To: Wharf Rat who wrote (38841 ) 2/11/2013 7:51:10 AM From: Brumar89 1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) | Respond to I'd love to have one of those but need to think of an excuse to justify buying it:brought her new toy to the Grange show-and-tell after breakfast this morning. http://www.gunblast.com/Taurus-CircuitJudge.htm online.wsj.com JAMES TARANTO FoxNews.com H.L. Pohlman proponent of the idea. Essentially his argument is that it would encourage people to behave in desirable ways:Rapid-fire weapons capable of mass casualties would require higher premiums than less-lethal firearms. Some gun owners would avoid the high rates by purchasing less-lethal weapons, decreasing over time the number of rapid-fire weapons and their accessories in America. Responsible gun ownership would increase. A weapon that is secured when not in use is less likely to be used in an illegal or harmful way. Requiring gun owners to carry theft insurance, for example, would provide an effective incentive for proper firearm storage. Pohlman makes some unfounded assumptions here. For one thing, what makes him so sure that scary "assault rifles" (a term he doesn't use but seems to be hinting at in the first quoted sentence) would command higher liability premiums? FBI statistics Tom Maguire reduces the cost of having the insured object stolen. But think about it: You probably have theft insurance on your car, but does that make you any more or less likely to lock your car when you leave it unattended? Or do you lock your car because you don't want it stolen? It is common for our society to throw the risk on the owner of a potentially harmful commodity. Motor vehicles, for example, must be registered and insured in case their use harms humans or property; and the thrill of driving a high-performance car comes with a higher insurance premium. As with health insurance 1st Alliance Insurance Agency Guns must be properly secured in order to get decent home insurance rates. Your home insurance company will likely favor gun owners who have safety locks and proper storage that helps keep the firearms out of the hands of children and other untrained individuals. It would also be constitutionally suspect for the government to condition the exercise of one's rights under the Second Amendment on the purchase of insurance. Pohlman denies this:Perhaps the chief virtue of mandated gun-owner insurance is that it is consistent with the Second Amendment. No one who can safely be entrusted with the type of gun that is protected by the Second Amendment will be prevented from owning that type of gun. Gun insurance does not take away our liberties; it merely requires gun owners to pay the social cost of the exercise of that liberty. Perhaps one could successfully defend that position in court, but it seems to us far from an open-and-shut case. Large publishers typically carry insurance to cover the risk of libel. Does anyone think the First Amendment would permit a state to require that all individuals buy libel insurance before publishing a pamphlet or starting a blog? We suspect that the real goal here is to deter gun ownership or, failing that, to punish law-abiding gun owners. As for criminals, we doubt any of them will ever hesitate to use a gun because it is uninsured.
