Let's review the Bill of Rights ONE MORE TIME: The RIGHT to keep and bare arms shall not be infringed. (Second Amendment to the Constitution) It's a RIGHT, not a privilege, such as the licensed privilege granted by states to operate a motor vehicle. It's the same as the RIGHT against self-incrimnation or the RIGHT to privacy. (BILL OF RIGHTS)
In their usual method of operation, the Democratic Party is proposing to levy a fine of $10,000 against firearms owners who don't take out a liability policy. Since when is failure to insure a trump against the Bill of Rights?
(Michelle Malkin) A contingent of liberal Democrats in Congress is proposing a new federal gun control idea: mandatory liability insurance for gun owners.
When New York Rep. Carolyn Maloney introduced the legislation last month with eight other Democrats, she boasted that it is “the first bill to require liability insurance of gun buyers nationwide.”
Maloney’s “Firearm Risk Protection Act” requires gun buyers to have “a qualified liability insurance policy” before they are able to legally purchase a firearm.
How does this square with the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. It doesn't. What are the odds that a crazed individual bent on killing as many people as possible will re-think his plan because he doesn’t want that “lack of liability insurance” fine? What about Major Nidal Hasan, US Army - remember the jihadi who slaughtered 14 of his brothers-in-arms at Ft. Hood? Would the lack of an insurance policy have stopped that freak? Name your mass murderer and then use those actions as your litmus test in evaluating the "progressive" move in Congress.
Back to Michelle Malkin:
It’s an idea that seems to be gathering a bit of steam. At Forbes.com, John Wasik lays out the logic behind treating firearm deaths as a market externality to be compensated via insurance, as we do with cars: “Those most at risk to commit a gun crime would be known to the actuaries doing the research for insurers… An 80-year-old married woman in Fort Lauderdale would get a great rate. A 20-year-old in inner-city Chicago wouldn’t be able to afford it. A 32-year-old man with a record of drunk driving and domestic violence would have a similar problem.” Robert Cyran and Reynolds Holding write that mandatory liability insurance is a measure that could pass Supreme Court muster where other restrictions might fail: “[T]here’s a strong argument that damage caused by firearms gives the government a ‘compelling interest’ to require insurance, the test for infringing a constitutional right.”
The Democratic "progressives" are proposing a systemic plan to deny inner city people a Constitutional right based on their lack of means. Really? And those are the same people who feel as if any sort of voter identification is a violation of their rights because it costs $10 for a state-issued ID card? Do these people ever listen to themselves?
