America's Gun Problem

Well, we’re back here again, in the shadow of another horrific gun crime. It’s never the time to talk about guns. Too soon and all. If it bugs you that I’m talking about America’s gun problem so soon after the Uvalde massacre, just console yourself that I waited a polite amount of time after the Buffalo massacre.

But here are some things we need to look square at. First, we are beyond the point at which the government can provide any meaningful gun control. Even if the conservative fantasy came true and the government made guns illegal and went door to door to take them, even if everyone cooperated (unlikely) and all law enforcement officers were willing to do it (also unlikely), the physical task of confiscating the guns, when we have an estimated 120 guns for every 100 Americans, is pretty close to impossible. Gun laws, as they stand now, tend to be stupid because they are written by people who don’t understand guns. You can see this even now when people are calling for a ban on assault weapons or military-style weapons. This gun, which looks like something out of a futuristic war movie, and this gun, which looks like a muscled-up version of the rifle we all think of when we hear “rifle,” are the same gun. If we’re just banning guns based on looks, well, a gun can look like whatever the manufacturer decides to make it look like.

Second, there is no “good guy with a gun.” That is a myth. If police officers standing around letting a gunman have more than an hour unchecked in an elementary school while they kept distraught parents away doesn’t prove that to you, then you have your head up your ass.

Third, gun regulations do work. The Uvalde shooter waited until he was 18 to buy the guns he used in the massacre because he had to. That was the law, and no one around him would buy him a gun before then. The thing so many of these massacres have in common is that they’re committed by young men with guns they’ve had a short time. There is an opportunity for intervention here.

Fourth, the gun rights people seem willing to concede that, even if guns can’t be regulated, the people who buy guns can be. That’s why they keep saying that this isn’t a gun problem; it’s a mental health problem. Or it’s the video games or the violent music or whatever. Guns don’t kill people. People kill people. OK, fine, let’s then regulate the people.

Because there is a thing we could do about guns right now that wouldn’t require any confiscation or regulation of weapons: Pass a law requiring gun owners to carry liability insurance (as one California city has already done). If your gun harms anyone, your fellow citizens want to know that we taxpayers aren’t going to be on the hook for the costs associated with the injuries or deaths caused by that weapon. Your insurance will cover it.

Make it so a gun buyer has to show proof of insurance before the transaction can be completed, and all sellers are responsible for getting proof of insurance. And then let the actuarial tables sort this all out.

You’re a 50-year-old rancher in Montana with a couple of handguns for self-protection and rifles and shotguns for hunting? You’ve been married almost 30 years and all your kids are out of the house and you don’t have grandkids yet? Your insurance premiums for those guns would be quite low. You’re a demographic with very little risk of gun injury.

But if you’re an 18-year-old guy with no previous gun ownership who has his heart set on an AR-15? Well, those insurance premiums are going to be through the roof. Maybe settle on something a little less intense.

If you sell a gun to a person who turns around and shoots up a supermarket, you better have proof he showed you his insurance, or all those families are coming after you. If your idea of a fun afternoon is letting your friends shoot your Barrett .50 cal in your back field, you’d better be damn sure you’ve checked behind what you’re shooting at and that your insurance policy covers other users who have your permission.

Basically, my idea is to use insurance companies and actual monetary pressure to get gun owners to exhibit the kind of thinking and care for others that ought to just come with being a person in a society. If common sense won’t stop you from selling a semiautomatic rifle to a young man who lives in the suburbs, then maybe needing proof of insurance will. And if common sense won’t stop you from buying a semiautomatic weapon the second you turn 18, maybe the insurance premiums will.

It is literally insurance companies’ job to assess risk. We don’t need to reinvent the wheel here — just give them gun owners to assess. Take it out of the realm of politics and maybe we’ll see some meaningful cultural changes.