(continued from the previous post)
Again the marketplace would come into play: Perhaps insurers would hope to lure members of the NRA with a discount. They might also offer discounts for collectors, whose weapons are generally unloaded and locked behind glass. And they might well require -- as a matter of company policy, not law -- households with young children to have firearms secured by a trigger lock.
In addition, an insurance requirement would harness the impressive investigatory power of the brokers, which could aid in preventing felons, the mentally ill, and those under restraining orders -- who I'm sure few would argue should have unrestricted access to firearms -- from obtaining the deadly weapons. A waiting period may be deemed too arbitrary and may place too heavy a burden on local law enforcement resources, but a waiting period to obtain insurance could be a highly effective filter.
I think this idea would satisfy reasonable people on both sides of the gun-control argument. For gun-control advocates, it may have the practical effect of implementing desired safety measures or even reducing the number of guns on the streets. It'd give police yet another asset in prosecuting felons, without making criminals of genuinely law-abiding gun owners. It'd give innocent victims of gunplay a means of redressing their grievances, thus reducing the need to pursue once-removed claims. And it'd use the mechanisms of the marketplace -- not the civil authority -- to achieve these aims.
Frankly, I don't see how anyone could object to having guns, unique among so many devices with the potential to inflict great harm, go uninsured.
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