Liability insurance is not an answer

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

http://www.ibamag.com/news/house-bill-to-require-gun-owners-to-carry-liability-insurance-22717.aspx

Car insurance covers damage and injuries sustained from car ACCIDENTS. Car insurance works because most damages, deaths and injuries are accidental. Most firearm damages, deaths and injuries are deliberate. Even car insurance doesn't cover "DELIBERATES".

The Firearm Risk Protection Act, introduced by Representative Carolyn Maloney of New York, would impose a $10,000 fine if an owner is found not to have a current liability policy. Service members and law enforcement officers would be exempt from the requirement.

...

According to George Mocsary of Southern Illinois University School of Law, the current model for liability insurance would neither deter gun violence nor provide adequate compensation for victims.

...

Mocsary noted that under the current liability insurance model, nearly all intentional criminal actions are excluded from coverage.

Nearly 20% of gun violence victims are shot by criminals while committing a crime themselves, Mocsary said, while roughly 97% of deaths caused by firearms are the result of suicide or homicide—neither of which fall under liability policies.

[TeddyR]

1. Anyone with a basic understanding

Of insurance and firearm violence would know that liability insurance would have absolutely no impact on firearm violence or the victims. Requiring liability insurance is nothing more than an effort by the controllers to jack up the cost of owning a firearm.

[rjsquirrel]

5. No

It's you who doesn't have the "basic understanding" here... Of actuarial science or human psychology.

If you make it very expensive to be careless with your firearms, law abiding and financially resources people will be more careful with their guns.

Works for cars and houses and life insurance.

ETA: I'm a gun owner with a $5 million personal liability policy. If someone steals my locked guns and commits a crime I'm covered. If I leave it out and unlocked I am not. Therefore I lock my guns up carefully, just like I take reasonable precautions to secure my car and house. See how that works?

How many kids will die this year from carelessly stored guns? Many is the answer.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

6. So how would that work?

You've locked up your guns in a safe and someone breaks in, gets into your safe and steals a handgun. What are you covered for? Do you mean the cost of replacing the gun?

[rjsquirrel]

7. No

The cost of medical treatment when you shoot your damn kid or spouse. Which happens every single day in America.

If you're insured and you're only covered for accidents if you take reasonable precautions, people will take reasonable precautions.

It works great for car insurance. Which you are required to carry. For a reason.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

8. Wouldn't medical insurance cover medical treatment of accidental injuries? n/t

[GGJohn]

9. Yes it would, he's just pushing the gun control insurance meme. eom.

[rjsquirrel]

10. Not necessarily

And as we all know many people don't have adequate medical insurance.


But you just named a good solution: make medical claims contingent on safe gun storage and training.

It's so obvious. Guns create a liability risk. You carry insurance to cover your liability risks.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

13. And since health insurance is already mandated...

..."gun insurance" is superfluous which was the point of the OP, "Liability insurance is not an answer."

"make medical claims contingent on safe gun storage and training"

Speak to your insurance company about that.

[rjsquirrel]

16. Absurd

You will note that your car insurance and homeowners insurance both cover medical bills caused by your liabilities. In such circumstances a person's individual medical insurance is not obligated to pay your liability.

Or are you saying liability insurance on a car is not necessary since everyone has great medical coverage?


This is a stupid thread. Special pleading won't make you right. Your liability extends far beyond medical care if you shoot someone accidentally or someone gets hurt with your gun because you didn't secure it properly. You could be out for lost income, property damage, and pain and suffering to the tune of millions. You are the one reducing it to "medical" expenses.

Look at your car insurance. It requires you to take reasonable precautions to limit the liability risk of your car. It is the answer to a lot of problems with careless and stupid gun owners.

Your car insurance requires you to get your car inspected and registered every year (or two depending on state). It gives you discounts for auto theft prevention technology or parking in a garage. It covers far more than medical liability. But if you drive drunk or loan your car to an unlicensed driver IT DOESN'T PAY and you are on the hook for the millions it will cost if you kill someone's kids with your stupidity.

Why should I, as a medical insurance customer, have to pay more to cover your gun liability, socialized to the general population, if you won't lock your gun up or you loan it to your depressed friend? I don't have to carry your car insurance risk, you pay a premium based on your actual liability risk.

This OP and the gun nut defensiveness in some replies reveal zero understanding of how insurance works, or why it works so well for cars (inarguably it is the inshrance industry -- not the govt. -- which has so drastically driven down accident deaths in recent years by incentivizing or requiring safer cars and driving).

Done arguing with people who deny facts that don't suit their ideology. But to repeat I am a gun-owning hunter, and I carry liability insurance in part to cover my risks therefrom.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

32. What I am saying

Again and in bold: Liability insurance is not an answer
An answer to what? The problem of firearm violence and suicide in the US.
As for accidents and negligence, the less than 1% of the population in law enforcement are neck and neck with everyone else for things like accidental/negligent discharge and shooting the wrong person. (The LE incidence is much higher per capita than the civilian.) They're also exempted from the law.

Double on that.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

33. re: "Your car insurance requires you to get your car inspected and registered every year..."

Ah... no it doesn't my insurance company doesn't give a damn whether it's registered or not. You have that backwards.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

34. re: "You are the one reducing it to "medical" expenses."

No you brought it up:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1172184643#post7

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

35. re: "Done arguing with people who deny facts that don't suit their ideology."

Run away... Run away...

The group SOP: "Discuss gun politics, gun control laws, the Second Amendment, the use of firearms for self-defense, and the use of firearms to commit crime and violence."

How lame is it for the pro-control folks to lament 30,000 deaths per year and push solutions that won't change 99% of them?

[Lizzie Poppet]

41. Gun control proponents so often target statistically tiny categories.

Mass shootings, accidental gun deaths, and so forth. Seldom a mention of suicides or ordinary homicides. It's frankly bizarre to me.

The only serious gun control activist (that is, someone who actually does more than spout off on message boards) that I know personally and consider a friend focuses on mass shootings, but I understand in her case: she lost a parent in a mass shooting. That's gonna shift your perspective and priority, obviously. I just don't get it in most other cases.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

42. The list is incredible...

...assault weapons, insurance, .50 cals shooting down a plane, anti-stockpiling, registration...

How about the violent offenders go to prison and don't get out?
"Sure he's a rapist but paroling him after 6-10 years is good idea."

"Enforcing existing laws like those against straw purchasing is an NRA talking point."

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

58. It was nice hearing from you

Last edited Sat Jan 16, 2016, 08:18 AM - Edit history (1)

bye

Perhaps you've joined up with a friend and moose and squirrel will continue to best Boris and Natasha.

Best of luck.

[DonP]

14. Of course that's not the point of gun insurance anyway

Let's just cut through the crap on this.

Since direct gun control continues to fail dismally, they are struggling and flailing to find ways to make an end run and deter anyone they can from buying a gun. If poor people can't afford the insurance, too damn bad, their "moral betters" know they shouldn't really have a gun anyway. Do anything you can to try and shrink the market and start by pretending that there really are no new gun owners and those old white guys are all dying off.

If cities can get away with ridiculously high taxes on guns and ammo, fine. In their minds, the more people they can keep away from guns the better. (Ignore all those tacky, tacky people driving to the suburbs and driving back with a DPMS box in the back of the SUV and skipping not only the excise taxes but all the other sales taxes too.)

The insurance red herring has no more to do with paying for medical expenses and accidents than the ammo taxes are going to pay for "the costs of violence".

But it makes the gun control fans sound "reasonable" and feel "morally superior" and that's terribly important to gun control people.

As usual, the fact that an insurance mandate would instantly swell the ranks and coffers of the NRA by millions of new dues paying members, that would join for the discounted insurance, escapes their "steely eyed" long term perceptions.

Just like every time they discuss/demand a new AWB Bushmaster, DPMS and Smith & Wesson put on a third shift.

[branford]

43. If your gun was actually stolen,

absent very unusual circumstance, you would not be liable for its later criminal misuse. It would be like blaming the owner of a car that was stolen and then used in a crime or accident.

If you want to ensure safe firearm storage, as many jurisdiction has already done, pass a law about firearm storage. Such storage laws are largely constitutional unless they prohibitively prevent a firearm from being used in self-defense. Further, the fact that storage laws exist actually make any mandatory insurance laws all the more difficult to survive any level of constitutional scrutiny.

Again, it is you and others who really don't understand what insurance really is or how it works. For reference, I'm a practicing litigation attorney, and a significant portion of my career dealt largely with insurance coverage and policy issues. I've repeatedly discussed the numerous legal, practical and policy problems with a mandatory insurance scheme.

See, e.g., http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1172&pid=184610

[sarisataka]

12. How much does

Your $5 million liability policy cost and is it specifically for firearms or is it an umbrella policy?

[ileus]

2. It fits in with the punish the innocent mindset, 2A regressives are known for.

[rjsquirrel]

4. How is insurance punishment?

You carry insurance on your car, home, dog, and life right? Are those punishments?

[rjsquirrel]

3. Right because

no one ever gets accidentally killed or injured by a carelessly stored or handled gun, lol.

That's a huge number of gun deaths, actually. So if it gets very expensive indeed to be careless about where and how you store your gun, and whom you let use it, and you're on the hook for damages or a huge increase in your insurance, no way that would influence your use of, say, a safe or a trigger lock?

Lol.

I'm a hunter and own guns. I favor liability insurance attached to gun licenses.

This post's argument is a disingenuous red herring. No one thinks insurance will reduce violent shootings. But a huge number of gun deaths and accidents result from well intentioned gun owners being careless. Insurance will help stop that. Getting it should require mandatory range and safety certification and training and inspection of your home.


ETA:
It should cost more if you have kids or any untrained shooters in your house. Or if you have a history of mental illness (impulsive suicide is a huge category of gun deaths, clearly linked to ease of access).

Just think the NRA could make a fortune selling gun insurance just like AARP with Medicare supplements! Once they've finished making sure there are ten guns for every person in the country and anyone can buy armor piercing rounds and a fully auto weapon.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

11. What percentage of negligient discharge injuries involve a victim that would not be covered

by the responsible party's family health or home owner's policy?

[Lizzie Poppet]

27. "a huge number of gun deaths and accidents result from well intentioned gun owners being careless"

Between 500 and 600 deaths, generally, in any given recent year...out of 30,000+ total firearm-related deaths. Apparently we have rather different definitions of "huge."

Oh, and the NRA is already by far the largest provider of firearm liability insurance. It's extremely inexpensive, another (obvious) indicator that accidental firearm injury is not particularly common at all.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

15. $10,000 penalty if found to not have liability insurance.

And how would they be found to not have liability insurance?

Only if some event occurred to in which the owner was found to be legally liable, i.e. a negligent discharge that resulted in personal injury and/or property damage.

But if the responsible party is legally liable for injury and/or damages then they are on the hook for a considerable sum of money --

-- which, unless they're independently wealthy, they cannot afford because they don't have insurance.

But the government will attach a $10,000 lien on the sum the responsible party already cannot afford.

And you better believe the government will demand its cut before the victim sees a dime.

This would be better titled as, "The Victim's Compensation Deprivation Bill of 2016."

And, can anyone cite one single solitary right wherein those exercising that right are mandated by law to carry liability insurance?

[rjsquirrel]

17. How do they find out

About your auto liability coverage? Do you have to actually have an accident?

You are require to show proof of having it when stopped or when you register or inspect your car.

Simple. Solved problem. But guns are SPECIAL so of course we had best let people go on allowing them to be used irresponsibly.

And jail time for the Uninsured if caught would fix the problem. Or just take away his guns.

[GGJohn]

18. For that to happen, registration would have to be implemented,

which isn't going to happen, even the ACLU is opposed to registration due to privacy concerns.

[rjsquirrel]

19. When you buy a gun you buy

mandatory insurance.

Then if you let it lapse your insurance company requires proof you no longer own the gun.

Just like cars.

And registration is also a good idea.

[GGJohn]

20. The difference being that owning a firearm is a right, while driving or owning a vehicle isn't.

And registration is a no go, the govt has no right nor business knowing what firearms I own and I glad I live in a state that recognizes that.

[rjsquirrel]

21. Oh this again

Never mind. There's no argument with people who see a "rights" as not entailing social obligations.

Enjoy your well regulated militia.

You have a right to buy property too. And you often have to insure it under the law.

[GGJohn]

22. Well, considering we outright own our property and home,

we're not required to have insurance, but we do.
Our insurance for our firearms are twofold, we have a rider on our home owners insurance and we have them locked up in safes.

Enjoy your well regulated militia

Oh, this again?

Been debunked more times then I can remember, but if that's how you want to read it, more power to you.

[rjsquirrel]

23. Debunked

A clause in the US constitution has not been debunked.

Or do you own an Rpg launcher and a tank?

[GGJohn]

25. LOL, shows what you know,

You can own an RPG launcher, it's just a hollow tube, and you can own a tank without any special permits.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

28. He meant your erroneous interpretation of the militia clause has been debunked.

[GGJohn]

30. Thank you, that is what I meant. eom.

[Lizzie Poppet]

31. No, the entire sentence has been correctly interpreted.

Last edited Thu Jan 14, 2016, 11:10 AM - Edit history (1)

Legal findings aside, there is no valid linguistic argument for the "collective right" interpretation of that text. The main clause unequivocally ascribes the right to "the People," and nothing in the preamble restricts that right to any subset of that group. All it does is provide a rationale for the protection accorded in the main clause. Restricting the right to the militia would require a different construction.

As for things like RPGs and a tank's main gun (anyone can own the tank itself), those aren't "arms." They're artillery. Not the same thing. "Arms" at the time of the writing would have been muskets, pistols, swords, etc. The same definition of the term applies today.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

37. Making some pro-control folks understand that...

...may require a "special" English class.

[rjsquirrel]

51. Casuistry

This is not a settled legal argument. You act like it's obvious.

We will get back to sanity.

[GGJohn]

55. According to the SCOTUS, the President, the Democratic Party,

it is settled law, and that's all that counts.
So, yes, it is obvious.

[DonP]

57. I'm pretty sure it's only "Settled Law" or "Law of the Land" if they agree with it

The fact that SCOTUS is usually not in the habit of revisiting decisions for around 70 years or so never seems to bother them. Or that they need an actual case and cert to make a different decision and change precedent. A SCOTUS change seems to be the magic wand or pixie dust they cling to now for change, since the voters won't give it to them.

They dwell in a fantasy world where "just one more Liberal/Progressive justice" and they'll quickly overturn every single bad decision, Heller and McDonald will be at the top of their list.

Just like the conservative majority quickly overturned Roe v Wade. and blocked Gay marriage, ... oh wait. Gee maybe SCOTUS isn't really a political tool for losers to use?

[Lizzie Poppet]

56. R.I.F.

Start with my first sentence. Free clue: focus on the word "linguistic."

[beevul]

46. "A clause in the US constitution has not been debunked."

'Debunked' was referring to your incorrect interpretation of the phrase, not the phrase itself.

[beevul]

45. "Just like cars."

When you buy a gun you buy mandatory insurance.

Then if you let it lapse your insurance company requires proof you no longer own the gun.


Just like cars.

Except is isn't 'just like cars'.

When ones vehicle registration is revoked, ones vehicle is not impounded from ones own property.

Registration is not required to OWN a vehicle, insurance is not required to OWN a vehicle, and neither are required to OPERATE a vehicle on non-public property.

With autos, the underlying premise for requiring those things, is PUBLIC USE.

Your unspoken premise, is OWNERSHIP.

So no, not like cars. NOTHING like cars, in fact, unless you can't tell the difference between public use vs ownership.

If I only had a nickel for every time some anti-gunner spewed that false equivalency...

[S_B_Jackson]

48. If I let my automobile insurance lapse

my insurance company couldn't care less (though my agent might not like the slight reduction in his commissioned income) and the damn sure don't demand to find out if I still own the vehicle!

[Duckhunter935]

50. all I can say is

So much wrong as pointed out several times here.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

24. You can only be checked if you are stopped and you can only be stopped for an underlying reason.

Moreover, gun registration is a rarity and vehicle registration is not required if the vehicle is not driven on public roads.

However, if someone skirts all of those vehicular requirements and then injures someone with their unregistered, uninsured, uninspected car they will be fined under the law -- AND -- that, as I described above, will simply add to the sum they already cannot afford to pay and results in fines being paid before victims are compensated -- which is my central point.

But guns are SPECIAL so of course we had best let people go on allowing them to be used irresponsibly.

Liability insurance does not make people more responsible, it merely diffuses the cost of their actions to the pool. If your goal were actually to make a negligent gun owner feel the consequences of their irresponsibility more acutely you would be seeking the exact opposite and insist they and they alone bear the full cost of their actions rather than be allowed to spread the liability to other policy holders.

This is nothing more than a poorly cloaked poor tax and if your side could dispense with the strawmen and insults you would gain more traction but you won't and I'm satisfied with your on-going self-imposed frustration.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

36. Ideological purity uber alles n/t

[Nuclear Unicorn]

39. I just wish

when they claim to want to achieve X as a goal but non-X is the result they would have the integrity to admit being in error.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

40. I began this thread as a result of...

...the re-re (rejected and repulsive) idea that liability insurance even has a place in the discussion. It's just another outgrowth of the inane idea that guns should be like cars (but only in some ways.)

I don't much care if they admit to being wrong. I'd just like to educate the ones who star in the whack-a-mole game of bringing up the idea and the spectators on the sideline who would, absent any counterpoints, just accept the idea and possibly go on to star in their own whack-a-mole threads.

[beevul]

47. Despite their claims, 'X' isn't their goal.

Their goal is 'non-x', so why would they complain about it?

Remember how up until recently, 'mental health' was an nra talking point?

What side of the debate benefits from lumping all gun deaths into one lump sum rather than discussion suicides as the very different thing that they are?

They never wanted 'X' to begin with.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

49. And yet, they seem so comfortable with such blatant dishonesty.

Anything seeded, watered and tended with so many lies cannot possibly bring forth fruit that is anything other than poisonous.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

52. "Fie on ’t, ah fie!"

"'Tis an unweeded garden
That grows to seed. Things rank and gross in nature
Possess it merely. That it should come to this."

There are accusations of both sides, maybe better to term them criticisms, of disingenuous activity. We point at obvious fabrications by folks like Hemenway and they point at folks like Nugent spewing hatred. I have a genuine concern that the culture impedes any progress on anything that may be useful. Frustration is not the best fuel for any train of thought.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

53. But they spew Hemenway and gladly so while none of us spew Nugent.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

54. It's not difficult for me to question what I think before I say it.

There are those on both sides who are just playing follow the leader with our futures. Your remark yesterday about having "the integrity to admit being in error" turned on a light for me. There is value in validating one's perceptions and basic assumptions. "Weeding" the contradictions from among the fruitful and productive ideas let's call it. But also accepting and acknowledging that some who may share those ideas may have errant, invalid or selfish reasons for doing so.

Even more than the grant whores who (as far as I can tell) start with a conclusion and work backwards, I loathe the attention whores for simply looking to get their names in the news.

"Weeding" the Hemenways and Nugents is as valid as considering the source of a "fact". Making money from a book called "Ted, White and Blue" is a reason to distrust anything said there. My interpretation of what leaders have said, what history has shown and what the Founders and many though history sacrificed for is my fundamentally my own. To that end I acknowledge a dislike for Nugent and why he says what he says.

Heresy grows from a misunderstanding of the fundamental nature of the subject. I often find it impossible to get a firm pro-control person to define the nature and scope of a human right. I had special difficulty with a certain Canadian lawyer.

[branford]

44. Your certainly might not like it,

but firearms are indeed "special." Unlike cars, homes or virtually all other consumer products, firearm ownership and use is expressly protected by the Constitution, and any regulation of the right must survive enhanced, if not strict, constitutional scrutiny, an exceptionally high standard.

You may believe that firearms should not be thus protected, but unless and until the Second Amendment (and all its state analogs) is repealed, this is the reality, your militia jibes notwithstanding.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

26. Let me explain what I think is the pro-control plan

Make liability insurance mandatory for firearm owners.
The insurance companies will ask for serial numbers of guns. It stands to reason that the guns owned, the greater the chance one will be stored improperly or fired accidentally.
Let the insurance lapse and the company demands proof you no longer own the gun.
Fail to provide proof and they notify state law enforcement.

It amounts to a registry and means for back door confiscation.

Just another idea to turn a right into a privilege.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

29. And a poor tax imposed on a right.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

38. The poor tax would be...

...the very fulcrum used to justify the denial of what's been decided in the Supreme Court as an individual right.