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Mac Slavo: New York House Representative Carolyn Maloney has introduced a new bill that would force gun owners to have liability insurance or face fines of up to $10,000.
According to Maloney the stipulations in The Firearms Risk Protection Act would curb gun violence, much like car insurance has lowered vehicle fatalities because gun owners would be more careful.
“We require insurance to own a car, but no such requirement exists for guns,” Maloney said in a statement. “The results are clear: car fatalities have declined by 25 percent in the last decade, but gun fatalities continue to rise.”
Maloney said auto insurance carriers incentivize drivers to take precautions to reduce accidents, but no such incentives exist for firearm owners.
“An insurance requirement would allow the free market to encourage cautious behavior and help save lives,” she said. “Adequate liability coverage would also ensure that the victims of gun violence are fairly compensated when crimes or accidents occur.”
Source: The Hill
Of course, the likelihood that insurance policies are responsible for the 25% drop in car fatalities is almost zero. Rather, as noted by the Insurance Institute For Highway Safetyand people with even a smidgen of common sense, it’s probably more likely that improved vehicle design and safety features are responsible for the large decrease:
They found that vehicle changes — including improved structural designs, the addition of safety features and an evolving mix of vehicle types — were the main source of declining risk from 1993 through 2006.
But common sense goes out the window with politicians, raising the question of whether a bill should be introduced requiring politicians to get liability insurance before entering their respective legislative houses before they do further damage to Americans’ Constitutionally enumerated natural rights.
Case in point: Rather than liability insurance to lower the rate of fatalities from criminal gun usage, Congress should look to the car industry for solutions. Improving the safety of citizens, for example, could be accomplished by giving them free access to body armor, as opposed to the nationwide ban proposed earlier this year.