Middle ground idea on gun control: Gun Insurance

[Xithras]

42. Insurance rates are determined by actuarials.

Actuarials are focused on the odds of having to make a payout, and not on lethality. I do like the idea of requiring insurance, but I don't think there's any chance that it will accomplish the goals laid out in this story. Assault rifles are used in a tiny percentage of gun crimes. Statistically, handguns are used in nearly all of them. The actuarials are easy to predict...handguns will be expensive to insure, while assault rifles would be cheap (not as cheap as bolts and shotguns, but still a lot cheaper than handguns). The articles speculation that features like large magazines would be expensive to insure would ONLY be true if large magazines led to larger payouts. In order for that to happen, gun crime victims would have to prove that the large capacity magazine increased the shooters lethality and therefore his liability. While theater and school shootings get a lot of press, it's still an inarguable fact that virtually all gun deaths in the United States are the result of small scale violence between individuals (or suicides), and usually only involve a couple of bullets. Mass killings, in spite of their horror and the press coverage they get, are still statistical anomalies among the overall number of gun deaths, and wouldn't have much of an impact on insurance rates.

There ARE very real advantages to requiring insurance though. Insurance companies could offer discounts for people who attend gun safety courses, who keep their guns locked in safes, or who submit themselves to the occasional mental health checks. This would encourage responsible gun ownership, while making it more expensive for those who are not responsible.

Besides, it's largely a pointless discussion at the national level. Mandatory insurance would need to be instituted at a state level. With our health care "reform" law, the government was able to demonstrate that failing to purchase insurance increased the insurance costs for other users in other states, which made the requirement legal under the interstate commerce clause. I don't see how that argument could be stretched to cover guns. The federal government could no more require gun owners to purchase gun insurance than it could require them to purchase car insurance.