Gun insurance
The New York Times reports that at least five states, California, Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York and Pennsylvania, are considering forcing gun owners to buy insurance in order to keep their guns. Their reasoning is fairly specious;
Doing so would give a financial incentive for safe behavior, they hope, as people with less dangerous weapons or safety locks could qualify for lower rates.
“I believe that if we get the private sector and insurance companies involved in gun safety, we can help prevent a number of gun tragedies every year,” said David P. Linsky, a Democratic state representative in Massachusetts who wants to require gun owners to buy insurance. He believes it will encourage more responsible behavior and therefore reduce accidental shootings. “Insurance companies are very good at evaluating risk factors and setting their premiums appropriately,” he added.
Yeah, I guess the financial incentive provided by not going to jail for improperly owning a gun isn’t enough, we need to be influenced by comparatively puny insurance premiums. The article claims that legislators are convinced that forcing automobile operators to have insurance is comparable. Well, except that car ownership isn’t a right enumerated in the Constitution like owning a gun.
The article goes on to point out what most people already know – our homeowner insurance already covers most of our damages which result from firearms. It also says that insurance companies are a little reticent about covering firearms exclusively considering the potential for fraud.
Of course, the first result of such legislation would be to make thousands, if not millions of gun owners criminals. Only people who could afford the premiums would buy the insurance, and they wouldn’t necessarily give up their guns. The number of uninsured drivers should be enough to convince anyone of that.
Insurancequotes.com says 16% of drivers in the country are uninsured and that most of them are lower income families who can’t afford the premiums. The same would be true of gun insurance. People who live in high crime neighborhoods would have the greatest need for a gun to protect themselves and would be least likely to buy insurance. So, the do-gooders would be disarming the poor, or making more of them criminals.
Category: Gun Grabbing Fascists
Can anyone say Poll Tax?
Let’s price low income people out of their rights, what a wonderful idea.
These people can go fuck themselves with a cactus.
Yeah, like getting the insurance companies involved helped healthcare? And where would that end? Let’s see…
–insurance on the guns themselves (with different rates for different types.)
–Insurance for three different uses, protection, range, and hunting.
–Insurance for each gun handler of said guns.
–Insurance for use of gun on criminal (parallel of car uninsured motorist coverage). Different types for home or away.
Those are the ones I can think of quickly. Oh, we are really and truly screwed.
…and exactly who do they think constitutes “the private sector”? Aliens from Mars??
What Rob said at the end. All of them. Now.
I just asked Senator Linsky of Mass what he thinks this will do to reduce gun crime in Massachusetts. I do not think I will get a real answer. You can find him easily enough on facebook if you were so inclined to seek out some answers of your own.
Would I qualify for a multi-gun discount?
If I actually stopped a crime with my gun, could I seek a payment from the insurance company?
Can I get a ‘good marksman’ discount?
Oh the insanity……
“Well, except that car ownership isn’t a right enumerated in the Constitution like owning a gun.” Bingo.
If needing picture ID to vote is considered equivalent to a poll tax, and thus an infringement of a constitutional right, how is this not a similar infringement?
What a novel way to get guns registered! (If they are not including itemizing guns owned as part of the deal, I will eat my hat!) It can’t count as the gubmint registering them if it is only the insurance companies with the list of what weapons a particular owner is insuring. Right.
OWB, especially since the insurance companies will hand over the records at the first request from the govt.
@4 We already have the answers. We got them when Obama got re-elected. My “questions” were rhetorical and sarcastic in nature only.
There are multiple reasons politicians would like the concept of mandatory insurance, regardless of the item insured, but particularly an item they wanted curtailed. 1) Insurance companies have deep pockets, and businesses have learned that regardless of politics, it’s a good idea to contribute to the incumbents campaign. Some of the most conservative people I know (in business) max out donations to the entire slate of incumbents for this very reason. It puts them at the front of the line in who the politicians listen to. It buys influence. 2) Insurance companies have very effective lobbyists in all places where politicians gather. Who do you think wrote the ObamaCare legislation? The politicians that sponsored it, while misquoting it, and told us we had to “pass it to find out what is in it?” Or the lawyers and agents of Insurance companies, who gave it to the politicians that sponsored it? Why do you think it grew from a few hundred pages to a few thousand, behind closed doors? 3) Who do you think will financially profit from those laws? Yes, the insurance companies. 4) And when the insurance companies have a financial incentive to pass “safe” laws, who do you think will pay for the ads telling us why a gun lock or gun safe is for our own good? That’s right the insurance companies, just like they did for helmet laws and seatbelt laws. Did I mention, they have very deep pockets? 5) When insurance is mandatory, the rates for it are more expensive. Look at the cost of the mandatory minimum levels of car insurance vs. the full coverage options on a car without a bank note. Full coverage is a deal in comparison to the minimum coverage, particularly as one realizes the likely payouts. This alone would price many people “out of the market” for a new firearm, legally purchased, where the govt will then require proof of insurance, prior to transfer of possession. In short, there isn’t just a political benefit to politicians pushing for mandatory insurance, there is a financial benefit, both in direct contributions,… Read more »
As has been mentioned I’m sure, I just **KNOW** the criminals will be rushing right out to get this insurance, but what if they don’t? Who ya gonna sue then, libtards?
Sparky, exactly. The same people already committing crimes won’t get insurance, so what exactly is the point?
There is no point. This gun grab has never been about prevention of gun crime, merely disarming the law-abiding citizen.
As you said, such a law would make countless citizens criminals because a large number of gun owners would simply refuse to comply.
Here’s something else the gun grabbers don’t seem to have considered. Aside from the limited number of bow hunters, buying a hunting license would be a de facto admission that you have access to a gun. If I don’t want the state to know I own a gun because I don’t want the state to punish me for not buying gun insurance, I’m unlikely to purchase a hunting license.
A very quick google search finds that in 2007 Pennsylvania (where I live) made $723 million selling hunting licenses. A study conducted for the PA legislature to help determine the economic impact of allowing Sunday hunting estimated that in 2010 PA hunters spent $1.7 billion on goods and services related to hunting, added an estimated $3 billion to the state economy and generated $210.4 million in local and state tax revenue and $224.7 million in federal tax revenue.
It seems unlikely that the state of Pennsylvania is going to want to see that kind of money being spent in Ohio, Kentucky, or anywhere else hunters are going to be willing to drive to avoid having their rights infringed upon.
This is simply a end run around an outright ban on guns. First it’s insurance, restrictions on magazine size,weapon/caliber types, then a demand for annual safety training, then more and more, untill owning a gun becomes too much of a hasssle that you don’t want to bother with it. If you can’t ban something, legislate it to death.
Well, if you know anything at all about insurance, the risk pool is what determines insurance rates on anything in property and casuatly insurance, and whether or not it is available to you in your area.
Gun insurance? I can see not just casualty but public liability rates going sky high over this, making it unaffordable to even middle-income gun owners. Here’s why: if someone breaks into your home currently, under the castle doctrine in many states, if the burglar/criminal gets hurt by you or simply by breaking in, you’re not liable.
Under this proposed idea, you become liable even if castle doctrine applies to you, which means the insurance company is going to have to cover you, and based on risk history in your area (i.e., number and type of break-ins, as an example) you can be refused coverage even on a separate rider.
P&C insurance carriers do not underwrite flood insurance, for example. They will attach it as a rider to your homeowners policy, but it comes through the National Flood Insurance program, which is the GOVERNMENT, and which, as you may remember, is a bit slow in paying claims and almost always requires the intervention of a public adjuster.
Gun owners insurance? If you talk to your homeowners’ coverage agent, you can get a hell of a lot more sensible response than anything these jackasses in any legislature can come up with.
Andy–most of these “blue” states in fact concentrate their power in urban areas which could in fact give a shit less what the rest of the state thinks.
So while the people in Boulder/Denver run Colorado, for example, people in Grand Junction are sitting there wondering, “WTF?” Ditto people in PA outside Philadelphia and Pittsburg, MA outside (okay, bad example) or CA outside SF/LA.
Chicago tries to do that. I would be happy — very happy — to see Chicago wither away to fluff.
I’m sure this is something being pimped by liberal puppeteers like George Soros, owner of Progressive Insurance.
Yeah, this will end up before SCOTUS in a heartbeat.
Gaaaaaaaad Damit. You people are making far too much plain sense. Thus, you are not playing the game properly. How in the wide, wide world of sports are the nitwits to get greater control of us if you keep resisting and questioning?
FWIW, the insurance industry is resisting the push by some states to force gun owners to carry liability insurance… See: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-02-19/u-s-insurers-resist-push-to-make-gun-owners-get-coverage.html
Frankly, considering some of the stuff I see state legislators saying, I’m becoming more and more convinced that large numbers of them are (dare I say it?) mentally ill, or close to it.
Here are my reasons, based solely on empirical observation:
– They are afraid of everything, including their own shadows.
– They are unable to cope with someone who has and displays real emotions like sadness, anger, fear, even when it’s appropriate.
– They do not understand why we’re all a little different from each other.
– They are easily addicted to things like electronic toys (iPad, smartphone, etc.) to the exclusion of the real world.
– They like ‘nature’ but don’t want to be in it for more than five minutes, and certainly no further into it than the nearest bathroom and upscale restaurant.
– They adhere to the ‘debt is a good thing’ philosophy of financial ruin.
I can come up with more. Just give me time.
“Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
“Those who attain power, want more power.”
The politicians aren’t mentally ill. They just want to gain as much power as they can attain. And it will never be enough to satisfy them.
So what would be insured, the gun or the owner?
Would government agencies be required to carry insurance on their employees? If an LEO who has separate private insurance is involved in a shooting, could he be sued (as well as the agency he works for) for payment?
LEO’s can already be sued on or off the job for shootings. I carry private liability insurance and legal insurance in case the gov’t decides not to scope me for a good shoot.
See malclave, they haven’t thought that far ahead. What if I shoot a buddy’s rifle but I am from a state which doesn’t require insurance, yet we’re on a gun range which does?
Oh, it boggles the mind. Then again, it’s your typical political Blazing Saddles bit:
“We’ve got to protect our phony-baloney jobs! We’ve got to do something–harrumph! Harrumph! HARRUMPH!”
@24. You left one or two off your list, Ex.
-They feel that losing control of one’s bodily functions is a valid technique of self-defense.
-They think that touching off one or two rounds in the air, standing on the deck or porch is a valid technique of self-defense.
Personally, I think they’re wrong on all counts. If anything is to be insured, it’s the damn bullets, not the guns.
@29 – UpNorth, I’m thinking of compiling a long laundry list of such observations. Thanks for the heads up.
WOTN, imagine yourself saying to one of these timid idiots “You have no power over me” while staring them straight in the eye. They would faint in terror. They cannot cope with reality the way you or I can, because they do not have the tools or skills to do so.
Look, if I go for a long, long drive on a pretty day, half the time I only use a map to decide where I want to go. I love the adventure of finding a cool new place to visit. These people are so brain-dead that they can’t go anywhere without a GPS and they’re so dumb they follow every stupid instruction, and end up on goat tracks in the Swiss Alps, because that is exactly how stupid they are. They are the epitome of incompetence.
If space aliens ever invade Earth, they’ll find plenty of idiots to turn into sandwiches, and they’ll let the rest of us go.
We are obviously not cattle or sheep.
Tired of them using the tax code and legislation to control behavior. There’s too much of that going on.
There seems to be a new field whereby laws and the tax code are manipulated to force people into living according to a certain political or ideological agenda. That’s not what these instrumentalities are for.
Well, out of curiosity, I went to the Brady Bunch website to find their method of calculating the state scores. Here is the link to their scorecard chart:
http://www.bradycampaign.org/xshare/stateleg/scorecard/2011/2011_scoring_system.pdf
It is wide, but you can enlarge it to see more clearly. They seem to have a real dislike of having guns in the workplace, which is one of those places where people like to come in from outside and engage in shooting fish in a barrel, so to speak. Or sitting ducks, if you prefer.
I guess the liberals really don’t care about the poooooooor….
Go figger…
@32. I’m no expert on the causes of the Revolutionary War. Pretty much I know what I was taught in grade school about that. And based on that, it occurs to me that the Colonists had a great deal less to rebel against than we do today.
Sounds precisely like the kind of legislation that would get passed without vetting it properly.
Can you folks imagine if this actually got passed? Then, someone breaks into someone else’s home and is shot, and your “firearm” insurance has to pay for the perpetrator’s medical bills (or the funeral)?
I don’t think it will ever come to this, but my glass is always half full anyway.
Maybe we should also wear yellow armbands too.
Ah, yes, the question about liability for a hired gun, so to speak. If it works anything like auto insurance, it would certainly be needed for anyone carrying a duty weapon.
I was once sitting at a traffic light, in an “agency” car, waiting for the light to change from red to green. A young mother driving too fast for the pavement conditions, lost control of her vehicle somewhere behind me and slammed into my vehicle and rammed my vehicle into the also stationary car in front of me. Theoretically, my insurance should not have been involved, except that they raised my rates. For me sitting there obeying the law in a vehicle which they did not insure. But their actuarial studies showed that I was more likely to be involved in a wreck, or so they said. (Coincidentally, the gal who hit me was insured by the same company and her rates did not increase!)
Does anyone think it would be different for “gun” insurance??
PH, I’ve been told that my refusal to be intimidated by the potential repercussions from those in power has at times been quite intimidating to those in power.
I’m more than willing to tell any and all politicians that they have no power over me. We could make a date of it, but it’d take us about a month to hit all the Congressmen’s offices, and half of them would just have an aide take our statements.
well is seems Oregon wont need insurance; house bill 3200 there effectively bans all modern firearms and allows for warrantless searches of people who are required to register their firearms; oh and it declares a state of emergency concerning firearms and the public health.
Good news for criminals of all kinds…
@39 – Keep it up.
How many firearms i own, what type they are, etc., NFBBM!! (Nobody’s Fleebing Business But Mine, what say you folks?)
@35 “Our Forefathers Would Be Shooting By Now”
I will buy the insurance under the following conditions:
1. FLO goes full on stripper crack whore and does a poll dance in a cammo thong and silver dollar pasties in an on air commericial for gun insurance.
2. MAYHEM demonstrates (in full detail) at least three acutual senarios or situations where gun insurance will be required.
3. GECKO admits that he is actually from Brooklyn, NY, is a convicted felon, has an illegal stash of high capacity magazines in his basement apartment, owns four unregistered fully automatic scary black military style assault weapons, and is a member of the Crips.
Till’ then, I will not purchase any insurance for my weapons!