The FAST Approaching Gun Ban

[fivekatz]

I still say the answer is for people to have to insure their guns they same way they'd insure their car.

Proper gun safes and such would create lower rates, while assault weapons would carry a higher premium.

It would create a whole new revenue stream for big finance and big finance is a lobby that can take on gun manufacturers and the NRA.

This would infringe on the right to bear arms, only require that owners provide financial responsibility in cases where their fire arms are misused and the owner has a true liability.

This would change the conversation in the US radically IMHO. And it would do a service for victims. If one parent does not secure his weapon and his child hurts or kills another child, the parents of the victim could be compensated.

It is a win-win IMHO and if I need to register my car and insure it, why not my guns? The 2nd Amendment does not say the right is without any regulation or financial responsibility for misuse after all.

[hippifried]

I don't like mandatory insurance or any other form of privatized taxation. It never works because rates can't be controlled. Adding another layer of control by the phantom "marketplace" won't do anything but piss off a whole bunch of people who are all armed. It won't take long for gun folks to get hep to the scam & start refusing to pay. Then what? Gonna make the paranoia behind this thread into reality?

There's no "right", enumerated or in common law, to drive a car on the public roads. Over & over, courts have upheld the States' contention that driving is a privilege, granted by State authority. Until that mindset gets shot down, we're syuck with the private tax that keeps going up, due to supernatural forces in the phantom marketplace. It's bogus & needs to go. I'm not holding my breath. The 2nd Amendment makes the insurance comparison bogus. The last major ruling by SCOTUS doubles down on the "right" to keep & bear arms. None of this is going away. Regulation isn't illegal, but it has to be approached from workable angles. Not even the vociferous gun enthusiasts want them in the hands of assholes or crazies who shoot up schools, theaters, churches, political meet & greets, etc. That's the common ground to get started.

[trish]

A thirteen year was shot and killed in a household where several children ages one to thirteen were playing with a firearm. What happened to this child's right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? It got trumped and throttled by the right to bare arms.
http://accidentalgunshots.tumblr.com/

[hippifried]

I don't disagree with the sentiment, Trish, but I don't think sentiment is what'll carry this through. Sentiment draws attention to the issue. These last several acts of insanity &/or terrorism, coupled with the completely inane response of the NRA, has everybody's attention. Lots of sentimental support too. Calm deliberation will carry the day from here.

[trish]

Anecdotal evidence is often selected to evoke a certain sentiment. A day by day report of gun accidents in the US is merely a sequential listing of the data as it comes in. If the data happens to evoke horror and depict the the risks to the innocent in graphic detail so be it. Guns are lethal and people are stupid. We need to make it difficult for the latter to obtain the former. We need to hold gun owners liable for the mayhem their weapon causes, even if that means each weapon must carry a license, be registered and insured against misuse.

[buttslinger]

....Calm deliberation will carry the day from here.

I'm not so sure, I think it's best to have Sandy Hook survivors camped out in the halls of Congress if you want to get anything done. Reagan and Bush both were against military style arms, on film, but you know they will wait and let the Democats spend their political capital pushing through a ban. We had to have Brady in a wheel chair last time we passed a ban on this stuff. There are so many layers of BS, Republicans and Democratic, and the PEOPLE are even worse. Gore lost in 2000 because of MONICA LEWINSKI!!!!!
And even if harsh measures are passed, for the most part, it won't effect the home grown terrorists, it will effect the guys who buy guns to run up to New York or down to Mexico.
Protecting Americans from themselves can also splash back on things like censorship, The Mothers of Prevention are out there agin video games, PORNO, even my right to drive drunk!!!(ha ha, I quit that) Nobody fights over whether or not we have schools or police, we fight over the positions that have so many layers and mixed feelings, like we're LOOKIN for something to fight about, just to make things interesting.
As I said before, I think Obama has had an eight year plan from Day One, and I don't think guns were any part of it. In one sense the President's only job is to sign bills and prevent WWIII, but in the opposite sense I guarantee you Obama is trying to shift the whole playing field on it's axis so the water naturally flows downhill towards the People, instead of the Rich. That's a lot more ambitious than a ban on People with nothing to live for except shooting things up, but it's actually a lot more practical. Kinda.
If Obama is going to pass the baton to Hillary in 2016, it is important that Americans have nothing big in their little heads to blame Obama on.
That is the kind of calm deliberation that counts. Error free football.

[fivekatz]

Auto Insurance is not a tax. It is providing proof of one's ability to pay damages in the case of liability. Owning a gun and being able to take financial responsibility for it if it is misused under your ownership are two separate things.

Of course there would be uninsured gun owners just as there are uninsured motorists and businesses that don't keep up current workers compensation insurance.

It seems at moments the best defense for doing nothing is that no solution will create a 100% solution. But the only thing we know for sure is that doing nothing assures nothing changes.

[hippifried]

Mandatory "insurance" is a tax because it's mandatory. In the case of cars, it's a fluctuating continuous fee required to own a vehicle. Failure to pay is a criminal offense. Same goes for guns, except that the claim of "privilege" can't be used. You're talking about tacking a lease fee on a right. That won't work. You're just begging for mass civil disobedience, & shouldn't expect Thoreau's passive thoughtfulness. The mildest backlash to this proposal would be giving outfits like the NRA even more power than they've ever had. I'm not advocating doing nothing. I'm advocating a deliberate incremental approach that won't blow up & cause nothing getting done.

[trish]

"Mandatory" is not a sufficient condition for being a tax or a fee. If insurance paid to a private entity to cover any liability accrued is a tax, then so is the price of the gun itself paid to a private dealer, and so is the price of the ammunition paid to a private dealer. All are costs (not taxes or fees) associated with acquiring and using a firearm. The Constitution doesn't guarantee you ownership of a gun; a very free reading of it might guarantee you the right to own one. There's a difference. The former is a privilege, the latter is perhaps a right depending on how one reads the amendment.

[robertlouis]

This "fast-approaching" gun ban is slower than an asthmatic snail on crutches.....