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

[uk_dave]

I already pointed out the impossibility of that. Guns can be in operating condition for well over 100 years, and you can't compel someone to maintain insurance on something they no longer possess.

I believe that was dealt with upstream.

All you need is something similar to a SORN with regard to cars, i.e if you're no longer the owner you notify the registration authority and confirm that either the gun has been destroyed or has been sold/given to someone else. You can then cancel the insurance.

In a perfect world the next owner of the weapon would then have to register it and insure themselves.

 

[Ziggurat]

One of the incentives for me to not do something stupid with my car or motorbike is the cost of the insurance renewal premium. I see gun insurance doing the same thing.

I am not making any claims that insurance would deal with criminals or nuts.

But criminals and nuts are the real problem with guns, not accidents. There are already significant incentives, even without insurance, to not be careless with guns. And the purpose of car liability insurance is not to provide an incentive for responsible behavior, but to indemnify victims of accidents, because unlike guns, that IS a major problem with cars. The fact that insurance provides an incentive for responsible behavior is a bonus, but it was never the point, and is only marginally effective in that regards anyways. There's no reason to think that it would be a particularly effective incentive for guns either.

 

[thaiboxerken]

Fire-arm accidents seem to be a rather large problem along with criminal activity.

 

[Nessie]

I already pointed out the impossibility of that. Guns can be in operating condition for well over 100 years, and you can't compel someone to maintain insurance on something they no longer possess.

If a gun owner leaves their gun lying around and another member of the family uses it to kill, I say the gun owner carries liability for not securing their gun properly.

 

[Nessie]

But criminals and nuts are the real problem with guns, not accidents. There are already significant incentives, even without insurance, to not be careless with guns. And the purpose of car liability insurance is not to provide an incentive for responsible behavior, but to indemnify victims of accidents, because unlike guns, that IS a major problem with cars. The fact that insurance provides an incentive for responsible behavior is a bonus, but it was never the point, and is only marginally effective in that regards anyways. There's no reason to think that it would be a particularly effective incentive for guns either.

I understand criminals, nuts and youths are a big problem. But accidents and reckless acts by legal gun owners still kill enough people for insurance to be justifiable.

The incentive bit is not even a big part of the insurance, the paying for the damage they do is.

 

[Ziggurat]

I understand criminals, nuts and youths are a big problem. But accidents and reckless acts by legal gun owners still kill enough people for insurance to be justifiable.

The incentive bit is not even a big part of the insurance, the paying for the damage they do is.

First you argued that the incentive was an important justification, now you concede that it doesn't matter much, since it won't really change the behavior of people who do own guns. They either will or won't be responsible, and insurance has little to do with it. Now you're only concerned with indemnifying the victims. That's a moved goal post, but if that's your justification, then you should be able to quantify the problem.

So how many gun accidents involve injuries to third parties? Because that's all we need to worry about here. If you accidently shoot yourself in the foot, that's YOUR problem. If you want to insure yourself against that risk, that's up to you, but I don't care if you don't. Furthermore, among those third-party victims of gun accidents, how many are unable to recover damages from the responsible party, and how large are these unrecovered damages? Because as has already been pointed out, home insurance will already cover that in many cases. So what, exactly, is the scale of this problem?

 

[Nessie]

Is home insurance compulsory? Can you show me how home insurance would cover a gun owner who shoots a supposed intruder to find it was someone with a legitimate reason to be calling at the house?

I have not moved goal posts, for me the major part of insurance is for gun owners to have the means to pay for the damage they do and then act as an incentive.

 

[WildCat]

Fire-arm accidents seem to be a rather large problem along with criminal activity.

More people per year drown in swimming pools than are killed by firearm accidents. And there's far fewer swimming pools.

So if accidental gun deaths warrant tight regulation and control, shouldn't swimming pools be subject to even more regulation?

(waits for someone like David James to take this way out of context yet again)

 

[GeeMack]

I understand criminals, nuts and youths are a big problem. But accidents and reckless acts by legal gun owners still kill enough people for insurance to be justifiable.

Reckless acts and accidents by legal gun owners kill about the same number of people as die from falling out of bed or off a piece of furniture. To suggest legal gun owners be required to have insurance against reckless acts or accidents, without suggesting that legal furniture owners be required to have the same sort of insurance, is special pleading.

The incentive bit is not even a big part of the insurance, the paying for the damage they do is.

It is an irrational argument to suggest that they, as in the more than 99% of legal gun owners who are not responsible for any damage, should be required to pay for the damage done by the less than 1% who might.

 

[WildCat]

Is home insurance compulsory?

It is if you have a mortgage, but that's a requirement by the mortgage company, not the government.

If you have no mortgage you can be forced to sell the house to cover damages you're liable for. In most states anyway, see OJ moving to Florida.

 

[thaiboxerken]

More people per year drown in swimming pools than are killed by firearm accidents. And there's far fewer swimming pools.

So if accidental gun deaths warrant tight regulation and control, shouldn't swimming pools be subject to even more regulation?

(waits for someone like David James to take this way out of context yet again)

Yes. Swimming pools should be regulated. However, this thread is about gun control.

 

[Ziggurat]

Is home insurance compulsory?

Compulsory for what purpose?

There is no law requiring home insurance. However, no lender will give you a mortgage without it, and letting your insurance lapse is grounds for forclosure, so unless you don't have a mortgage, then you need insurance. And if you don't have a mortgage (ie, you own your house outright), then you'd be a fool not to protect it with insurance. So the rate of insurance among homeowners is certainly close to 100%. But no laws were required to make it so.

Can you show me how home insurance would cover a gun owner who shoots a supposed intruder to find it was someone with a legitimate reason to be calling at the house?

Home insurance covers accidents on your property, even ones caused by negligence. The accident you described is not excluded from most insurance plans, so therefore it would be covered.

I have not moved goal posts, for me the major part of insurance is for gun owners to have the means to pay for the damage they do and then act as an incentive.

The incentive won't work. We've already been over that. And I note that you failed to answer my question in any way. What is the scope of the problem you think this will solve? How many third party victims of lawfully owned firearm accidents are unable to recover damages from the responsible party?

 

[WildCat]

Yes. Swimming pools should be regulated. However, this thread is about gun control.

I thought it was about mandatory insuranced based on guns being especially dangerous? If so, then shouldn't there be mandatory insurance on swimming pools, which are demonstrably responsible for far more accidental deaths than guns are?

Should people be banned from swimming entirely?

Or is it just special pleading again?

 

[thaiboxerken]

I thought it was about mandatory insuranced based on guns being especially dangerous? If so, then shouldn't there be mandatory insurance on swimming pools, which are demonstrably responsible for far more accidental deaths than guns are?

Should people be banned from swimming entirely?

Or is it just special pleading again?

Swimming pools should have mandatory insurance.

But this thread is about guns.

 

[Nessie]

Reckless acts and accidents by legal gun owners kill about the same number of people as die from falling out of bed or off a piece of furniture. To suggest legal gun owners be required to have insurance against reckless acts or accidents, without suggesting that legal furniture owners be required to have the same sort of insurance, is special pleading.




It is an irrational argument to suggest that they, as in the more than 99% of legal gun owners who are not responsible for any damage, should be required to pay for the damage done by the less than 1% who might.

You have failed to evidence anything in this post.

 

[Nessie]

It is if you have a mortgage, but that's a requirement by the mortgage company, not the government.

If you have no mortgage you can be forced to sell the house to cover damages you're liable for. In most states anyway, see OJ moving to Florida.

So if a gun owner accidentally shoots someone, will they have to pay the other parties hospital bills, or would that party have to sue them? I ask because if there is insurance then the third party can claim off that, which is better than having to sue and means the gun owner does not lose their house or whatever to pay the costs.

 

[GeeMack]

Or is it just special pleading again?

Yes, it is. It's a transparent logical fallacy, detached from honest objectivity, and despite the fact that it inevitably fails, it has become a time worn staple in the meager collection of arguments opposing gun ownership and/or favoring increased restrictions on law abiding gun owners.

 

[WildCat]

So if a gun owner accidentally shoots someone, will they have to pay the other parties hospital bills, or would that party have to sue them? I ask because if there is insurance then the third party can claim off that, which is better than having to sue and means the gun owner does not lose their house or whatever to pay the costs.

There's going to be a lawsuit, insurance or not.

 

[GeeMack]

You have failed to evidence anything in this post.

The evidence for everything I've mentioned has been provided numerous times in these many discussions about guns. If anyone just joined or hasn't been following, a good place to start reading would be back in about mid-December of 2012.

 

[uk_dave]

It is if you have a mortgage, but that's a requirement by the mortgage company, not the government.

If you have no mortgage you can be forced to sell the house to cover damages you're liable for. In most states anyway, see OJ moving to Florida.

Interesting. Not sure if it's the same over there, but here we would have 'Buildings Insurance' which is compulsory and 'Contents Insurance' which is optional.

The compulsory nature of the buildings insurance is due to the fact that if, as you say, you have a mortgage then strictly speaking the mortgage company has a risk involved if the house were to be destroyed by fire etc. You'd still owe them money and they wouldn't have anything they could repossess from you. I kinda doubt that it is this type of insurance that would cover you for accidents in the home. I suspect that would be covered by the contents insurance.

But, as I say, you do do things differently over there.