An Interesting Idea on Sensible Gun Control

I love Ronni Bennett.  Her elderblog, Time Goes By, is my go-to source for all things aging.  Others agree with me, as did John Gear, who sent her an article he wrote in 1999.  I'm excerpting it, with comments in italics, below.  It's an interesting idea, one that makes sense to me because it talks to Americans where they are most vulnerable - in their wallets.

John Gear, in The Progressive Review:

We can fix the gun problem. We can make America safer, without limiting
our right to bear arms. And we can do it without an expensive, dangerous,
and futile "War on Guns."

To solve the real problem (keeping guns out of the wrong hands-without
restricting other people) we must use an idea that has worked to limit
losses from many other hazards: insurance. That's right, insurance, the
system of risk-management contracts that lets people take responsibility
for choices they make that impose risks on others.

I know you didn't buy your gun to hurt me, but it just might do that.  I like the notion that you will be responsible for helping me heal when your weapon damages me.

Insurance is what lets society accommodate technology. Without it, we
would have few autos, airplanes, trains, steamships, microwaves, elevators,
skyscrapers, and little electricity, because only the wealthiest could
accept the liability involved. When people are accountable for risks
imposed on others, they act more responsibly. Insurance is what enables
this accountability.

Holding people "accountable for risks imposed on others" is a concept that gun owners seem unwilling to accept.  Framing it within the concept of car insurance makes it accessible to the otherwise closed mind.

Rather than trying to limit access to or take guns away from law-abiding
adults, we must instead insist that the adult responsible for a gun at any
instant (maker, seller, or buyer) have enough liability insurance to cover
the harm that could result if that adult misuses it or lets it reach the
wrong hands.

"The unsecured gun a child uses to shoot a playmate" is a tougher sentence to read than "lets it reach the wrong hands" but it has the same meaning and the same consequences.

Who gets the insurance proceeds, and for what? The state crime victims'
compensation fund, whenever a crime involving guns is committed or a gun
mishap occurs. The more victims, the bigger the payout. The greater the
damage (from intimidation to multiple murders and permanent crippling), the
greater the payout. The insurers will also pay the fund for other claims,
such as when a minor commits suicide by gun or accidentally kills a
playmate with Daddy's pistol. This will reduce such mishaps. Insurance is
very effective in getting people to adopt safe practices in return for
lower premiums.

The crime victims funds are county entities, not state entities, but they do wonderful work.  Pima County's fund, through Barbara LaWall's County Attorney's Office, sent personal and financial help my way.  I'd be a lot worse off without it.

On the other hand, calling a minor's suicide or murder of a playmate a mishap is a very poor choice of words.

When a crime involving a gun occurs, the firm who insured it pays the
claim. If the gun is not found or is uninsured (and there will still be
many of these at first) then every fund will pay a pro-rated share of the
damages, based on the number of guns they insure. This will motivate
insurance firms--and legitimate gun owners--to treat uninsured guns as
poison, instead of as an unavoidable byproduct of the Second Amendment.
Thus, insurance will unite the interests of all law-abiding citizens, gun
owners and others, against the real problem with guns: guns in the hands of
criminals, the reckless, the untrained, and juveniles.

In saying his plan will unite the interests of those on both sides of the issue I think he is being a little bit naive.  Still, naivete is better than stubborness.

Like other insurance, firearm insurance will be from a private firm or
association, not the government. Owners, makers, and dealers will likely
self-insure, forming large associations just as the early "automobilists"
did. Any financially-sound group, such as the NRA, can follow state
insurance commission rules and create a firearms insurance firm. 

AARP offers insurance and lobbies legislators.  Let the NRA do the same.

That's it. No mass or government registrations. Except for defining the
rules, no government involvement at all. Each owner selects his or her
insurance firm. By reaffirming the right to responsible gun ownership and
driving uninsured guns out of the system, we use a proven,
non-prohibitionist strategy for improving public safety.

I still don't think guns belong in everyone's hands, but this is certainly a step in the right direction.

Each insurance firm will devise a strategy for earning more revenue with
fewer claims. Thus gun owners -- informed by the actuaries -- will choose
for ourselves the controls we will tolerate, and the corresponding
premiums. (Rates will vary according to the gun we want to insure, our
expertise, and claims history.)

Some will want a cheaper policy that requires trigger locks whenever the
gun is not in use; others will not. Hobbyists will find cheaper insurance
by keeping their firearms in a safe at the range. Newer, younger shooters
and those who choose weapons that cause more claims will pay higher
premiums. That way, other owners, with more training and claims-free
history, will pay less. (Insurance companies are expert at evaluating
combined risks and dividing them up-in the form of premiums-with exquisite
precision.)

This comes close to Chris Rock's immortal suggestion that guns be unregulated and available, but that bullets should cost $5000 each.

Again, Americans think with their wallets.

Soon, the firms will emphasize cutting claims. That means promoting gun
safety and fighting black market gun dealers, which is where many criminals
get guns. And every legitimate gun owner will have a persuasive reason --
lower premiums -- to help in the fight.

Smokers pay larger health insurance premiums.  Ferrari's cost more to insure than Hondas.  This is fair, and understandable, even to the most ardent 2nd Amendment supporter.

We need to start discussing this now, because it will take several years
to enact. Gun-control advocates will hate this because it forsakes the
failed prohibitionist approach. But the evidence is clear: there is
virtually no chance that prohibiting guns can work without destroying our
civil liberties, and probably not even then.

Destroying civil liberties, virtually no chance that prohibiting guns can work.... these arguments are overused and untested, but if it gets an NRA member to read this far and think the plan is sane, then I can handle two sentences of nonsense.

And the organized gun lobby will hate it too, because most of their power
comes from having the threat of gun prohibition to point to. But again the
evidence is clear: we have the current gun laws -- ineffective as they are
-- because we have neglected a right even more important to Americans than
the right to bear arms: the right to be safely unarmed.

That's my favorite phrase in the article -

"the right be be safely unarmed."

Naturally, many gun owners will resent paying premiums, because they
resent assuming responsibility for risks that, so far, we've dumped on
everyone else. So be it. It is only by assuming our responsibilities that
we preserve our rights. Some will note that the Second Amendment doesn't
include "well-insured." But, just as the press needs insurance against
libel suits to exercise the First Amendment, we must assume responsibility
for the risks that firearms present to society.

Here's where opponents of sensible legislation will go batty, I think.  Assuming responsibility is a foreign concept if you think leaving a loaded pistol on your nightstand is the best way to raise a child.

The problem is real, even such prohibitionist strategies are doomed to fail,
even if passed. Sadly, some pro-gun groups have already revved up their own
mindless propaganda, blaming Springfield on liberals, TV, Dr. Spock, "bad seeds," you name it -- anything but the easy access to guns that made massacres like Springfield so quick, so easy, and so likely.

In 1998, a shooter opened fire in a high school in Springfield, Oregon. You can read about the survivors here.  As always, I am not naming the shooter.  He gets no publicity from me.

This won't work instantly -- but it will work, because it breaks the
deadlock about guns and how to keep them away from people who shouldn't
have them, without stomping on the rights of the rest of us. Thus it
changes the dynamics of this issue and ends the lethal deadlock over guns.
It's time for everyone, people seeking safety from guns and law-abiding
gun owners alike, to work together to fight firearms in the wrong hands,
and it's time to fight with FIRE: Firearm Insurance, Required Everywhere.

So, what do you think?