive your car into your neighbor's vehicle and expect your insurance company to cover it."
"Peter Kochenburger, executive director of the Insurance Law Center at the University of Connecticut School of Law, says if you subtract the intentional acts of gun violence that wouldn't be covered, insurers have very little financial incentive to get involved with gun ownership.
"The data I've seen shows that not even 2 percent of gun deaths would be classified as accidental; the vast majority are either suicides or homicides," he says. "So right there you have roughly 98 percent of gun deaths that would have no liability coverage due to the intentional acts exclusion."
In fact, Kochenburger says insurers have a major reason not to wade into covering firearms.
"There's what's called a 'moral hazard' that applies to all aspects of insurance, which says if you insure (dangerous) behavior, you are in some sense encouraging it because people will be less careful knowing they have coverage if they are negligent," he says."
http://www.bankrate.com/finance/insurance/gun-liability-insurance-mandatory.aspx
I have heard of some insurance policies that help cover the legal fees of a gun owner if he has to shoot someone in self defense. Here is one example,
https://www.usconcealedcarry.com/uscca-membership/index.asp?id=sds-hpb&sid=hpYoureCovered&kmi=
I remember having this argument with Dog gone. She made the same “moral hazard” argument against allowing for the choice of acquiring self-defense insurance, but then of course loves the idea of mandatory liability insurance for all gun owners. She got cagey real quick when I started asking her about the policy that she holds. When we delve deeper we find out that she doesn’t actually want liability insurance for gun owners- she wants a tax:
Delete“So you want careless gun owners who shoot someone to only have to pay a $500 deductible?”
“Well… no… ”
For someone who claims to work/have worked in the insurance industry, she doesn’t seem to get that there would be a benefit to holding a policy when the situation arises.
“So you want careless gun owners who shoot someone to only have to pay a $500 deductible?”
Delete“Well… no… ”
I'm not terribly surprised TS. Another thing that I noticed in this article is that they make the claim that insurance requirements have resulted in a drop in deaths in auto accidents because people change their driving habits to keep their rates low.
But not too long ago, the claim was somewhat different,
"This decline is not an accident: billions of dollars have been spent on public health and safety research to understand motor vehicle accidents and how to prevent them from becoming fatal. This research has resulted in design innovation, changes to cars and roadways, and new laws that have led to a significant and steady decline in such fatalities among all age groups, including young people. There was no silver bullet for reducing vehicular death: airbags, seatbelt laws, anti-lock brakes, better signage, and tough drunk driving laws all contributed to it. But, in combination these measures have saved tens of thousands of American lives."
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2014/02/22/3320751/gun-deaths-surpass-car-accidents-leading-cause-young-people/#
We discussed this article here,
http://mikeb302000.blogspot.com/2014/02/guns-to-surpass-car-accidents-as.html
No mention of the insurance requirement. So which is it?
Yeah, I found that line about insurance mandates being responsible for a drop in auto fatalities to be utter BS.
Delete“We require insurance to own a car, but no such requirement exists for guns," Maloney said in a statement. "The results are clear: car fatalities have declined by 25 percent in the last decade, but gun fatalities continue to rise.”
So Ms. Baloney—err… uh… Ms. Maloney is saying someone will drive more careful because they are worried about their premiums going up, but don't care about shelling 30K out of pocket for totaling someone else's car? Or they don’t care about, you know… dying (since it is car fatality stats she is citing)? And she is suggesting that mandatory liability insurance has only been around for the last decade? And of course the rise in gun fatalities is due to suicides, not accidents (and it is totals not rates). What would insurance premiums have to do with suicides?
Ms. Maloney seems to have a lot of spare time on her hands and is receiving frequent visits from the good idea fairy lately. Here's another one.
Delete"The Handgun Trigger Safety Act introduced Tuesday by Sen. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) and Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) aims to block criminals and children from using guns that do not belong to them.
Gun dealers would be required to install smart gun technology that fires only if it recognizes the shooter, such as the person who purchased the gun or someone they designate as an authorized user."
"The handgun bill would require gun manufacturers to install smart gun technology on all new handguns, starting in five years. Within 10 years, gun dealers would also be required to retrofit used handguns with smart gun technology.
The legislation would set up a fund to reimburse gun dealers for retrofitting handguns with smart gun technology. It would also provide research grants to improve the technology."
http://thehill.com/regulation/legislation/243756-dems-pushing-new-handgun-restrictions
"You can own all the cars you want, just like Jay Leno and not need to insure them."
DeleteC'mon ss, such a flaky argument is beneath you. This is the kind of thing the real fanatics resort to. You usually present more thoughtful points of view.
The fact that a tiny tiny percentage of cars are driven only on private property or are part of a collection does not disprove the general statement that insurance is required for cars.
But, since you resorted to this weak comeback, would you accept requiring insurance on carry weapons? I could understand not wanting to insure every single gun one owns, but those which are carried might need to be insured.
"C'mon ss, such a flaky argument is beneath you. This is the kind of thing the real fanatics resort to."
DeleteShall we look at who originated the flaky argument? That would be Ms. Maloney. She seems quite stuck on equating laws regulating cars to those regulating guns. A strong comeback isn't really needed for the weak argument that the Congressperson makes.
But then, laws such as this aren't really intended to increase safety. The intent is to discourage gun ownership. One has but to look at the actions of organizations who make up the gun control lobby to see this. The only solutions they offer is legislation restricting gun rights and encouraging people to give up their firearms through buybacks.
Compare that to organizations in the gun control lobby that for example encourage firearm safety through education. Or encouraging safe storage of firearms by giving away gun locks for free.
"would you accept requiring insurance on carry weapons?"
No Mike, I wouldn't support that any more than I would support requiring liability insurance for bloggers, newspapers, or anyone else wishing to exercise their First Amendment rights.
Just for fun though, lets look at the concept. First, as my comment above noted, intentional acts wont be covered. That would seem to eliminate everything except negligent discharges and those struck by rounds not intended for them.
Rates would be determined by the behavior of permit holders. If a non-permit holder misuses a gun, it doesn't affect the insurance rates of those with permits. As we've discussed before, permit holders are much more law abiding than the general public.
And as TS illustrated so well earlier,
“So you want careless gun owners who shoot someone to only have to pay a $500 deductible?”
“Well… no… ”
MikeB: "But, since you resorted to this weak comeback, would you accept requiring insurance on carry weapons? I could understand not wanting to insure every single gun one owns, but those which are carried might need to be insured."
DeleteYou wouldn't be happy with this. If we added all the accidental damage done by permit holders to life and property, and then divided it by the ten million permit holders, they'd be able to pay their premiums with the change from their car ash tray. No, I bet you'd want to see a tax that covers "the cost of gun violence" as determined by a rag like Mother Jones, so that all gun owners have to pay two grand a year of which they get no benefits from. Am I right?
Very well stated, SSG.
Delete