Insuring A Gun Solution
Part three of four of Lego Legacy Legislation: What Is It, and How Can it Solve Our Problems? Gun Control Edition
Updated July 23, 2022
Insuring A Gun Solution (Originally appeared in BLUNTMoms on April 18, 2019).
Mothers often excel in areas where politics fail, especially when it comes to conflict resolution. I’ve known more than one mom who could end sibling rivalry with a mere look in the right direction. People are stepping over slain bodies to fight for their right to bear arms. It’s time for a blunt mom to come in, call out, and settle this issue once and for all with an irrefutable gun solution that could end mass shootings and protect the Second Amendment in the process.
Require every gun to be insured by the NRA for wrongful death.
Hear me out: The National Rifle Association already sells gun insurance. They will insure anyone who owns a gun and kills someone in self-defense. For $31.95 per month (2019 price), a gun owner can purchase liability insurance as part of a criminal defense. This insurance also offers civil liability protection with up to a million dollars in reimbursement, except very few gunshot deaths are actually related to self-defense. Why then would the NRA sell insurance for such a thing? Money. If people buy insurance for an event, they think is likely to happen but is actually quite rare, insurance companies profit much more than they pay out.
The NRA has positioned themselves to profit by insuring guns for self-defense. This sets a precedent that the NRA has shown its willingness to offer liability gun insurance. Shouldn’t they also be held accountable to insure guns used for the express purpose of murdering humans?
If the NRA had to be responsible for insuring each gun and had to put a price tag on every life it was insuring, they would pay far more attention to who owns a gun, how many guns they own, and what they use the guns for. More rules would be enforced and set in place to make sure those who bought guns were mentally sound. More regulations would be enforced around monitoring the amount of assault rifles owned by any one person. This could elevate the NRA to what it used to be when it helped to pass some of the earliest safety laws around guns, like supporting a ban on fully automatic weapons to the 1968 Gun Control Act. In a 2021 pollster survey, 74% of NRA members stated that they supported universal background checks. If we had state and federal laws that enforced insurance for guns, it would give those 74% of NRA members an opportunity to put their money where their mouths are.
According to National Vital Statistics Systems, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, and the Center for Disease Control, thousands more deaths occur as a result of guns than cars; and yet we have stricter rules and regulations for owning and operating a vehicle than we do for owning and operating a gun. If we have to insure our cars, why do we not need to insure our guns?
As with car insurance, gun insurance may make gun ownership more cost prohibitive and because of that make gun owners more responsible. Shouldn’t that, which is the cause of so much destruction require legal consideration (license & registration) and safety precautions (required training & insurance)?
In order to drive a car, not only must we have a license and pay registration fees, but we also must pass a written and a physical test to prove we understand the safety mechanisms of driving a car and how to use one. When we break any number of numerous traffic laws, we are ticketed and required to pay a fine, go to traffic school, attend a court hearing, and/or our license can be suspended or taken away. In addition to all those precautions, we also have to insure our vehicle for any damage or death is may cause. Why can we not simply apply the same rules to gun ownership that we do to driving a car?
It’s a no brainer that anyone who has a criminal record, has been accused of domestic violence or child abuse, or has ever threatened to harm themselves or another, should never be allowed to own a gun. A course in gun safety and storage could easily be implemented as part of the purchase process.
This isn’t rocket science; it’s common sense. We can make this happen. We must require, regulate, and enforce that all guns be insured for the human life they have the potential to take. It’s time to put the onus of gun protection onto those who support gun destruction. We can protect the Second Amendment and protect lives simply by requiring all guns to be insured, whether by the NRA, gun manufacturers, or another insurance organization.
Insurance is a profitable industry; it’s a competitive capitalistic commodity: The American Dream. You know what else is an American Dream? Living. Some people want to have the freedom to own a gun, others just want the freedom to live. Mandatory gun insurance protects everyone’s freedoms.
This concludes Part Three: Insuring A Gun Solution
In Part Four, the conclusion of Lego Legacy Legislation: What Is It, and How Can it Solve Our Problems? Gun Control Edition, Includes Five Steps Each of Us Can Take Today to End Mass Shootings.
Photo By Margot Hartford
Sage Justice is achingly sincere. Balancing wisdom and humor she most often writes deeply personal solution based pieces about the enduring virtues that connect us all: love and healing. She is an award-winning playwright and critically acclaimed performing artist who has appeared on stages from Madison Square Garden in New York City, to The Comedy Store in Hollywood, California. Ms. Justice is the author of Sage Words FREEDOM Book One, an activist, a member of the Screen Actors Guild and an alumna Artist-In-Residence of Chateau Orquevaux, France. She is a co-founder of The Unity Project which fuses activism with art, to educate and inspire, with a special emphasis on community engagement to end homelessness. She has a series of short reels about living with the rare genetic disorder, Vascular Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome that you can find in a highlight reel on her Instagram page @SageWords2027.