So, again, would you support a similar law in the UK that mandates all knife owners to obtain insurance covering the possibility that the knife owner may commit a crime?
Already answered.
Nearly every adult in the UK owns a knife of some sort, so any insurance would apply to each and every adult.
But only a very small minority of adults owning knives actually carry them on the street, or in their cars. And the law deters this unless you have a good reason.
So, if you mandated insurance for knives, it would amount to a tiny cost as it would be distributed over the entire adult population and the risk would be minute
But, we're not talking about insuring knives, we're talking about insuring the owners of guns which, on the basis of other posts in this thread appears to be such a high risk that (apparently) the free market insurance industry aren't willing to touch it.
On that basis alone, you guys shouldn't be allowed anywhere near a gun.
What is the purpose of a background check for guns? It is to deprive certain individuals of access to guns because of criminal or mental health reasons. If we knew the background of a prospective knife buyer, would that make any difference? No, it wouldn't.
Bare assertion not founded on fact. Why wouldn't knowing the mental health of a knife purchaser be just as relevant as knowing the mental health of a gun purchaser?
So a background check is pointless for knives but not for guns, because the results of the check matter for knives but not for guns.
What?
What is the purpose of gun insurance? Ostensibly, it is to provide victims of gun misuse with recompense, with the cost born by the gun owners based on the risk of their misuse. But knives are also at risk of misuse. So why shouldn't victims of knife misuse also be provided with recompense, with the cost born by the knife owners based on the risk of their misuse?
Well apparently you don't even believe the risk to be the same now
You have provided no logical reason to distinguish between these two scenarios (gun insurance vs. knife insurance). Everything you've said about risk factors only indicates that the insurance rates for knives should be lower (and in a competitive insurance market, they would be, if you are correct about that lower risk).
And if you think you're making a convincing argument here, you're very much mistaken.
Nope I still don't get what you're saying.
Let's get back to basics.
A US state has decided to mandate a form of public liability insurance for gun owners.
The reason for this appears to be that guns are very dangerous weapons and the harm and damage they cause should be covered by the owner of the weapon.
If this means the owners have to pay alot more for the right to bear arms, then apparently this US state thinks that is just tough.
Gun rights advocates, in trying to present a counter argument against this measure, start comparing guns to knives.
They ask, why are you not demanding public liability insurance for knives as well as guns?
My response is that guns present a much greater risk of harm and damage than knives. I give a few examples of how a gun can cause harm where a knife is less likely to.
Somehow this all gets convoluted into a bizarre exchange that includes the nonsensical ...
So a background check is pointless for knives but not for guns, because the results of the check matter for knives but not for guns.
.... actually I'm hoping you just mistyped as it doesn't matter how many times I read that, it still makes no sense.
I never said the risk was equal. In fact, I rather explicitly agreed that it likely was not. But nothing about your argument indicates that there is a risk threshold above which we should insure and below which we should not. So logically, a difference in risk does not suffice to distinguish between them without establishing any such risk threshold. Which I've told you repeatedly that you need to do, but which you continue to ignore.
The risk threshold may be to ask "is the gun loaded?"
One of the responsible gun owners on this board mentioned that a loaded gun should be viewed like a rattlesnake. Not sure you could use that analogy with any other weapon.
In any case, as mentioned previously, I believe the insurance angle is not the best way to go.
I prefer the 'sin' tax, which if it really bugs people, could also be applied to the sale of knives, proportionate to the risk they pose, of course.
Yes, it is true that "a gun can harm a person when they are actively running away from the armed person". But the only context in which that statement of yours had any relevance is if you were trying to implicitly contrast that with knives (as you did explicitly in the preceding claim about doing greater harm). You were suggesting knives could not harm someone if they were running away. And that is not true, knives can harm someone who is actively running away. It is this implication which was false. And if you didn't mean to imply that, then your claim simply had no relevance at all.
Okay fair enough. And I must have badly worded my post because I had not intended to imply that knives posed no risk at all.
The point was, with a gun which could fire multiple shots over a long range, the risk to someone running away was greater than a single knife thrown by an individual.
Now this example can be twisted and tweaked until the cows come home....
...the perp might have more than one knife and might be an expert knife thrower.....
...or the perp might have an extended magazine in the weapon and might be a marksman.....
...but if you up the ante with the knife scenario it is more than easy to counter it with the gun scenario and this is why guns are much more dangerous weapons and the harm that they do within a society which allows them to be owned has to be addressed as part of that right of ownership.
E&OE
