Importantly, when we talk about the costs of guns, it’s not just crime. It includes accidents. It includes suicide attempts, even failed ones.
As reported by Casey Smith of the Indiana Capital Chronicle on Aug. 21, accidental shootings are on the rise. Smith wrote: “Since July 2022, the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department (IMPD) has been tracking accidental shootings, specifically. IMPD found non-fatal, accidental shootings more than doubled in February 2023 compared to February averages in the last 5 years. There were as many as 75 such incidents for the last half of 2022, and more than 75% of those were self-inflicted.”
There’s a cost to each one of them. Medical costs. Emergency responses. Productivity loss. When I think of these things, I immediately think of insurance. Since a home with guns in it is less safe than a home without guns, shouldn’t homeowners’ insurance rates reflect that?
San Jose, California passed an ordinance earlier this year to address just that. In January, the city began requiring homeowners and renters who own firearms to carry liability insurance. Of course, the NRA and its followers immediately claimed this is an infringement of rights, which is, as it usually is, nonsense. I’m sure homeowners with swimming pools might have an opinion about this argument in San Jose, a town that is likely teeming with home pools.
Everytown Research and Policy published its sweeping report on the cost of guns in July of last year. The number? $557 billion annually, or nearly $1,700 for every resident in America. Not every gun owner. Not every NRA member. Every resident.
The gun market does contribute something though. In 2019, the federal excise tax on guns and ammunition generated $653 million, a little over 1% of what it costs. Yes, that’s just more than nothing.
Indiana’s costs are slightly higher than that average of course, and Hoosiers just made guns cheaper.
What does culture get for this Faustian bargain? Gun owners get freedom. They get a false sense of safety and security. They get identity.
The rest of us just get the tab.
— Michael Leppert in A Year Without Permits in Indiana, Guns Still Cost Us Too Much