I'm not sure about this, I'd have to ask CP, but I'm pretty sure we already pay additional insurance due to the guns in the house, as part of home insurance. They're expensive possessions, after all. But that may also be because we did insure them, in case of loss or damage (or, y'know, fire, or flood, or whatever other earthly disaster strikes our little cul-de-sac this month).
Then again, insurance... it's hard to legislate that. Lots of people let their insurance lapse on their cars, after all, and just hope they don't get caught. The two cars I've had that got totaled were both slammed into by uninsured drivers, and we were in states where apparently they could still drive without it. So requiring insurance... it's one of those things that most of us would probably do, because we're generally law-abiding. But I can also see someone figuring, "I haven't been to the range in like six months, and I don't have the money for the insurance right now, so I just won't use the gun and not worry about it." Sort of like I might say if I couldn't pay car insurance, I might just let the car sit in the driveway until I can pay again.
Which isn't to say insurance isn't out of the realm of possible answers. Just that legislation is only half the battle. The other half is a cultural shift to seeing "gun ownership" as something, like car ownership, in which you're participating in something larger than yourself. It's not the individual in their castle with their gun (or forty, though why anyone needs forty guns is beyond me, I mean, you only have two hands), any more than it's me and my car all alone on the highway. Guns are definitely part of our romanticized vision of the lone rugged individual, while cars are a more social thing. So getting people to see insurance similar to cars -- as "something I pay into because it offsets the use/dangers for everyone who's Part Of This Group" -- isn't impossible. It's just going to require a massive cultural shift, and that just means lots of education.
I mean, MADD did it with drunk drivers, changing our perception of what's okay and what's not, and that it's acceptable to take the keys away from someone who's been drinking and call them a cab. It took a massive national education program, though, and a lot of public announcements, but it did happen. So I don't think it's impossible. I just think we're talking about something on that scale, and that scale's not small.
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Date: 17 Dec 2012 07:24 am (UTC)Then again, insurance... it's hard to legislate that. Lots of people let their insurance lapse on their cars, after all, and just hope they don't get caught. The two cars I've had that got totaled were both slammed into by uninsured drivers, and we were in states where apparently they could still drive without it. So requiring insurance... it's one of those things that most of us would probably do, because we're generally law-abiding. But I can also see someone figuring, "I haven't been to the range in like six months, and I don't have the money for the insurance right now, so I just won't use the gun and not worry about it." Sort of like I might say if I couldn't pay car insurance, I might just let the car sit in the driveway until I can pay again.
Which isn't to say insurance isn't out of the realm of possible answers. Just that legislation is only half the battle. The other half is a cultural shift to seeing "gun ownership" as something, like car ownership, in which you're participating in something larger than yourself. It's not the individual in their castle with their gun (or forty, though why anyone needs forty guns is beyond me, I mean, you only have two hands), any more than it's me and my car all alone on the highway. Guns are definitely part of our romanticized vision of the lone rugged individual, while cars are a more social thing. So getting people to see insurance similar to cars -- as "something I pay into because it offsets the use/dangers for everyone who's Part Of This Group" -- isn't impossible. It's just going to require a massive cultural shift, and that just means lots of education.
I mean, MADD did it with drunk drivers, changing our perception of what's okay and what's not, and that it's acceptable to take the keys away from someone who's been drinking and call them a cab. It took a massive national education program, though, and a lot of public announcements, but it did happen. So I don't think it's impossible. I just think we're talking about something on that scale, and that scale's not small.