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

[Nessie]

I did. It's dangerous, and imposes massive costs on society. That's the full extent of your argument for insuring guns, when you get down to it. Well, that plus a complete misunderstanding of the nature of insurance, as we'll see in a moment.

Sex is dangerous and poses massive costs on society . That maybe true for a few, but you just cherry pick one part of what goes on with sex, hence you continually have to make false analogies to try and make an argument.

You don't even know what that cost is, remember? You've only got an aggregate cost to society from all guns, which includes both costs that insurance would never cover no matter what gun was used (such as police time) and costs from guns that will never be insured.

True, but we know legal guns are used in shootings.

Well, that's a weird tactic to take in this argument. You're suggesting that insurance is the only possible action we can take that will affect gun crime. How... peculiar.

You have misread what I said. I am suggesting nothing of the sort.

No, actually, it means the reverse: those who do NOT kill or injure pay the majority of the insurance costs to cover those who do. Those who do kill or injure while insured get off paying much less (just their premiums) than they would without insurance. Really, this is such a fundamental mistake in your understanding of insurance that it boggles the mind that you're still making it this late in the debate.

If you have ever claimed off insurance you will know your premium rises unless you pay extra to protect your non claims bonus. Or if you are considered high risk anyway you pay higher premiums. Ultimately those who make no claims get the worst deal. But those who make frequent claims are made to pay more to cover their frequent claims. Ultimately all gun owners will pay towards the cost of the damage their guns do to society with an insurance system. At the moment they expect all of society to absorb their costs.

And which situation do you suppose provides a stronger incentive to not kill or injure, hmmm?

Probably punishment and massive medical bills. Which is an incentive to insure your gun.

No it isn't. It CANNOT do that. The whole point of insurance is to do the reverse: prevent people from having to pay for the full cost of an event.

Really, how can you so thoroughly misunderstand what it is that insurance does?

I am talking of gun owners as a whole, not individuals. I am talking of the whole insured group, not just certain people. Your misunderstanding.

 

[Nessie]

Nessie claimed that insurance would shift the cost onto those responsible for incurring it. But mandatory or not, this is exactly what insurance is designed to avoid. The mandatory nature of the proposed insurance has nothing to do with that.

You have completely missed the point. The group as a whole pay insurance to cover the group as a whole for their collective responsibility. I thought you said you understood insurance?

Homeowner insurance is not required by the government. It's only required by the lender, as a condition of the loan. Your decision to voluntarily enter into a private relationship with a lender is the basis for that lender demanding insurance. You have no right to someone else's money, so there's no infringement of your rights for them to place conditions upon that loan. There is no equivalent relationship involved with guns, and we DO have a right to own guns.

There are good reasons why in certain circumstances insurance is compulsory. Guns have good reason to be insured because of the cost they cause to society. Guns should be insured and you saying they should not because they are a right is you misusing the definition of right.

The claim I objected to was that insurance would force those responsible for damages to pay for those damages. But now you're saying that it simply ensures that the damages will be paid for, period. Those are completely different positions. You don't have to take Nessie's position, but you can't simply substitute yours for his.

You have taken what I said way to literally and have misrepresented it to make a daft argument which suggests you are the one who does not understand how insurance works.

Gun owners as a collective insure their guns because of their cost to society in terms of medical bills and other losses such as work time. They then, as a collective take on responsibility for the damage they as a collective do.

 

[Chuck Guiteau]

You have completely missed the point. The group as a whole pay insurance to cover the group as a whole for their collective responsibility. I thought you said you understood insurance?





There are good reasons why in certain circumstances insurance is compulsory. Guns have good reason to be insured because of the cost they cause to society. Guns should be insured and you saying they should not because they are a right is you misusing the definition of right.




You have taken what I said way to literally and have misrepresented it to make a daft argument which suggests you are the one who does not understand how insurance works.

Gun owners as a collective insure their guns because of their cost to society in terms of medical bills and other losses such as work time. They then, as a collective take on responsibility for the damage they as a collective do.

Maybe you can explain how this works. I'll give you an example:
A fifteen year old girl gets shot to death on a Chicago street corner, a victim of gang violence.
Who do her survivors file the insurance claim against?

 

[GeeMack]

Sex is dangerous and poses massive costs on society. That maybe true for a few, but you just cherry pick one part of what goes on with sex, hence you continually have to make false analogies to try and make an argument.

The number of fatalities from STDs in the US is approximately 35,000 per year. That exceeds the number of all firearm fatalities. Sex causes more fatalities than firearms by a factor of three if we exclude suicides.

If you have ever claimed off insurance you will know your premium rises unless you pay extra to protect your non claims bonus. Or if you are considered high risk anyway you pay higher premiums. Ultimately those who make no claims get the worst deal. But those who make frequent claims are made to pay more to cover their frequent claims. Ultimately all gun owners people who have sex will pay towards the cost of the damage their guns sexual encounters do to society with an insurance system. At the moment they expect all of society to absorb their costs.

Edited so it doesn't rely on special pleading to argue that gun owners should be required to have insurance.

There are good reasons why in certain circumstances insurance is compulsory. Guns Sexual activities have good reason to be insured because of the cost they cause to society. Guns Having sex should be insured and you saying they should not because they are a right is you misusing the definition of right.

Edited to eliminate the special pleading.

You have taken what I said way to literally [...]

Oh, that's right. The arguments against gun ownership or for increased restrictions aren't actually meant to be taken literally. That's a bizarre strategy, piling failure on top of failure advocating a position that requires special pleading, arguments from incredulity, appeals to ignorance, hyperbole, and even acknowledging that the arguments are not meant to be taken as true. As arguments go, it's a long way from being rational or objective, but interesting nonetheless.

 

[Giz]

You have completely missed the point. The group as a whole pay insurance to cover the group as a whole for their collective responsibility. I thought you said you understood insurance?

Except in this case, you would be making group A (legal gun owners) pay the premiums to cover the misuse of firearms by group B (criminal/prohibited/illegal/gang gun owners).

So can we cut out all of the talk of "no-claims", "premium reductions for being responsible" etc?… under Nessie's ideas payouts will be dominated almost exclusively by the actions of group B. Therefore, people in group A would see no material change in their premium based on their actions… it would effectively just be a a flat rate levy and have no impact on behavior (group A isn't the problem and is not rewarded for good behaviour, Group B isn't paying anything for their misdeeds).


This is just an attempt at collective punishment for anyone guilty of the "original sin" of owning a firearm. This kind of levy would perhaps be more appropriately targeted at felons who have re-entered the community after prison.

 

[AlBell]

...

As arguments go, it's a long way from being rational or objective, but interesting nonetheless.

Similar to a trainwreck anyway.

 

[Ziggurat]

Sex is dangerous and poses massive costs on society .

Yes, it does. Do you need me to list some of the costs?

That maybe true for a few, but you just cherry pick one part of what goes on with sex, hence you continually have to make false analogies to try and make an argument.

And you're just cherry picking one part of what goes on with guns, too, so there's nothing false about the comparison (not analogy).

True, but we know legal guns are used in shootings.

Unless you're suggesting that any cost from legally owned guns provides sufficient justification, then this is irrelevant. And if you are taking this position, then your views are so deeply irrational that there's no point in even talking to you about them.

If you have ever claimed off insurance you will know your premium rises unless you pay extra to protect your non claims bonus.

That's a problem for drivers who essentially need to continue to drive. But gun ownership is often optional, so future rate increases could be avoided by simply forfeiting gun ownership at that point. But the damage is already done, so insurance did nothing to prevent it.

Ultimately all gun owners will pay towards the cost of the damage their guns do to society with an insurance system. At the moment they expect all of society to absorb their costs.

You're lumping responsible gun owners (many of whom are already insured) together with violent criminals. But they have no more in common than non-gun owners do except for a superficial similarity. Responsible gun owners are no more to blame for criminal gun use than anyone else. So you have no justification for placing additional burdens on them, other than your own prejudices. You cannot legitimately treat everyone in this group as being equivalent.

Probably punishment and massive medical bills. Which is an incentive to insure your gun.

In other words, incentives for responsible action already exist without mandating insurance. Furthermore, if you mandate insurance, it doesn't matter if there were other incentives to insure, so I don't know why you bothered pointing that out. In fact, it undermines your case by suggesting that the mandate is largely superfluous. But we already knew that: as I've pointed out repeatedly, many gun owners are already insured.

I am talking of gun owners as a whole, not individuals.

But that's not a legitimate generalization to make.

 

[Ziggurat]

You have completely missed the point. The group as a whole pay insurance to cover the group as a whole for their collective responsibility. I thought you said you understood insurance?

I have no collective responsibility for the actions of people who bear only superficial similarity to myself, and whose actions I cannot affect.

There are good reasons why in certain circumstances insurance is compulsory.

Yes, there are. But you have failed to actually understand them.

Guns have good reason to be insured because of the cost they cause to society.

That isn't even close to enough reason for compulsory insurance.

Guns should be insured and you saying they should not because they are a right is you misusing the definition of right.

Yeah, no.

You have taken what I said way to literally and have misrepresented it to make a daft argument which suggests you are the one who does not understand how insurance works.

If you do not mean what you say, then the fault for any misunderstanding lies with you, not me. And you can claim that I don't understand insurance all you want to, but it just isn't so. You're the one who has made the patently false statements about insurance, not me. The defense that such statements were not to be taken literally is a joke.

Gun owners as a collective

But they are not a collective. Just like blacks are not a collective. The higher crime rate among blacks cannot justify treating law-abiding blacks differently than anyone else.

 

[Giz]

Nessie, should any Scots who own a sgian-dubh* be taxed to cover the costs of knife crime in glasgow?



* for non-scots: that's the knife that is traditionally worn with a kilt as part of the outfit.

 

[uk_dave]

Maybe you can explain how this works. I'll give you an example:
A fifteen year old girl gets shot to death on a Chicago street corner, a victim of gang violence.
Who do her survivors file the insurance claim against?

I think more information is required.

How about:

A fifteen year old girl gets shot to death on a Chicago street corner, a victim of gang violence.

The gang member who carried out the shooting is identified and arrested.

Investigations into the shooting establish that the gang member used his father's gun in the attack.

Further investigations established that the father had no way of preventing his son from having access to his gun despite the son's criminal record for violence.

The girl's family decide to sue the owner of the gun

The owner of the gun is discovered to have no assets and is already an undischarged bankrupt.

The girl's family start paying off by instalments the medical bills incurred when the emergency services tried to save their daughter.

Life goes on in the US

 

[Chuck Guiteau]

I think more information is required.

How about:

A fifteen year old girl gets shot to death on a Chicago street corner, a victim of gang violence.

The gang member who carried out the shooting is identified and arrested.

Investigations into the shooting establish that the gang member used his father's gun in the attack.

Further investigations established that the father had no way of preventing his son from having access to his gun despite the son's criminal record for violence.

The girl's family decide to sue the owner of the gun

The owner of the gun is discovered to have no assets and is already an undischarged bankrupt.

The girl's family start paying off by instalments the medical bills incurred when the emergency services tried to save their daughter.

Life goes on in the US

If you need more information, then instead of making up a scenario specifically tailored to affirm your conclusion, you would do better to draw one from real life, like I did.
http://www.cnn.com/2013/01/30/justice/illinois-teen-shot
Who does the victims survivors file a claim against, in this and the majority of gun deaths like it, which by far outweigh those isolated instances where a lawful gun owner uses a weapon under circumstances where a claim could be filed?

 

[AlBell]

I think more information is required.

How about:

Great story.

A fifteen year old girl gets shot to death on a Chicago street corner, a victim of gang violence.

Does happen.

The gang member who carried out the shooting is identified and arrested.

Cops often would not even bother looking since identification is impossible given anti-snitch attitude too often prevalent in gang areas.

Investigations into the shooting establish that the gang member used his father's gun in the attack.

Further investigations established that the father had no way of preventing his son from having access to his gun despite the son's criminal record for violence.

Father? You are joking, right? Mother's gun perhaps, but the kid usually has his own aiui.

The girl's family decide to sue the owner of the gun

The owner of the gun is discovered to have no assets and is already an undischarged bankrupt.

The girl's family start paying off by instalments the medical bills incurred when the emergency services tried to save their daughter.

Uh, not likely. Medicaid pays or ER gets stiffed.

Life goes on in the US

A subject you don't seem to understand.

 

[uk_dave]

If you need more information, then instead of making up a scenario specifically tailored to affirm your conclusion, you would do better to draw one from real life, like I did.
http://www.cnn.com/2013/01/30/justice/illinois-teen-shot
Who does the victims survivors file a claim against, in this and the majority of gun deaths like it, which by far outweigh those isolated instances where a lawful gun owner uses a weapon under circumstances where a claim could be filed?

So that's a reason not to provide the facility for people to obtain compensation?

If you have a situation where a criminal uses a gun but no one knows how he got it, then do something about that; make it damn near impossible for no one to know where the gun originated from.

If the criminal purchases the gun from a private seller, or has the gun given to him or it is purchased on his behalf make it so that these transactions are traceable and then you will deter people from providing guns to criminals

If the criminal has stolen the gun, trace it back to the original owner and investigate how the gun was stolen: was it negligence or had the owner taken every reasonable precaution?

Once you do those things you start to make people take legal gun ownership seriously and maybe, just maybe you might start to reduce the number of illegal guns in circulation.

Yeah, the story you quote is a terrible thing. It shouldn't be happening in a modern western country, certainly not with the regularity it seems to happen in the US. It's a damn good case for stricter gun control.

Who do the Sandy Hook parents get to sue?

 

[uk_dave]

Cops often would not even bother looking since identification is impossible given anti-snitch attitude too often prevalent in gang areas.

<sigh>

Two men have been charged with the murder of Hadiya Pendleton, the 15-year-old Chicago honours student who was shot dead a few days after performing at Barack Obama's inauguration.

Michael Ward, 18, and Kenneth Williams, 20, were charged with one count of first-degree murder, two counts of attempted murder and aggravated battery with a firearm, Chicago police spokeswoman Melissa Stratton said. She said police believed both men were gang members.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/feb/12/hadiya-pendleton-shooting-murder-charges

 

[WildCat]

<sigh>


http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/feb/12/hadiya-pendleton-shooting-murder-charges

80+% of gang-related murders in Chicago go unsolved.

 

[Chuck Guiteau]

So that's a reason not to provide the facility for people to obtain compensation?

Dodging the question by responding with another question isn't helping your case.

If you have a situation where a criminal uses a gun but no one knows how he got it, then do something about that; make it damn near impossible for no one to know where the gun originated from.

If the criminal purchases the gun from a private seller, or has the gun given to him or it is purchased on his behalf make it so that these transactions are traceable and then you will deter people from providing guns to criminals

Irrelevant to the topic. The topic is firearms insurance, not enforcement procedures. Nice attempt at diverting the focus away from your claim about insurance, though.

If the criminal has stolen the gun, trace it back to the original owner and investigate how the gun was stolen: was it negligence or had the owner taken every reasonable precaution?

Again, irrelevant to the topic. Worse, it involves special pleading inasmuch as you wouldn't apply the same level of scrutiny to automobiles or other tools of crime.

Once you do those things you start to make people take legal gun ownership seriously and maybe, just maybe you might start to reduce the number of illegal guns in circulation.

And yet again, not relevant to to your position on insurance and how it may be used to compensate victims.
You seem so insistent on coming back to this subject (and away from the position on compensation that prompted my original question) that it would make any reasonable person wonder if your position on insurance was sincere or just another pretext for furthering the anti-gun agenda.

Yeah, the story you quote is a terrible thing. It shouldn't be happening in a modern western country, certainly not with the regularity it seems to happen in the US. It's a damn good case for stricter gun control.

Judging from this statement, I was dead on target in the above response. Thanks for finally admitting it.
But rather than gloat about outing your true intent, I'll continue with the subject of the debate.
In the case I described, there is no one against whom the survivors could be reasonably expected to file a claim against. The killer was a career criminal, already on probation for another violent felony, a gang member, and an individual no reasonable person could expect to have purchased the type of firearms insurance in question.
This is far from an atypical example. The vast majority of violent crimes are perpetrated in similar fashion by persons similar to Michael Ward and against persons who are too often demographically similar to Ms Pendleton.
It's not that anyone is saying that there is no reason to provide compensation to the victims, we're saying that no compensation could reasonably be expected to exist in the first place in the overwhelming majority of incidents.

Who do the Sandy Hook parents get to sue?

Nobody. The gun owner herself was a victim.
Are you making the case that even victims be liable for crimes now?

 

[Giz]

80+% of gang-related murders in Chicago go unsolved.

That just makes it even more important that you pay for them!

Never mind that you did nothing. That your guns are stored responsibly. That you could have no influence, impact or responsibility at all for what happened... we want justice!!

 

[AlBell]

...
blather elided ...

Who do the Sandy Hook parents get to sue?

The Lanza estate.

I suspect by the time lawyers argue out the value of each of the 20 children little will be left.

That just makes it even more important that you pay for them!

Never mind that you did nothing. That your guns are stored responsibly. That you could have no influence, impact or responsibility at all for what happened... we want justice!!

As we would like no-nothings from the UK and Oz to butt out of our business.

 

[Giz]

As we would like no-nothings from the UK and Oz to butt out of our business.

It's a sad state of affairs when a very sarcastic post can be mistaken for the actual viewpoint of the anti-gun side.

 

[uk_dave]

As we would like no-nothings from the UK and Oz to butt out of our business.

Tough