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NY Proposal to Screw Gun Owner's a Little Bit Further

ponderingturtle said:
So property rights don't exist now. Got it.
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No, you clearly don't. Apparently by choice, though.

"Property rights" is a category of rights. The constitution protects some of them. It does not, and never did, protect all the rights that some people include under that category. You have no right to transfer property without taxation. The constitution doesn't protect against that.
 
OK, this, seems to me, bears directly on the cost/benefit analysis of allowing any civilians to have guns at all.

Actuaries study a problem to determine their company's actual exposure to risk, and then set rates based on that study and the perceived reliability of the purchaser himself.

If an actuary says it will cost $10,000 per year (let's say) to insure a handgun, then you can go to the bank on that company expecting to pay out the million for around 1 in 200 purchasers every year.

If that were the case, then we are even stupider than we appear in allowing any guns at all.

If, as the gun owners assert (and I believe) that the problem is nowhere near that large, then the rate you'll pay will be nowhere near that large, and would represent your share of the cost of weapons.
 
Homeowner's insurance is an excellent way of paying for it. It could be included as a rider on the house policy.

Society has a right to be safe from gun violence and if the 2nd. amendment prevents them from being safe then there needs to be a means of failsafe compensation by victims of gun violence. Nothing can be simpler and more fair!

This is something the tea baggers could obviously support. It's taxation where it needs to be directed. People who don't own guns would be largely uneffected. Even aome baggers!
 
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Upchurch said:
You are cherry-picking a single word and ignoring the rest.
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The rest of what? Your post had essentially no other content.

Your right to own a type of thing does not give you the right to own something at the expense of another person's property rights, for example. You do not have the right to purchase a $100 gun for $50, if the current owner does not wish to sell it to you for $50 (and if they did, it would be a $50 gun).
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This argument was lacking in your previous post. But it is both obvious and irrelevant.

The point is, the Second Amendment does not define an absolute right.
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I don't think you're using "absolute" in a useful way here. The more relevant distinction, in regards to your above scenario, is the difference between a positive right and a negative right. The 2nd amendment protects a negative right, not a positive right. But so what? Everyone knows this, your scenario illustrating the point that it is a negative right is trivial, and the fact that it's a negative right in no way suggests that the proposed insurance requirement is constitutional.

There are real world and pragmatic restrictions on any right. Now maybe this insurance thing is meant solely as way to restrict gun ownership by the general public, maybe it is meant to offset some of the financial burden of firearm violence. However, the argument by the OP that it violates the Second Amendment because it costs too much is not really a valid argument.
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You're right about one thing: the exact cost (which is unknown) isn't the real issue here. Just like poll taxes don't become constitutional when they become cheap enough. They remain unconstitutional regardless of how small they are.

But if you think that this is about offsetting the financial burden of firearm violence rather than about restricting gun ownership, I've got a bridge to sell you. The public debate right now has nothing to do with the financial cost.
 
The more I think about this, the more I see it as equivalent to a poll tax. Whether you like it or not, SCOTUS has upheld the fact that owning a gun is a Constitutional right. Placing a prohibitively high financial barrier on exercising that right is, in principle, the same concept that makes poll taxes and literacy tests unconstitutional.
 
Ziggurat said:
Upchurch said:
You are cherry-picking a single word and ignoring the rest.
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The rest of what? Your post had essentially no other content.
Upchurch said:
Your right to own a type of thing does not give you the right to own something at the expense of another person's property rights, for example. You do not have the right to purchase a $100 gun for $50, if the current owner does not wish to sell it to you for $50 (and if they did, it would be a $50 gun).
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This argument was lacking in your previous post. But it is both obvious and irrelevant.
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Previously:
Ziggurat said:
Upchurch said:
So, hypothetically, you have the right to own a $100 gun even if you only have $50 because of the Second Amendment? [That's what Sabretooth is arguing here. Not that you have the right to own guns at all, but whether you have the right to own guns you cannot afford, or can no longer afford.]
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Of course you do. Why is that a confusing concept for you? Why is that a problem? Honestly, I can't really tell exactly where you're failing to grasp the obvious, but I suspect part of it comes from the hilighted part.
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Honestly. You really do have a huge ideological blind spot, Zig. It not only wasn't lacking from my post, but you also quoted it most of it. That is the very definition of cherry-picking. (Although, maybe not, if it is unconscious.)
 
Cleon said:
The more I think about this, the more I see it as equivalent to a poll tax. Whether you like it or not, SCOTUS has upheld the fact that owning a gun is a Constitutional right. Placing a prohibitively high financial barrier on exercising that right is, in principle, the same concept that makes poll taxes and literacy tests unconstitutional.
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But is this a prohibitively high barrier? Insurance that covered fire arms accidents only would be fairly cheap.
 
ponderingturtle said:
But is this a prohibitively high barrier? Insurance that covered fire arms accidents only would be fairly cheap.
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I honestly don't know, as insurance prices seem to be calculated using an ancient algorithm that involves examining the entrails of a yak.
 
Upchurch said:
Previously:

Honestly. You really do have a huge ideological blind spot, Zig. It not only wasn't lacking from my post, but you also quoted it most of it. That is the very definition of cherry-picking. (Although, maybe not, if it is unconscious.)
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Again, you continue to conflate the ownership of guns (which is what you actually said) with the acquisition of said guns (which was the implied problem), and to ignore the obvious difference between positive rights and negative rights. You treated the argument like it was about a positive right, but it never was. Not with me, not with Sabretooth. This isn't about blindness on my part, it's about you thinking that you caught Sabretooth in a logical inconsistency of your own making because you couldn't make that positive-vs-negative distinction. You tried to play stupid games, and I wouldn't let you.
 
Magyar said:
Sure ABSOLUTELY, As soon as you can provide evidence that LIKE gun ownership, voting significantly increases the risk of severe injury and death by magnitudes and creates a much higher risk to society.
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Non sequitur.

The Amendments of the Bill of Rights are exactly that...rights.

I know you don't like it, but that's how it is.

- I don't have to pay for my 1A rights to free speech or buy a permit for assembly.
- I don't have to buy a giftcard to guarantee my 4A right to unreasonable search.
- I don't have to hire an attorney to be represented per the 6A.
- I don't have to float the doorman a $20 to make sure I get in to vote.

ETC. ETC.

But to suggest you can have this right, as long as you can pay for the insurance? That's not how it works. How long before insurance carriers deny gun insurance to people for no legitimate reason? Now your "right" is only applicable if someone else says it's OK?

A right is a right. Gun aren't free, and they shouldn't be...but once I buy them, I shouldn't have to pay to use them.

You may as well put a "for sale" sticker on every Amendment if you are going to start this nonsense.
 
ponderingturtle said:
But is this a prohibitively high barrier? Insurance that covered fire arms accidents only would be fairly cheap.
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Is a $10 poll tax prohibitively high?

The question doesn't matter. Any poll tax is unconstitutional.

One other point, though: the proposed insurance wouldn't only cover accidents. It would have to cover deliberate misuse. I doubt such coverage would be fairly cheap. In fact, the law only makes political sense if they expect it to be expensive. Nobody is clamoring about the lack of insurance coverage on the part of shooters. That's not what the public debate is about. This law only serves its political purpose if it significantly discourages gun ownership, and that will only happen if premiums are significant.
 
Cleon said:
The more I think about this, the more I see it as equivalent to a poll tax. Whether you like it or not, SCOTUS has upheld the fact that owning a gun is a Constitutional right. Placing a prohibitively high financial barrier on exercising that right is, in principle, the same concept that makes poll taxes and literacy tests unconstitutional.
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The "barrier" is tied to the cost to society of you exercising that right. As Ben points out:

BenBurch said:
If, as the gun owners assert (and I believe) that the problem is nowhere near that large, then the rate you'll pay will be nowhere near that large, and would represent your share of the cost of weapons.
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This is what I tried to show with numbers. Even if you have 30,000 $1Million payouts under this insurance system, that would only be $100 per gun in the US.

Someone like me who has a a few rifles and a couple of shot guns in a massive safe, with no criminal record or criminal associations, no history of domestic violence, no claims on homeowners in over ten years, good credit, and living in a low crime environment could likely negotiate a $10 per year per gun premium addition to my homeowners policy. They are already covering any incidents that occur on my property, so this would be a minor extension of coverage.
 
Sabretooth said:
Non sequitur.

The Amendments of the Bill of Rights are exactly that...rights.

I know you don't like it, but that's how it is.

- I don't have to pay for my 1A rights to free speech or buy a permit for assembly.
- I don't have to buy a giftcard to guarantee my 4A right to unreasonable search.
- I don't have to hire an attorney to be represented per the 6A.
- I don't have to float the doorman a $20 to make sure I get in to vote.

ETC. ETC.

But to suggest you can have this right, as long as you can pay for the insurance? That's not how it works. How long before insurance carriers deny gun insurance to people for no legitimate reason? Now your "right" is only applicable if someone else says it's OK?

A right is a right. Gun aren't free, and they shouldn't be...but once I buy them, I shouldn't have to pay to use them.

You may as well put a "for sale" sticker on every Amendment if you are going to start this nonsense.
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Nice how you skipped over the 3rd because you do have to pay taxes to support the barracks of the soldiers that ensure you 3rd amendment rights.

Nailed it!:D
 
Dr. Keith said:
The "barrier" is tied to the cost to society of you exercising that right. As Ben points out:



This is what I tried to show with numbers. Even if you have 30,000 $1Million payouts under this insurance system, that would only be $100 per gun in the US.

Someone like me who has a a few rifles and a couple of shot guns in a massive safe, with no criminal record or criminal associations, no history of domestic violence, no claims on homeowners in over ten years, good credit, and living in a low crime environment could likely negotiate a $10 per year per gun premium addition to my homeowners policy. They are already covering any incidents that occur on my property, so this would be a minor extension of coverage.
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I'm pretty sure the NRA will just add it to their existing benefit, too.
 
BenBurch said:
Well, repeal of the Second Amendment is what we need to do if gun owners stand in the way of effective remedies. Then good luck keeping any guns at all.
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Good luck getting the 2nd amendment repealed.

But what makes you think that this proposed law is an effective remedy? It won't really affect rich people, and criminals will largely ignore it. And for those few criminals who do obey the requirement, it provides zero dis-incentive to armed criminal activity. In fact, it perversely reduces the marginal cost of armed criminal activity. The only thing it will obviously provide a dis-incentive for is responsible legal gun ownership. Which makes me wonder what problem this is actually supposed to be a remedy for.
 
Ziggurat said:
One other point, though: the proposed insurance wouldn't only cover accidents. It would have to cover deliberate misuse. I doubt such coverage would be fairly cheap. In fact, the law only makes political sense if they expect it to be expensive.
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No, the law makes sense if the insurance has an impact on how owners store and secure their weapons. Have a guns safe, get lower rates. Have a history of "losing guns" that end up being used in crimes, get higher rates. Beat your wife and get a lot of DUIs, high rates. No domestic dispute calls to your address and no history of intoxication crimes, lower rates.

This is all about making guns expensive for those who shouldn't have easy access to guns. I don't think it is the best approach, but I don't think you can just toss it aside so glibly.
 
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