New York Considering Insurance Mandate for Gun Owners

New York has never met a bit of gun control it didn’t like, so far as I can tell. They’ve fully embraced many policies you’ll see in places like California and are more than willing to get creative as well.

In fact, those two states seem to be in the running to see who can have the worst gun control laws on the books.

Now, the state seems to be looking at a new idea that first took hold in the Golden State, and that’s a way to make it as expensive as possible to own a firearm.

They’re considering an insurance mandate.

New York Democratic state Sen. Kevin Parker thinks he has a solution for Big Apple crime. He’s “California dreaming” about more gun control in the hopes he can solve the problem for Empire State residents. Never mind holding violent criminals accountable for their crimes, though. No, Sen. Parker introduced a bill to mandate all law-abiding gun owners in New York purchase gun owner liability insurance coverage, instead.

Nickle & Diming Rights Away

Add liability insurance to the growing list of gun control restrictions that activists and their elected allies are pushing to create higher roadblocks for law-abiding citizens to exercise their Constitutional rights while ignoring the criminals causing the harm and ignoring those laws.

State Sen. Parker’s bill would require New York gun owners or potential owners to “obtain and continuously maintain a policy of liability insurance to cover any damages resulting from the use of such firearm.” Insurance, with damages covered of no less than $1 million in value, would also be required prior to the purchase of firearms by anyone not currently in possession of a firearm, according to media analysis.

Gun control activists like Sen. Parker must think New Yorkers are stupid. He’d require law-abiding gun owners to carry insurance but everyone knows that criminals are the ones misusing firearms. They don’t have nor will they heed insurance mandates, much less bother obtaining firearms legally. He even added language to his proposal to suggest as much.

“By having this insurance policy in place, innocent victims of gun-related accidents will be compensated for the medical care for their injuries,” the bill states.

Now, let’s keep in mind that from 2003 to 2021, the CDC reports there were 1,262 fatal firearm “accidents” in the United States. A 2020 study found that for every fatality from such an incident, there are 83 injuries, which brings our total for this period to 104,746.

Divide that out by 19 years of the CDC’s report, and you’re looking at a little over 5,500 injuries that would fall into what Parker calls “gun-related accidents.”

Roughly 67,000 people are injured by gunshots each year.

In other words, this is far from common, amounting to fewer than nine percent of all non-fatal firearm injuries, and many of those are self-inflicted, which also bears remembering. People should kind of be on the hook for their own stupidity, don’t you think? And unless they own a Sig P320, it’s definitely going to be the result of their own stupidity.

Further, under existing law, those who are responsible for such incidents are already liable for medical fees. Sure, insurance might well help make sure there’s a payment possible, but let’s consider the nature of such insurance for a moment.

As of right now, I’m unable to find any specific policies that cover unintentional firearm injuries specifically. Instead, things like homeowners’ insurance are far more likely to cover it, just as it would if a step gave way as someone was coming onto your porch and was injured.

But if you leave the home for some reason with your firearm–and there are plenty of legitimate reasons to do that, even if New York lawmakers don’t want to admit it–that insurance isn’t going to do jack squat if there’s an accident or an act of negligence.

In fact, I’m not entirely sure negligence would be covered under a homeowners’ policy.

But hey, this is New York. What do they care? They just want to make it harder for you to own a gun while doing nothing about the criminals running around.

Par for the course, really.