Posted on 01/18/2013 2:12:04 PM PST by Clint N. Suhks
As lawmakers cast around for ways to curb gun-related violence, some are hoping the insurance market might offer incentives.
A bill filed Friday in Massachusetts would require gun owners to purchase liability insurance in the event that a firearm is used to injure. The insurance policies would give those injured by a weapon a legal recourse, backers of the bill say, but they also would create financial incentives that could reduce accidents and fatalities. Gun owners, for example, might see lower insurance rates if they agreed to take firearms training courses and properly stored their weapons.
"Insurance companies were able to discourage smoking through the marketplace and make cars safer through the marketplace," said state Rep. David Linsky, the bill's sponsor.
And insurers have more leeway than law enforcement in some cases, he said.
Massachusetts already has gun storage laws, but police cannot come into a person's home without a warrant, Linsky pointed out. An insurance company, however, would be able to verify that there is proper gun storage before writing a policy.
Officials at the National Conference of State Legislatures say to their knowledge no state has adopted a gun insurance requirement.
The idea is already meeting with resistance for gun rights advocates, who say it amounts to more regulation aimed at law-abiding gun-owners.
"Now we're going to have insurance companies telling us how we are supposed to be trained and where we are going to store our guns?" said Jim Wallace, executive director of the Gun Owners Action League in Massachusetts.
Craig Baenziger, who works at a gun- and ammunition-seller in North Attleboro, Mass., called Northeast Trading Co., said requiring liability insurance for guns makes little sense because it targets people who buy the weapons legally instead of going after criminals who illegally possess them.
(Excerpt) Read more at seattlepi.com ...
Because gooberment interference in the health insurance industry has worked out so well. /s
Reproduction is an unalienable human right and there is a tremendous correlation between criminal behavior of children raised in a household without a strong male presence.
Since far more murders are committed with hands, fists and knives, it would seem that if any insurance is up for discussion, it would seem that requiring conception and child-raising insurance should be required before any copulation is permitted would yield far better social benefits.
Generating trash isn’t the difficult part - disposal is.
The goal here is VERY SIMPLE, and that is to increase the opportunity cost of gun ownership on law-abiding people.
For good people, the cost is a big factor. In other words, why spend an extra $1,000 and fill out all this paperwork for a weapon that you very likely will never need (i.e., I suspect that 95% of law-abiding people never have to display or use their weapon for protection).
For bad people, opportunity cost is simply NOT a factor. You buy the weapon to rob people or businesses (or kill, or whatever)...so you know its value right off and you know it will be used - it often pays for itself the first time used.
So you price-out the good people - and gun ownership drops from 50% to, maybe, 15%. At that point, you confiscate...since there are not enough owners to fight back, as happened in many other countries.
That is why we fight EVERYTHING that makes gun ownership more difficult - our rights are ONLY protected by our numbers, once we’re decreased, it’s simply GAME OVER, at some point...likely sooner than later.
The gun IS my insurance.
Ah, it’s the invincible, invulnerable insurance racket again: a necessary part of New Rome.
No. Taxing something that is a fundamental God given RIGHT is wrong. What would be next? Taxing free speech?
Somehow, I don’t think criminals buy insurance any more than they comply with gun control laws.
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