Mandate Liability Insurance for Gun Ownership

I refuse to wait any longer for congress to take action. The school shootings must stop. There are now so many guns in circulation in this country that banning or restricting guns sales is almost futile, so let's try a different path entirely. One that stops demonizing gun owners and allows everyone to get what they want. Make it illegal to own or possess a firearm without LIABILITY INSURANCE.

We should let the actuarial tables determine how much of a risk an individual's gun or arsenal poses to the community at large to determine fair premiums. Discounts for steps taken to secure weapons and keep them out of the hands of people (big and small) who could cause harm. Let the insurance company decide on appropriate qualifications (trust me, the necessary data exist) and monitor the mental health of their customers as well as their online personas, safety of their homes, and to impose guidelines for storage. Then allow them to deny coverage for people who do not adhere to adequate standards resulting in injury or death.

Bottom line, if you own a gun you should keep it safe and be financially responsible for it in the event it kills someone. This is not unreasonable. We insure cars because they can be dangerous and we can figure out exactly how much a person should pay for life insurance based on factors in their life and health choices. So let's run the numbers and create a boatload of American jobs in the new gun insurance industry and put an end to mass shootings every week. If you can afford a gun and you can keep it safely, you can afford insurance. If you can't do those things, isn't it fair to say you shouldn't have a gun?

But what about illegal weapons? Make it a separate crime with severe financial consequences to be in possession of any gun without insurance and start cracking down while offering amnesty. Use this money to provide grants to lower income individuals who would qualify but can not afford the insurance or adequate safeguards as well as educating young people about gun safety in a meaningful way. Of course there will always be illegal gun violence and people will fall through the cracks but if we have an insurance industry to hold accountable, I believe we will see a decrease in preventable gun violence.

I am furious that no American student is safe in school anymore and that our so called leaders sit on their hands. I demand action. No more lock down drills. No more students stuck in school after a shooting for hours only to be paraded out arms up and searched. Enough. Enough. Enough. Tell your representatives you want gun insurance now. #insuregunsnow

Firearms are responsible for more bodily injury, and death, to innocent third -parties, than motor vehicles: yet all motor vehicles must have compulsory liability insurance -- but not so firearms.

Therefore subject all firearms to the same types of mandatory insurance liability requirements -- as motor vehicles,

How many school children have to be slaughtered in their classrooms before we do something serious about the easy access to assault weapons and other guns of war to civilians in the United States? How many movie theater audiences have to be mowed down? How many church congregations killed in their own houses of worship? How many innocent shoppers need to be shot in a shopping mall?

We need to amend the Second Amendment to the Constitution, which guarantees our "right to bear arms," in order to pass sensible gun regulations.

Although adults have a right to drive, which is not guaranteed by our Constitution, they need to pass a driving test and obtain a driving license. Gun owners should also pass a test to prove that they can handle firearms responsibly, and they should then receive a license. They should not be allowed to purchase weapons of mass destruction. Criminals and people with serious mental problems which could lead them to violence should not be able to obtain guns at all, never mind so easily.

Please join me in supporting a simple amendment to the Constitution which would make sensible regulation of gun ownership possible on a national basis. It could read as follows: "The Second Amendment to the Constitution is hereby amended to permit the registration, licensing, regulation, and limitation of firearms by the Federal Government."

In light of the recent incident in Connecticut and others involving firearms, I am struck with how little the issue of financial liability is mentioned in the owning, safeguarding and usage of this class of hazardous machines. Instead of the narrative of whether a citizen should have the 2nd Amendment right to own a firearm, and all the political and emotional dialog preventing solutions, I propose a new narrative.

Citizens in the US are free to engage in activities that can potentially harm another citizen but are required to be financially able to compensate persons harmed by the accidents they may cause by this activity. As an example consider that every vehicle owner in the US has to buy insurance for every vehicle they own. The premium rates are set by actuary personnel at insurance companies that evaluate the risks they find by our age, driving records, credit reports among other criteria, and set a premium that will match the risk associated by the history of other drivers with similar characteristics.

A driver with a lot of violations or accidents will pay very high premiums on all the vehicles that they own. If a driver purchases a particularly hazardous vehicle, like a muscle car or racing motorcycle they will pay high risk insurance on that particular vehicle, no matter what their driving experience has been.

Driving recklessly or owning a muscle car has the financial disincentive of paying high insurance premiums, because of the enhanced risk to other drivers.

Driving without insurance or financial responsibility is a crime.

Owning, safeguarding and operating firearms has at least the same magnitude of risk to the public as an automobile, maybe even more because the consequence of the operation of a machine called a firearm is intended to cause damage. The discharge of a bullet is only intended to punch a hole or break what the gun was aimed at; no one purchases a firearm to rake a lawn, paint the house. So the intent of the purchaser of a firearm is to possess an item that has one function, to cause a controlled damage, so with that right comes the responsibility to control that potential damage. Yet I am not aware of any financial disincentives to model ownership responsibility in relationship to the risks to the public by an individual's behaviour in gun ownership.

I propose the legislature consider the ownership of firearms in the same way as vehicle ownership.

All firearms (except those owned by the military and police) will have to be insured against the possible harm they can cause.

Example. A small caliber handgun purchased would be the lowest premium, crossing to the other end of the spectrum where a large caliber semi auto assault rifle would have a very high premium.

A citizen with a stable history in society would have the lowest premium and the highest premium would be a person with a history of mental instability or reckless behavior.

Mortality tables and police statistics could be combined to develop a historic pattern between first the type of firearm and second the potential buyers pattern of behaviour as a group to set a premium class.

The insurance would be pegged to dollars per life taken, according to insurance mortality tables and injuries on a lesser scale.

The federally mandated insurance would have to be in force for the life of the weapon, so if it were stolen or used by anyone else, the original owner would still have to carry insurance. Only the sale or destruction of the weapon would relieve that obligation. This is to promote the owner to secure the weapon in a gun safe, to slow gun thefts and non owner use.

A special increased premium would be charged to purchases of multiple firearms to be a disincentive to (straw) purchasers.

Make gun ownership without insurance a crime.

Rights involve responsibility.

God Bless America

2nd Amendment ALLOWS us as citizens to own a gun. BUT it does not require anyone to own a gun. Guns are not the answer to problems.

Please sign this pledge that you do not own a gun and will not ever own a gun!