Gun Control Proposal for Hawaii

[oink]

I think requiring the purchase of insurance to be able to exercise a Constitutional right would never survive a SCOTUS review. I'm strongly in favor of requiring a purchaser minimum age of 21 YOA, as soon as the voting age is raised back up to .21.

Pua`a
S. FL
Big Islander to be.

[My 2 cents]

This is precisely the free market moment which would inhibit an angry or misaligned young person from acquiring a high capacity firearm from a gun store. The agent might well be saying: "Sure you can have an AR-15 young man, but the premium will be $50k per year, up front".

Ideally the background check, etc. (and I'm ok with more etceteras) would keep all angry or misaligned young (or old) people from acquiring a......gun. Not just those who can't come up with the insurance money.

If it's really just about making owning a gun more expensive, why give all that money to the insurance companies? Why not just tax the crap out of the gun sales and keep the money in Hawaii?

[Rob Tucker]

Good questions. Giving all that money to the insurance companies?

In addition to reducing the death toll I am also interested in determining whether the universe of guns can pay for the damage
done. I think the insurance industry is better suited to distribute
money to pay medical claims than government is. So in that I am aligned with the gun universe in that a private sector solution is more efficient than a public sector solution.

Just taking in the news that one or more people have been shot never
brings forth the fact that the physical crime is accompanied by an economic crime. Bullets come cheap. Trauma centers don't come cheap. Rehabilitation doesn't come cheap.

So in my mind any reform of the gun universe needs to include the economic issues as well.

Insurance does that for both natural and man made disasters.

Another factor is this: This is America. Money is the driving force of everything it seems. Currently a gun advocacy group like the NRA has a financial relationship with it's membership in the form of annual dues. That is the NRA's life blood.

If the NRA was to provide liability insurance (it already offers other insurances) then the relationship with it's membership fundamentally changes. The money involved increases exponentially and the "members" (accepted without scrutiny) become "the insured" (who are very much scrutinized). It would not bother me to see the NRA "evolve" into an insurance company.

[glinda]

I think requiring the purchase of insurance to be able to exercise a Constitutional right would never survive a SCOTUS review.

I think that is a very shallow, limited, view of reality. All black and white without any recognition of the myriad shades of gray.

Rights have limits, rights have been regulated all along. As Carey said in the last (now locked up) gun thread:

You can still have the Constitution & regulation of firearms.... You have lived with it ALL OF YOUR LIFE! & are living with it today!

Whereas I think saying the constitution blah blah blah as if it's some shield that gives gun enthusiasts some sort of blanket immunity from all things rational is just that, irrational. My god man, yes there are cars, and by golly you too can have and drive one, but god help you if you do so outside of a very well defines set of regulations. And those regulations change dependent upon the circumstances. Some roads have 35 mph speed limit, others 60 mph.

And besides, at the moment we have a national crisis. Guns are being used to kill us at an unacceptable rate. Rules change to fit the situation, and gun rules (rights) are no different than any other rights. They are malleable to fit the needs of society. Thank goodness we are not so infantile as to have some carved in stone from some long ago era set of rules and not be able to change with the times. Otherwise we'd still have slaves. Women would be subjugated and corporal punishment would be an acceptable way to raise children. All of which were the rage when your "sacred" 2nd Amendment was crafted.

Rob, I respect your proposal, and think it is a far cry better than without, but think that there should be even stricter regulations on top of that. But yes, responsibility should be clearly defined and an owner should be expected to take it upon themselves, just like a car owner is, with the appropriate insurances.

[birdmove]

In the long run, the biggest problem we have in the USA is the huge money involved.
Imagine if the NRA were outlawed to donate money to politicians. Politicians were outlawed to accept donations. What would happen? Now, imagine all individuals, corporations, PACs, ANY entity were prevented from making political donations under penalty of law, and politicians were prevented from accepting donations etc, etc. No PACs. No lobbyists. No political bribery. No buying and selling of our elected officials on the open market. The Trump campaign alone received $30 million just from the NRA.
It would no longer be finacially lucrative for our elected officials to vote no on gun control. On off shore drilling. On Wall Street regulations.On environmental issues.
Each candidate would get an equal allowance of money from the government to spend on their campaign. When the bucks are gone, you are done. No more political fund raisers. Citizens United thrown out the window.
Campaign finance reform.

Jon in Keaau/HPP

[Eric1600]

The NRA has a pretty small membership compared to the rest of the population. However they give substantial amounts of money to the GOP (https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/23/politics/...index.html) and to push their presidential candidate. In fact, the pro-gun lobby spent over twice as much to fight Democrats ($34.5 million), as it did to support Republicans ($14.5 million).

Something that no one asked the NRA in the CNN meeting was why. I've lived in countries with zero gun laws and where they were extremely illegal. It's a no brainer which countries were much safer for the average citizen. The NRA fights any and all restrictions to keep their sales going and to keep Americans from finding out that guns don't make the average person safer.

If the insurance industry were involved in gun sales, you'd see some immediate changes. There would be biometric locks, there'd be restrictions on clip sizes, quite possibly gun restrictions based on muzzle velocities as well as more laws about background checks, age restrictions, etc.

Almost all of the US gun homicides are committed by males under the age of 26. Psychologists have shown that a large percentage of people under the age of 26 do not yet have coping mechanisms to deal with conflict and their brains are still developing a key aspect of learning mortality that prevents them from doing "stupid" high-risk things.

...[t]he feelings of immortality of teenagers on the fact that their frontal lobes are not fully working. The reason the frontal lobes are not fully engaged is because they have not yet completed the process of neuronal myelination. Think of myelination as the insulation on the electrical wires inside your house. Without myelination in the brain, electrical signals from neurons fail to reach their destination. The parts of our brains that myelinate last are also the parts that evolved most recently. These parts include our frontal lobes, which contribute most to our unique personalities and allow us to anticipate the consequences of our actions. Essentially, your frontal lobes tell you that it's a bad idea to drink alcohol and drive or to ignore the consequences of taking heroin. When your frontal lobes finally complete their process of myelination, they begin to work properly and you stop doing dangerous things. Most importantly, you stop feeling immortal. Apparently, women finish this myelination process by age 25 years and men finish by age 30. Thus a 20-year-old female, although her brain is still myelinating, is closer to maturity than her 20-year-old boyfriend, who still has another 10 years before he can really appreciate the wisdom of warnings such as those against drinking and driving or against taking any drug that comes his way. - Gary L. Wenk Ph.D.

If gun owners had to insure their weapons upon purchase, and the age for owning or carrying a weapon was set at 25, we'd see a dramatic change in gun homicide rates.

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I just wanted to also add a comment about bump stocks, because I see many people make the argument that even "a belt loop" can be a bump stock. This is a big stretch of the truth. If you want to learn about bump stocks on an AR-15 just watch this video to see how much faster they fire: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2IOZ-5Nk5k

[Rob Tucker]

Interesting comment Jon but it is drifting over into national politics. I want to keep this discussion rooted in Hawaii please. Everyone please take note.

Assume the best and ask questions.

Punaweb moderator

[HereOnThePrimalEdge]

the insurance industry is better suited to distribute
money to pay medical claims than government is... in that a private sector solution is more efficient than a public sector solution.
...
(that this is financialy impossible - the liability is enormous and no insurer would cover)

Is it possible or impossible for insurance companies to cover gun injuries and claims?

There are approximately as many gun deaths as auto related deaths each year. The insurance companies manage to cover auto deaths as well as an immense amount of property damage and still make a profit. Hawaii insurers currently manage to cover drivers here despite a large number of uninsured drivers (1 in 7?). I think they're capable of adding gun insurance to their coverage, distributing the claims, and making a profit as well.

Side note for constitutional purists: It could be argued the pursuit of happiness in the Declaration of Independence gives drunks a God given right to pursue their happiness, in a car, at 60 mph, uninfringed by government, and guaranteed by the founding fathers. Thank God there's no NLA (National Liquor Association) arguing for and pushing that insane agenda with massive donations to politicians who pass legislation in their favor.

[Durian Fiend]

quote:

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Originally posted by PaulW

Actually, that's a good idea, Hawaii can aspire towards the Australian system. The other states can follow when they see how it works.

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I agree. Let's do it, Hawaii!

Only 1 in 5 women own guns, 90+% of mass killer are male.

If these numbers were reversed, high capacity, military style weapons would have been banned long ago.

[MarkP]

I must agree that simply condemning semi-auto weapons is problematic. I own a Marlin 60, one of the all-time classics. It is a .22 with a tubular magazine, designed in 1960, semi-auto, and used by 2-3 generations now of plinkers, squirrel hunters, homeowners dispatching woodchucks, and the like. It would be last on most knowledgeable people's lists for a weapon with which to carry out an assault. Mis-use of the term semi-auto as though that is all you have to know merely highlights the problems that cause gun enthusiasts to dig in their heels.

At the same time I do feel that the popularity of AR 15 style weapons is disturbing. I don't see why people feel they need them. Most people who have truly used them such as soldiers in combat are glad to get away from them, knowing that by the time you get into a battle where the firepower and reloading speed make a difference, you aren't in Kansas anymore. I can't imagine a scenario where I would or could ever puree dozens of people and then do any of the other things that I value in life like fishing, Thanksgiving dinner, etc. Maybe in the hinterlands of Afghanistan where stoning people to death still happens the bar is set that low...