The tide has been turning rather quickly against the gun grabbing gang as the year draws to a close, and they’ve clearly noticed. With nearly three quarters of all Americans opposed to a ban on handguns, and a slim majority even opposing bans on so called “assault rifles,” Second Amendment opponents find themselves in need of more “creative” ways to go after your guns. The latest one being picked up from the reliable liberal arsenal and dusted off is the idea of forcing legal gun owners to purchase liability insurance for their weapons. This brainstorm is brought to you by Megan McArdle.
Novel gun control ideas continue to percolate through the commentariat. The latest idea is requiring liability insurance for gun owners, which seems to have first been suggested by John Wasik blogging at Forbes. Reihan Salam, one of my favorite thinkers, says it’s an idea seriously worth considering.
So… insurance. Well, insurance is supposed to help people, right? Maybe she’s just trying to make people’s lives better, not trample on their rights. Let’s read on.
In the end, I think it might be a fine idea to help a small number of people, but it wouldn’t do what proponents are imagining in terms of controlling criminal behavior. Mostly, it would be a way to compensate some victims of gun accidents…
The first question we have to answer is why we want to require the insurance. There are three reasons I can think of:
1) it will simply raise the cost of owning guns to the point where people aren’t willing to do it.
2) It will pay for the harm caused by guns
3) It will make insurers into de-facto regulators.
RIGHT'S RIGHT 
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Sat Dec 29, 2012 10:34 am
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