Category Archives: Top Down System

Insuring 300,000,000 Existing Guns

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If gun owners are mandated to have insurance, new guns can be monitored.  But what about the 300,000,000 guns currently held by individuals, including illegal guns?  Clearly, no system of insurance, gun regulation, or police activity can deal completely with problems arising from such massive numbers.   The system of chaining insurance responsibility “Top Down” works to retain guns in the system one there, and stolen or otherwise illegally acquired guns will retain the insurer of the last legal owner.  But the outstanding guns in the hands of criminals and a good proportion of those owned by otherwise law abiding owners will not be enrolled in insurance without good reason.

Although it might be assumed that political considerations will mean guns currently owned will be grandfathered in, that does not have to be the case.   Legislators could establish a policy whereby all guns must be insured.   When state or national laws are adopted to require insurance for guns sold by manufacturers or passing through the hands of legal gun dealers, the laws can require that persons owning guns acquire insurance.

In spite of declarations in the media from some gun proponents that they will not comply with various proposed measures regulating firearms, most gun owners are legal and responsible citizens and will comply with a requirement after a reasonable period of time.  They will be able to purchase insurance and have their gun’s serial number added to the database without revealing their names to anyone other than their insurer.  Much of the insurance now sold to gun owners is now provided to them in association with the NRA, and there is no reason that this cannot continue for those who have concerns about insurers protecting their privacy.  Of course, any insurer, even the NRA, would have to comply with financial regulation as an insurer and provide the mandated insurance compensations for victims.

The database suggested as a part of the “Top Down” system would provide a quick way for a law enforcement officer to check if a particular gun is insured.  The database is designed to provide a quick way to find the insurer responsible for a particular gun, but contains no information about the gun’s location or owner.  An officer finding the gun as part of an action for some investigation or arrest can check if the gun is properly covered.  Guns are routinely and legally declared when they are shipped in luggage on airlines and may have to be declared when brought into controlled places depending on local laws.  Insurance can be checked in these situations as well.

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Federal Mandate for Top-Down Insurance

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A federal requirement that all manufacturers and importers have insurance that protects victims of their products with a top-down provision requiring it to continue until replaced is the core of a successful system for guns. Ideally this requirement would specify the terms and benefits laid out in the next level for state legislation that seriously provides for victims, but this will describe the minimum requirements that should be specified on a national level.

A bill (H.R.1369) proposing mandated gun insurance was introduced in the United States Congress in 2013, but it did not specify details of the insurance required in the language of its introduced.

The legislation should require that, before manufacturing or importing a firearm, insurance must be accepted by an insurance company specifically authorized to issue such insurance by some state. In order to make certain that the required financial stability is available, all such insurers should be required to join a pool backed by all such insurers guaranteeing each insurers ability to pay valid claims. Once an insurer accepts responsibility for a certain gun, that responsibility is only relinquished when another qualified insurer takes it on. Continue reading →

Questions and Answers on Mandating Gun Insurance.

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Updated 12/22/2022

This post is a good place to start if you’re new to this blog. Scan the questions and follow the ‘Related:’ link(s) if you have an interest in a particular area.

Q: What is the purpose of mandating gun insurance?

Required insurance for guns or gun owners should be designed to provide benefits for victims of gun accidents or violence. Insurers will automatically take appropriate steps to encourage gun safety as part of their loss control and underwriting activities.

Related: Insurance-Good for Victims, Safety and Gun Owners

Q: What specifically would be the best insurance system for guns?

Each state should adopt a system of no-fault insurance with a system of delivering medical and cash benefits directly to victims. This insurance should be required to be in place for any firearm brought into or kept in the state in order for that firearm to be legal. It should provide all of the benefits available to victims of motor vehicle or workplace injuries.

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Registration of guns and confirmation of insurance

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In order to have a system of insurance the covers the dangers of having guns in our society, it is necessary to have a way to be sure that insurance exists that covers each victimization. The simplest system is to mandate the insurance and have the government check that it is in place. This requires that the government be aware of the identity of the gun owners in order to enforce the mandate. This means registration of guns or gun owners. The political objection to this is very great. If it is necessary to override this objection or wait for it to dissipate, then implementation of insurance for gun victims will be greatly delayed.

The Objection To Registration

Many people who are concerned about gun safety are not aware of the depth of the fear of government held by some of the gun rights defenders. There are a considerable number who have deep and broad paranoia which has been focused on this issue with severe personal mental health issues but an even larger number are simply trained to express this distrust by gun organizations, the media and those who want even more guns in circulation. Even more are aware that some form of tracking guns is essential for application of many measures to control or limit their circulation. They may fight registration of firearms as a way to prevent control of firearms.

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Paths to Adopting Gun Insurance, General and Concealed Carry

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While it would be best to adopt gun insurance in the United States by national legislation that puts into place a full blown no-fault plan with the “Top-Down” provisions to guarantee that it covers all of the millions of guns in the country, it is not necessary to wait until that is politically feasible to make progress in protecting victims.  There are several paths where an important part of this protection can be implemented both for it’s own value and to demonstrate the practicality of more complete plans.

The first and the one that already in the public eye is to adopt compulsory liability insurance for gun owners who are registered in particular states.  This is the plan that is being offered in state legislatures.  It would apply to a fairly small subset of the injuries and killings because it has no way to be in effect for illegal guns.  But, as the proportion of gun injuries from legally possessed guns is going up due to a downward trend of crime in general and a greatly increased spread of legal guns, it would have a substantial value.  It may very will be accomplished in some places in the next few years.  This is the type of adoption that is seen by most writers who suggest insurance in the mass media.

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Insurance-Good for Victims, Safety and Gun Owners

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We have responsible ways to handle things which are dangerous but which are not made illegal because of their actual or assumed benefits to society. We look carefully at ways to contain the dangers and enjoy the benefits in almost every case. The exception is firearms, but we are just beginning to pull our heads out of the sand and examine this important subject.

First Principle — Mandatory No-Fault Insurance to Cover All Victims

One of the most powerful tools to facilitate a dangerous activity is insurance. Unfortunately, requiring insurance to cover gun violence has been looked at only as a way to penalize gun ownership or at least to transfer costs to gun owners. The result is calls for high limit liability insurance, usually with terms that make actual implementation unlikely. This blog argues that the tort/liability model is one of the least effective ways to increase safety and provide for victims. A No-Fault system similar to worker’s compensation or some motor vehicle insurance is much better. It needs to follow a gun that changes hands in a way to insure that all guns are covered.

Second Principle — Top Down Insurance Does Not Require Gun Registration or Owner Tracking

This blog also is advocating that insurance be required of gun manufacturers or anyone bringing a gun into the system in such a way that the insurer only relinquishes responsibility when another insurer (contracted by a new owner) takes it up. Insurance should remain in effect through any transfer legal or not. This would allow confidence that insurance was always in effect without tracking the gun owners. With a proper No-Fault system the victim would not have to even be told the name of the owner to collect compensation. All transactions by claimants or the government would be with the insurance companies.

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Mandatory vs. Topdown Requirements for Gun Insurance

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This is a quick post to remind readers that there are at least two ways to require gun owners to have insurance.

Mandatory Gun Insurance

The regulation or law could simply require every gun owner to have insurance in place on a gun.  This would be simple to mandate but it would require enforcement for every owner with all of the practical and political problems that brings.  There would be no automatic procedure to guarantee complience on transfer (legal or not) of the gun.  The probable result would be a large number of uninsured guns in circulation.

Topdown Gun Insurance

The requirement for insurance could have as part of its terms that an insurer remains responsible for injuries from a gun until responsibility is taken up by another insurer.  In that case, it would not be necessary to have enforcement measures taken for subsiquent owners.  Insurance coverage could remain in place for lost, stolen or diverted firearms greatly expanding the protection of potential injured persons.