Gun Control & Insurance

A recent issue that has been the topic of much debate, over the national spectrum, has been gun control.  The latest shootings in both Aurora, Colorado and Newtown, Connecticut have now brought the debate to the political level.  A possible answer that has been gaining a bit of steam over recent weeks has been mandating liability insurance for gun owners.  Just like owning an automobile, if you are to drive the car on the road and assume the risk, you must be willing to pay for it. In most states, car owners are required to buy insurance coverage, leading to an elaborate insurance system that financially rewards good drivers with lower premiums and penalizes bad drivers with higher premiums. So for instance, an 80-year-old married woman in Fort Lauderdale would get a great rate. A 20-year-old in inner-city Chicago wouldn’t be able to afford it. A 32-year-old man with a record of drunk driving and domestic violence would have a similar problem.

The 1st objection that came to mind is that approximately  9,000 people per year are murdered with firearms in America, essentially every one of the killings could be grounds for a suit. Liability insurance for firearms might be so prohibitively expensive that no one would be able to afford it.  Some argue that would not be the case. The National Rifle Association already offers "excess personal liability and self-defense" coverage to its members, and according to their website it seems $100,000 worth of insurance costs just $165 per year; $250,000 worth is $254.

This isn't a substitute for other popular gun-control measures, such as limitations on magazine capacity, universal background checks and so forth. But given the limitations on possible gun control measures in a country where the Supreme Court holds individual gun ownership for home self-defense to be a constitutionally protected right, and where there may be 300million firearms already in circulation, it seems like a good place to start.

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