Thoughts On Mandatory Gun Insurance

In our " national conversation on guns " there has been some talk on mandatory gun insurance for gun owners. In fact there has been some bill filed in some state legislatures.

Josh Blackman has been blogging on this issue for some time. His latest piece is here at The Constitutionality of Mandating Firearm Insurance where he talks about the legal and indeed moral hazard problems involved.

A few thoughts of my own. From a pragmatic sense this seems like a idea that gun control people would want to run away from for various reasons.



First it does not take a lot of imagination to see this in a poll tax sort of way and our history with that. That it is very likely that this have a disparate impact on poor folks and very much poor folks of color. Which to be honest might be part of  the intent. It's no secret that the modern gun control movement partly got its start because people were freaking out over riots by black citizens in the 60 ' s.

Second  it seems just to confirm the worse fears of gun rights folks that are told their fears are so unreasonable. That is the "reasonable" request that gun owners should register their firearms will eventually lead to a tax and/ or confiscation.

Last but not least the car insurance issue does not seem very apt. When I cannot pay my car insurance That means I cannot drive the car off my property. I can have an car without insurance to my hearts content on my property. In fact I believe in all states I can pretty much Drive and use my car all over my private property. No one is going to confiscate it if I let the insurance lapse. That is good since I might have some investment in my vehicle.

Mandatory gun insurance is perhaps the least likely of all regulation to pass in my opinion. The problem is for gun control advocates just the serious discussion of it likely results in a ton of anti gun control laws in response and other assorted blowback.