Liberal Friend's brilliant idea RE: gun insurance

[Sgt.Murtaugh]

he thinks all gun owners should have liability insurance in case their gun magically goes off and shoots their kid or their kids' friends while they are playing at said gun owner's home.

I think it's a horrible idea and to start forcing people to insure a constitutional right is something i dont think sets a good precedent. What are your thoughts on this? I've certainly heard more idiotic things come out of an anti's mouth but this is pretty bad.



this article prompted the discussion:

http://wishtv.com/2014/10/22/police-6-month-old-airlifted-after-kokomo-shooting/

 

[19-3Ben]

At one point, I remember discussion of it here in CT when they were considering the AWB.

Ultimately, in my mind, it means that it allows the insurance companies to dictate our rights. If they don't want to write the policy, then you are deprived of your rights. It takes power away from the governmental agencies to administer the right (not that they should be taking it away either...).

There are a host of other problems as well, but I'm running out the door and don't have time to delineate all the reasons it's a terrible idea.

 

[col.lemat]

I would look for a new friend. Nothing but trouble in the long run.

 

[JR47]

We already have liability insurance, it's called law. Misuse of a firearm violates multiple laws. Having a policy that is for liability specifically involving firearms is like requiring painters to have separate liability policies for ladders. Or butchers for knives.

Speaking of which, more people are killed with hands and feet, blunt objects, knives, and the likes than are killed by rifles or shotguns. Shouldn't anyone owning any of these have to have liability policies on them?

All any of this does is open up more ground for lawyers to fight over.

It's the usual half-baked ideas that we see coming from people who have more emotion than intelligence.

 

[Sgt.Murtaugh]

I would look for a new friend. Nothing but trouble in the long run.

lol @ getting rid of friends because they have different perspectives/political leanings. That's one of the core problems in our country today, imo.

yes, his anti-gun proclivities annoy me, but he's still my lifelong friend and a good dude. he's just uninformed!

 

[stchman]

This story sounds really fishy, I would like to know what really happened.

 

[LockedBreech]

I also strongly disapprove of the idea of getting rid of a friend because they disagree with you. I have multiple extremely anti-gun friends - as well as friends with whom I disagree on other issues - who I enjoy having in my life for other reasons. If you cut off the dialogue the second it starts, there's no chance of ever changing a mind, and the political division in our country continues to worsen. That's how you end up with Fox News and MSNBC. I've changed minds by being patient and calm and explaining our side of things. That's the only real way to do it.

Like many, many gun control suggestions, I think your friend's suggestion comes from a fundamentally good place - wanting to prevent pain and death. However, like practically all gun control suggestions, it ignores the reality of the world and the nature of the Second Amendment as not merely a social issue, but a Constitutional right.

Bad idea, but probably coming from a good place.

 

[akarguy]

Has the potential to become a firearms/gun owner database. If the insurance product were intended solely to be an excess or special liability coverage or rider attached to a homeowners or renters policy for gun related risks, such a product would require registration and approval by state regulators. This type of product would be subject to occasional or annual regulatory audit like all insurance products. State insurance departments would have access to gun owners names, address, etc. You always have to watch the other hand with liberals. They would LOVE to backdoor something like this into some "common sense" proposal.

Now if this were just a requirement to carry excess liability for gun owners with no speific reason bound to the policy, i would still oppose for reasons others have already articulated.

 

[Gottahaveone]

In light of the number of alcohol related automobile deaths annually, ask him how he'd feel about being required to carry a mandatory DUI policy on his cars.

Because you know, cars are just as capable of getting plastered and running down a group of Nuns as firearms are of going out and shooting up a school.......

 

[bikerdoc]

Most of the people that come with these unilateral feel good solutions to a perceived problem lack a basic knowledge of the subject matter, the law, the unintended consequences.

 

[Elkins45]

Ask your liberal friend to show you his free speech liability policy before he spouts off next time. After all, isn't the pen mightier than the sword?

A gun itself has never provoked someone to violence, but someone exercising their right to shoot off their mouth has certainly caused all kinds of human misery. Shouldn't we be protected from the consequences of unregulated speech, or at least by financially compensated for it?

 

[akarguy]

Ask you friend this, seriously, this could spark a good discussion. We're all being mandated now it seems to pay for other people's abortions and birth control- neither of which are Constitutionally protected rights. How would your friend or any anti gunner feel about being mandated to pay for everyone else's Constitutitionally protected RKBA, or everyone else's ammo who chooses to excersize these rights?

 

[birdshot8's]

Gun Banners want registration, they cant get it passed, so now they want us to insure our guns. They make it sound like you would be protecting yourself. Insuring the guns would serve as registration since it would be required by a law to insure. Eventually you would be required to carry proof of liability coverage. Sort of how we have to prove we have insurance on our vehicles.

 

[Nom de Forum]

For every complex, multifaceted, difficult problem there is usually someone with good intentions who has a noncomplex, single approach, easy solution that often is ultimately worse than the original problem. You friends solution is one of these. Dropping a good and honorable friend because you disagree is cutting off your nose to spite your face. People who keep talking solve problems, people who stop talking go to war.

 

[Iggy]

Forcing the American people to buy insurance?? What a concept..

Have you signed up for Obama care yet??

 

[barnbwt]

I don't suppose this insurance happens to come with any added immunity... Unlike cars, the damage caused by an "accidental" shot is either negligible or insurmountable; how can you even insure something like that? That is in addition to whether or not the real recoverable damages from guns even add up to that much. Lost wages are not affected by virtue of a gun being involved, and can be recovered through insurance or lawsuit already, so what exactly are we insuring against? Property damage from a sub-.5 inch hole poked through our roof/car/wall? Please.

The anti simply wants to penalize gun ownership, and this kind of indirect tax on the activity shields him from admitting to this vindictive impulse, so he doesn't have to feel bad about it. As we saw with health care, there is a world of difference between what is insured, and what is actually protected (or put at risk)

TCB

 

[blarby]

Awesome, folks who have zero clue about insurance trying to push it on folks ! YEAH !

Almost as bad as folks who have zero clue about insurance discussing coverages.


:/

 

[benEzra]

Ask your friend how he would *guarantee* that the premiums can never rise to the level of making gun ownership more difficult, which would impose a means test on a constitutionally protected right.

Ask him what he thinks the premium cap should be, and then ask him if he'd be OK with requiring that same fee before someone is allowed to vote. Or whether he'd be OK with denying the right to an abortion to women who can't afford that same dollar amount per year, every year, for life. Or whether he'd be OK with imposing a licensing fee on journalists, bloggers, and activists equal to that premium.

The thing is, the overwhelming majority of gun violence is perpetrated by people who are *already* not legally allowed to own guns. So what makes him think *they* will get insurance? The only real purpose of such a policy would be to make it harder for people of average means to own guns, which is the primary objective of the gun control lobby anyway. They have no problem with the wealthy and powerful having access to guns, either directly or by proxy, they just don't want the little people having them.

 

[newfalguy101]

Not positive, but, pretty sure my homeowners would cover the bulk of that....

 

[Berger.Fan222]

lol @ getting rid of friends because they have different perspectives/political leanings. That's one of the core problems in our country today, imo.

yes, his anti-gun proclivities annoy me, but he's still my lifelong friend and a good dude. he's just uninformed!

At some point, one may consider whether he should be concerned about those liberal leaning friends turning you in as an evil gun owner when the time for confiscation comes or making a false report about brandishing or unsafe gun handling.

People who fear firearms and do not believe it is safe for honest citizens to have them view reality through a warped perspective that makes both of these possibilities more likely than RKBA supporters.

 

[Midwest]

Well in Brady II they proposed a requirement to have $100,000 for the arsenal license.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1900318/posts


"Arsenal licensing

Any person who owns 20 or more firearms or more than 1,000 rounds of ammunition or primers (e.g. two "bricks" of rimfire ammo) would be required to get an "arsenal" license. To obtain a federal arsenal license, a person would need to be fingerprinted, obtain permission of local zoning authorities, and pay a $300 tax every three years. Her home would be subjected to unannounced, warrantless inspection by the government up to three times a year. "Arsenal" owners would also have to obtain a $100,000 dollar insurance policy.

"Brady II" redefines "firearm" to include magazines and "any part of the action" (such as pins, springs, or screws). Thus, if a person has two Colt pistols, three Remington rifles, and four magazines (of any size) for each gun, then he own an "arsenal." Or if he owned two guns, six magazines, and a box of disassembled gun parts that contained five springs, five pins, and five screws, then he would own 23 "firearms" and would have to obtain an "arsenal" license."


There have been other proposals for requiring gun owners to get insurance and those bills have been defeated.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/04/02/Democrats-push-bill-in-congress-to-require-gun-insurance/

"Six states -- California, Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York and Pennsylvania -- have all introduced gun liability insurance legislation over the past few months. None has produced any results.

In Illinois, the House rejected a measure 34-74 that would require people carrying concealed weapons to also carry $1 million in liability insurance. Chicago Democrat Kenneth Dunkin was behind the defeated bill. He said an insurance policy would cost between $500 to $2,000, but Illinois Republicans successfully argued the costs were too high for citizens exercising their constitutional right to carry a gun, and the bill was defeated.

Last week, a similar measure in Connecticut was withdrawn following a two-hour hearing on the issue. Connecticut's proposal would require firearm owners to maintain excess personal liability insurance and self-defense insurance.

In Maryland, a bill that sought mandatory firearm liability insurance for gun owners was also recently withdrawn. "
.

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[LockedBreech]

At some point, one may consider whether he should be concerned about those liberal leaning friends turning you in as an evil gun owner when the time for confiscation comes or making a false report about brandishing or unsafe gun handling.

People who fear firearms and do not believe it is safe for honest citizens to have them view reality through a warped perspective that makes both of these possibilities more likely than RKBA supporters.

I consider living my day to day life harboring fears about my friends turning me into an Orwellian state a warped perspective as well, though. Someone disagreeing with me does not mean he's going to betray me. There are more facets of a person's personality than their view on a single issue.

 

[230RN]

"Liberal Friend's brilliant idea RE: gun insurance "

I'd watch this carefully as it smacks of the next anti-gun "choke point" push, right along with Universal Background Checks (UBC) and lead contamination from bullets and the like.

But that's just paranoid old me.

 

[Reloadron]

So why do I carry liability insurance on my homeowner policy? Oh wait, so if someone is injured on my property, like if one of my dogs bites them or they are stupid enough to manage to shoot themselves with one of my guns.

I believe every automobile manufactured should include a blow and go too.

Ron

 

[Frank Ettin]

The government requiring insurance is a lousy idea. I don't much like the idea of being required to do anything.

On the other hand, if someone is injured as a result of your legal fault, you can be held financially liable for the damage. That could run into a lot of money. It could even ruin you financially, and you could lose everything you worked so hard to build up for yourself and your family.

And if someone thinks you're legally responsible, defending yourself in court could also put you and your family into the poorhouse.

Some of us have assets and accumulated property to protect. Under those circumstances, carrying sufficient general liability insurance is prudent.

No, I wouldn't like the government telling me to carry insurance. But I don't need the government doing that. I've concluded on my own that it's a good idea.