Home » Blogs » California Mandatory Gun Insurance Bill AB-231 Revealed. Ish.

California Mandatory Gun Insurance Bill AB-231 Revealed. Ish.

Robert Farago - comments No comments

NRA-approved insurance offer (courtesy locktonrisk.com) “Existing law provides that the Legislature finds and declares that it is the right of every person, regardless of race, color, creed, religion, national origin, gender, gender identity, gender expression, age, sexual orientation, or handicap, to be secure and protected from fear, intimidation, and physical harm caused by the activities of violent groups and individuals.” I’m no Constitutional scholar but I don’t remember reading about a citizen’s right to be protected from fear, intimidation and physical harm. In fact, the Supreme Court has ruled quite the opposite: the police have no obligation to protect citizens. Although there’s no text on AB-231 yet, we know . . .

This is the bill that would require gun owners to purchase liability insurance, introduced by Assemblyman Philip Ting of San Francisco and Assemblyman Jimmy Gomez of Los Angeles. Why? “There’s basically a cost that is born by the taxpayers when accidents occur,” Ting told foxenews.com, “I don’t think that taxpayers should be footing those bills.”

As we don’t have the text, we don’t know what kind of insurance Ting and his pals would impose on Californians looking to exercise their Constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms.

Strangely, the bill’s summary doesn’t make any economic argument: “This bill would state the intent of the Legislature to enact legislation that would ensure that Californians are not at undue risk of gun violence.”

I suppose getting shot by a cop is not undue, then. And I’d like to hear how forcing gun owners to buy insurance reduces their risk of encountering gun violence. Or anyone else’s risk, for that matter.

Not that buying insurance for your firearms or to defray legal costs for a defensive gun use is a bad thing. But making it mandatory is a clear infringement and an undue burden on the aforementioned right. As Martin Luther King said, a right delayed is a right denied.

 

0 thoughts on “California Mandatory Gun Insurance Bill AB-231 Revealed. Ish.”

  1. This is the wrong place to ask this. I ask it here because I cannot ask it where I need to ask it.

    WHY is it that about 20% of your links I click on say, “NOT FOUND”? Is this an issue on my end?

    Reply
  2. By this reasoning, that barely-not-a-child-anymore student shouldn’t be licensed to drive, or allowed to vote, or be allowed to cook at his or her own stove. These are all dangerous responsibilities.
    They also are not enumerated as rights in the constitution.
    Oh that darned, inconvenient constitution. Why can’t it just go away?

    Reply
  3. I was going to wait for the text until I wrote anything on this, however….

    If you purchase private liability insurance through company X. How is that going to do anything to help deal with the criminal who illegally purchased, or stole a firearm, and committed a crime? If a gun was stolen, then the insurance company is off the hook.

    I will go out on a limb here and say that 95% of all gun crime in California is done by criminals who probably got their gun illegally, and are prohibited from owning one anyway. They don’t submit to background checks or fund the DROS system which is currently 1.6 million dollars in the black! Yeah there is a law suite about that too!

    So all this garbage does is create an additional step for law abiding gun owners to exercise their constitutional rights as Americans. The idea of this is outlandish, and illegal or unconstitutional at least. If a insurance company were to deny you coverage or say your premium is some outlandish amount it would be illegal because folks could not afford it. This is another case of the beurocrats throwing more steaming excrement at the wall to see if it will stick. Who cares if it does anything meaningful or not!

    Can you tell I am a bit irritated at Sacramento.. I am being polite here. Sam Paredes from the GOA of California is on top of this. If this actually gains any text we will be reviewing it quickly.

    Reply
  4. Since Obamacare would mandate that any shooting victim is required to have health insurance, where exactly is the undue burden on taxpayers again?

    Reply
  5. Question for all the haters – so how’s that “only voting for politicians who are so-called Pro 2A” who then do not support the social measures which would help reduce violent crime (which leads to calls for gun control) working out for you?

    Reply
  6. Good story for the need of high cap mags. Also good example of the need for training when using a gun in self defense in that she should have at least double tapped to put this guy down. NO, a larger caliber would not have changed the outcome.

    Reply
  7. Yet another idea by Democrats to force people to purchase insurance, as unconstitutional as the first one. Looks like we are getting the bigger government that we keep voting for. Wonderful.

    Reply
  8. “Stricter notification requirements so that mental health professionals can identify mentally ill people who pose a risk and then notify officials to put them into the Colorado Bureau of Investigation’s gun background check database”

    I know it will draw the ire of many, but that above is the single most effective thing we can do to prevent many of the mass shootings we’ve seen over the years.

    Reply
    • It is the most ineffective thing we can do as a society to prevent mass shootings. We may as well demand that the Sun pay a carbon tax.

      The limitations of the Brady System are logistical. We can pass laws all day that mandate reporting requirements, and it will do nothing to clear the immense backlogs of files at the state and local level which have yet to be included in the BG check system. Bad guys fall through the cracks because sending court & mental health paperwork takes time. Until we can beam documents instantly across the country like something out of Star Trek, no background check system will ever be up to date enough to actually prevent crime.

      Reply
  9. I am in Colorado and I will move if I have to. How a government treats natural rights (Life, Liberty, Property, Self-Defense, etc.) is an indication of how corrupt it is. Things like a 10 round magazine limit (when it is obvious that it is simply window dressing to make liberty illiterates feel “safer”) are how corrupt governments begin to exercise more control over subjects. But, it is not just citizen disarmament that is a violation of liberty. Civilian disarmament just happens to be a linchpin. As I said I will vote with my feet if I have to.

    Reply
  10. Posted this at Guns Save Life.com:

    Nate Kreuter: A bigot speaks and removes all doubt…

    Bigot:
    big·ot
    [big-uht]
    noun
    a person who is utterly intolerant of any differing creed, belief, or opinion.

    or

    a person who is intolerant of any ideas other than his or her own, esp on religion, politics, or race

    At Inside Higher Ed, they’ve published a bigoted essay by Nate Kreuter, in which he goes into detail justifying his bigotry of those who would take an active role in protecting themselves from violent attack.

    One wonders if Nick feels anxiety over black persons on campus, too. Does he not fear them, but only ones that want to come into the classroom? Do they profane the sacred space of a classroom too? Does he fear them as well, and not want to be around them?

    Fearing African-Americans in school classrooms is as irrational and bigoted as fearing law-abiding, responsible Americans trained in the use of personal defense tools to carry them to stop bad people from evil intents. Those “kids”, the kind of barely-not-a-child-anymore student would certainly have been old enough for at least three years to serve his nation in the military, protecting our nation and indeed may have even already served a tour in Afghanistan and done things Nate Kreuter will never know and could never do – to risk everything for the love of his nation and fellow American.

    From reading his piece, I have to wonder if Nate Kreuter realizes late at night, laying in bed in the stillness of the night, that he is a lesser man than some of his students who would man-up when the going gets tough and display bravery and courage under adverse conditions.

    Imagine being Nate Kreuter, suffering under the weight of knowing that potentially a female coed, with a license to carry, and the knowledge, skills and attitudes necessary to employ a simple tool to stop a malevolent attack, has more tenacity than he does.

    It’s okay. Nate’s apparently a lover, not a fighter. Gun ownership isn’t for everyone. Some people go to work when danger calls, others “go” in their pants as they cower.

    Nate Kreuter is in a state of denial about how the world works when it comes to evil men doing asocial endeavors. As Lt. Col. Dave Grossman says, “Denial has no survival value.”

    Reply
  11. Yeah, but as that same piece pointed out, whoever won in 2012 would probably get to appoint several SCOTUS Justices, and last time I checked 2012 didn’t work out so well for us.

    Reply
  12. I don’t watch the vast majority of the news video clips posted on TTAG, and I don’t watch TV news of any sort 99% of the time. I’m pretty sure the only time I’ve watched TV news on purpose in the last ~12 months was when I was interviewed by various local stations and I wanted to see how they told my story.

    This does WONDERS to keep my stress and anxiety levels from going through the roof. That and working myself to exhaustion at Crossfit at least 3x/week.

    And yet, I am still very angry, especially because I feel helpless to do anything about the unjust bills percolating through the CA legislature.

    Reply
  13. I just ordered 7.5X55, by the time freight was added it was about $0.65 per round, but I was glad to get it. Only problem is they are so far behind that it won’t ship before 3 or 4 weeks.

    Reply
  14. Chris Matthews was one of the best of the moderate Dem news commentators. This ended exactly at the time of the 2nd GW Bush election, at which point he obviously came to believe news people had to become partisan axe-grinders. I actually was saddened by the change. It happened to news guys on the right and the left. Chris’ Republican brother was on of my county commissioners, a local, until he, uh, ran into some legal trouble. I’ve never seen Chris happier than at our stop on Obama’s PA ‘whistle stop’ train tour in ’08. I stood a few feet away from Chris, who was on the media bleachers. He was ecstatic throughout the entire speech, just beaming. The day was beautiful, the forested estate behind the train-station gathering was in late-spring leaf, and Obama’s Pullman car, the Georgia, was gorgeous. I was there because my blind mother wanted to be there. “Hope and Change.” Yep. “Health Care You Can Afford.” Yep. Chris absolutely hasn’t gotten over that day. Worse, Chris’ professional career was/is tied to Chicago. He and the rest of the Chicago guys can’t fix their crime problem and they really believe it’s the rest of the nation’s fault. Typical “blame it on the other guy.” Sad. Oh, and La Pierre simply isn’t the right man for the job. He isn’t able to articulate the issues. An example from the clip above: La Pierre should never have let the Secret Service protection be the issue, but rather the regular fabulous security at Sidwell Friends School, regardless of whether there is a President’s daughter attending that year. La Pierre’s stance just seems obtuse.

    Reply
  15. Although not related to any topic of this Daily Digest, here’s a graph I made a few weeks ago comparing homicide rates in prison to the general U.S. population

    homicide_prison_v_population_1758x0902.jpg ( 1,758 x 902 pixels)

    that you might find interesting.

    What will it take to make us as safe as inmates in prison?

    The sources for the data I used are:

    Mortality in Local Jails and State Prisons, 2000-2010 – Statistical Tables
    Margaret E. Noonan
    December 13, 2012 NCJ 239911
    see Table 3 on p. 6 and Table 14 on p. 14

    and

    Suicide and Homicide in State Prisons and Local Jails
    Christopher J. Mumola
    August 21, 2005 NCJ 210036
    see tables on p. 2

    The graph is also available in smaller resolutions —
    homicide_prison_v_population_1000x0513.jpg 1,000 x 513 pixels and
    homicide_prison_v_population_0800x0410.jpg 800 x 410 pixels
    — if you need a smaller-size copy for some reason.

    Reply
  16. I am a black American and I am not pro gun or anti gun. A gun is a tool, like a car. I am however pro 2A……..and I want reciprocity. We should be careful not to let the grabbers label us ” Pro Gun”. It is a bad term. We are pro 2A!

    Reply
  17. wikipedia:

    “In an interview with Cookie, Peet stated: “Frankly, I feel that parents who don’t vaccinate their children are parasites,” referring to the benefit unvaccinated children derive from herd immunity and the concern that dropping vaccination rates may put all children at increased risk of preventable disease.”

    “Peet’s first screen performance was in a television commercial for Skittles. “

    Reply
  18. Wow, is that guy for real? So Joe’s ol’ lady pulls out the old Stevens and empties both barrels into the night, huh? Probably nails that old horn-dog Bill Clinton sneaking out the spare bedroom…..

    Man, that questioner, still waiting for those testicles to drop? What a team he and Joe make. Explains why the country has gone in the shitter Can you imagine if Bush had said that?

    Reply

Leave a Comment