FIVE REASONS TO MANDATE GUN INSURANCE

To require additional individual responsibility such as locking up firearms

To provide victims with needed funds for medical and other costs

To make those causing the deaths and injuries pay, rather than the public through Medicaid or the victims through private health insurance

To supplement public regulatory oversight with private insurance company oversight

To encourage new technologies such as “safe guns” that would reduce accidents

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CAR INSURANCE AS AN ILLUSTRATION

Car insurance requires drivers to make a financial investment that encourages safer driving. Drivers do not want their rates to go up due to casual mistakes. Besides knowing there can be a criminal charge for drunk driving or other risky behavior, there is the knowledge that one’s insurance can be taken away so one cannot drive. Car owners are less likely to let family and friends who do not belong behind the wheel to take their cars for fear of losing insurance.

Car insurance assures that pedestrians and people in other cars who are harmed through fault or accident will be compensated. The victim can receive money for medical and rehabilitation treatment (which may be long term), for lost wages, and for other burdensome costs. If a death occurs, the victim’s family not only will have funeral expenses paid but far more importantly will have the financial resources necessary to maintain themselves.

Car insurance guarantees that the culpable person whose conscious disregard, negligence, carelessness or even belligerence caused harm must assume the costs rather than having them shifted to the victim’s insurance or to the public via Medicaid.

Car insurance companies work for prevention. They want to avoid losses and take pains to encourage safer driving and safer operation of cars in public places. They work systematically for prevention and anticipate problems. They refuse insurance to those with bad records. They operate in all 50 states and are independent of legal regulations or lack of them. They often have more staff to provide oversight than government entities. They have a build-in enforcement system.

Car insurance companies look at the potentially dangerous item insured not just the owner. They encourage innovation to make a vehicle safer to help make up for human error.