This is a very interesting article. The wife and I had a great discussion about it this morning. Let’s have a look!
Gun safety laws have been deadlocked for many years, largely because the options on the table are zero-sum — either gun control advocates win and gun rights advocates lose, or vice versa. But there may be a way out if we re-frame the question and the solution.
This is what got us both hooked on the article! Let’s read on!
What if we sought not just a regulatory solution, but also created a profit-making opportunity? Specifically, what if the government partnered with business to create a new category: a $100B gun safety and enjoyment industry?
Government partnership? You’re losing me again!
The automotive industry is a useful analogy, for both safety and enjoyment. Car owners segment into two camps. At the highest level, you can divide car owners into those who “need cars” (e.g., Utilitarians and Safety Seekers) and those who “want cars” (e.g., Driving Enthusiasts and Tinkerers. Similarly, gun proponents can be divided into two camps. First are “Protection Seekers” — consumers who want the protection of guns and hope to never use them. Second are “Enjoyment Seekers” — consumers who may also want protection, but are more focused on guns as a hobby — perhaps they enjoy hunting or target shooting, or perhaps they just dig the guns themselves. The good news is that “protection” is a close cousin of “safety”, so Protection Seekers are the easiest to align with gun control consumers also seeking safety.
To satisfy the gun control (Safety Seeker) group and the first group of gun owners (Protection Seeker), requiring innovations in product safety is the first opportunity.
OK I like that he’s looking at the self-defense people, not the “Deer and Ducks” people, that’s a fresh look.
Both the automotive industry and the government can pat themselves on the back for increasing automotive safety through innovation (seat belts, air bags, anti-lock brakes, lane departure sensors) and sound regulation (seat belt requirements, age restrictions, etc.) But one key factor is the legal requirement to have auto insurance if you drive a car (vs. just own a car). Government could require gun makers to layer in similar safety/protection innovations into the products themselves, which both gun safety and protection seekers should support. As Farhad Manjoo has pointed out on Slate, technology has advanced to the point where we can go far beyond the safety catch. If the gun is there to protect your family, I’m sure Protection Seekers would welcome safeguards to ensure their kids don’t get into the guns and play around with it. This might both greatly reduce the number of deaths caused by guns (as it is now, just having a gun in the house increases the risk of a fatal shooting) and create an opportunity for gun manufacturers to charge a premium for the safest guns, the way Volvo charges a premium its safe cars, and grow through innovation.
Ok first up you’re citing the Kellerman study! Can we get beyond this? The study was junk! It equated drug dealers and gang members with lawful people owning guns for self-defense. He also links an very biased, an inaccurate article on gun safety, and “Smart Gun” technology. The bottom line is guns are VERY safe, and the handful that aren’t are recalled by the manufacturers at their own expense. Everybody who is into guns is well aware of this…it appears those who aren’t into guns are blissfully unaware.
Further his problem is false to begin with. Look at this:
n 2000, 174 children (0-18) in the United States died from unintentional firearm-related injuries. Unintentional injuries are usually caused when children play with guns or are hunting.
Looking at the CDC data you see that there are many more pressing threats when it comes to accidental death. Poisoning, Motor vehicle accidents, and drowning seem to be the leads in any age range well above guns. (Interesting given his love for the auto industry, and his feelings that the gun industry has a problem).
And of course he ignores the key reason for this group OWNING a gun. PROTECTION! If you disassemble a gun, and lock away the ammo…or don’t keep ammo in the home you won’t have an accident…you also won’t have a gun if you need one.
Requiring gun insurance is the second opportunity. Again, cars provide a useful analogy: if you drive, you are required by law to have insurance to protect yourself, your car, and anyone else directly affected by an accident. Insurance companies charge more for riskier cars and riskier drivers. They invest significant dollars in actuaries to ensure all risk factors are accounted and charged for.
What are these risks? Accidental death? Its nothing statistically speaking. Theft? Well my guns are under my home owner’s policy, and before that my renter’s insurance. Are we talking crime? Well we’ll get to that later!
Not surprisingly, I checked with a few friends who are gun proponents and this idea didn’t go very far — it was viewed as burdensome regulation and an infringement on Second Amendment rights. After all, health insurance and even car insurance — as much as most of us don’t like paying for them — do offer us a benefit. And all that firearms insurance would do is take some of the costs for gun violence out of the taxpayer-supported criminal justice system, and the health insurance system we all pay for, and ask gun owners to pay for them.
Here’s the kicker. See he wants gun owners to shoulder the cost of gun violence, not the general population. But let’s look deeper into this. We know that accidental death and injury is very small, we also know that while it gets a LOT of news coverage, spree killers, and other crazy people with lawfully owned guns killing people is equally as small.
The real “Gun Death” number is inner-city criminal-on-criminal crime. Most of these violent offenders are well-known to police, and neither own their guns legally, nor posses them for lawful commerce reasons.
Is he trying to tell me that the gangs in the inner cities are going to pay the insurance money on guns they technically don’t even own? This is nothing but a shell game. He doesn’t want to pay the cost, so he’s willing to point a finger at an equally blameless party to get THEM to pay what he doesn’t want to.
Sorry bud, this isn’t a GUN problem, its a DRUG problem. These shootings aren’t happening because of lawful gun owners, its because of UNLAWFUL drug dealers who can’t use our justice system to uphold their business contracts.
At the same time, insurance could benefit “Enjoyment Seekers” in a few ways. Some of the profits from the insurance could help hunters transport and preserve their game so they could more easily feed their families. Other revenue could go towards conserving hunting preserves and ensuring a healthy, abundant wildlife population. If it becomes too expensive for individuals to adequately insure military-style assault rifles, perhaps the industry could take a page from the sports car driving schools, where you can go to a race track and drive hot cars fast. Perhaps gun enthusiasts could still fire such weapons at gun ranges, safely.
Well hunting preserves and that stuff is already being protected by the NRA and other groups. Also the whole “Closed Course” stuff does exist at gun clubs, you can rent anything from target pistols to machine guns.
Still you’re doing that finger-pointing thing again. You think we own semi-auto rifles for the thrill? These are the very guns people looking for personal protection want, and there you go throwing them under the bus.
This is yet another smart person thinking they have a solution for a problem they know nothing about.
