Posted on 12/26/2012 9:00:28 AM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
NOURIEL ROUBINI, a guy who knows a lot about risk, tweets in favour of mandatory liability insurance for gun owners:
“ If we had liability insurance on guns, as we do 4 cars, we will see which insurance company would insure at which price folks with arsenals”
It's an idea that seems to be gathering a bit of steam. At Forbes.com, John Wasik lays out the logic behind treating firearm deaths as a market externality to be compensated via insurance, as we do with cars: "Those most at risk to commit a gun crime would be known to the actuaries doing the research for insurers... An 80-year-old married woman in Fort Lauderdale would get a great rate. A 20-year-old in inner-city Chicago wouldn’t be able to afford it. A 32-year-old man with a record of drunk driving and domestic violence would have a similar problem." Robert Cyran and Reynolds Holding write that mandatory liability insurance is a measure that could pass Supreme Court muster where other restrictions might fail: "[T]here’s a strong argument that damage caused by firearms gives the government a 'compelling interest' to require insurance, the test for infringing a constitutional right."
The first objection that leapt to my mind was that given that 9,000 people per year are murdered with firearms in America, and that essentially every one of those killings entails a wrongful death that could be grounds for a suit, liability insurance for firearms might be so prohibitively expensive that no one would be able to afford it...
(Excerpt) Read more at economist.com ...
Or would the NRA decide to become a carrier and offer discounts for members?
LOL! Exactly how do they plan to enforce that? Why am I offered uninsured motorist coverage in my auto insurance when AFIK, liability insurance is mandatory. Yet we read daily about vehicle accidents where a driver has no insurance.
A very disingenuous statement.
One only needs automobile insurance when one wishes to drive their vehicle on public roads. A person can own a vehicle, and drive it on private property, with absolutely no insurance of any kind, or even a drivers license (or vehicle license, for that matter).
Insurance companies involved?
Bet this offal sticks to the wall!
But their "solutions" always have unintended consequences. ALWAYS.
Insurance for insurance? Sounds redundant to me! My steel and wood are all the insurance I need!
not sure why you posted those excerpts to me, did you have a point?
And this “liability” insurance will certainly have the exact same type of provisions against injury to property and persons.
Furthermore, “risk” persons most certainly ARE deterred from auto ownership when their insurance rates are high / are unable to obtain insurance when no one will issue a policy.
I agree that the “intent” might well be different - it still changes nothing on the argument itself - in both cases, the government is placing a condition on a personal right. I don’t recall the clause in the Constitution which specifically granted that claim, but I’m sure our wonderful “conservative” justices can create one ...
And of course now again. This “insurance” sounds more like a tax, fee, bribe, etc. than “insurance”. (I got carried away with some of the other grievances that I listed!)
* For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent...
* He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent
hither swarms of Officers to harass our people,
and eat out their substance.
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