San Jose, CA-Gun Owner Insurance and Fee

[Pauls' Revere]

Well, why must I subsidize someones right to an abortion? or any other so called rights? Seems like a slippery slope here.

https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/San-Jose-could-be-1st-to-require-gun-liability-16803151.php

The liability insurance would cover losses or damages resulting from any negligent or accidental use of the firearm, including death, injury, or property damage, according to the ordinance. If a gun is stolen or lost, the owner of the firearm would be considered liable until the theft or loss is reported to authorities.

The requirement won’t apply to current and retired law enforcement officers or those with a license to carry concealed weapons.

The $25 fee will be collected by a yet-to-be-named nonprofit to be used for firearm safety education and training, suicide prevention, domestic violence, and mental health services.

Those who don’t insure their weapons would face unspecified fines.

"Certainly the Second Amendment protects every citizen's right to own a gun. It does not require taxpayers to subsidize that right," Democratic Mayor Sam Liccardo said Monday at a news conference, estimating that San Jose residents incur about $442 million in gun-related costs each year.

 

[Brian4Liberty]

Forced to purchase insurance. Who could have seen this coming. It's not like there was precedent leading up to this...

(Well, except home insurance, certain liability insurance, auto insurance, health insurance, etc.)

 

[oyarde]

Sounds like things the homeowner insurance should be covering anyway. I'd never buy any of it . In caly it would just be used as a list later for something else.

 

[cjm]

https://www.samliccardo.com/meet-sam/

Prior to his election to public office, Sam spent a number of years in public service serving as a federal and local criminal prosecutor on a range of felony cases, from sexual assault and child exploitation to international narcotrafficking. Sam’s extensive work in the community also included teaching political science at San José State University, co-founding an innovative program to mentor children, serving on the boards of several affordable housing organizations and advocating for several successful countywide ballot measures that are bringing BART to San José.

They've been trying to bring BART to SJ since the 80s. My guess, if it's happening at all, it's connecting to Fremont and not going up the peninsula.

 

[cjm]

Sounds like things the homeowner insurance should be covering anyway. I'd never buy any of it . In caly it would just be used as a list later for something else.

Stop the betting, we have our winner.

 

[Brian4Liberty]

https://www.samliccardo.com/meet-sam/



They've been trying to bring BART to SJ since the 80s. My guess, if it's happening at all, it's connecting to Fremont and not going up the peninsula.

It's already past Fremont and all the way to North San Jose.

https://www.bart.gov/system-map

 

[cjm]

It's already past Fremont and all the way to North San Jose.

https://www.bart.gov/system-map

Not bad! Only 40ish years, but it'll be easier for SJ kids to catch an A's game now.

 

[Brian4Liberty]

https://rumble.com/vtdfg8-harmeet-d...n-about-a-lawsuit-against-the-city-of-sa.html

 

[Anti Globalist]

Another thing to add to the list of why people should leave California.

 

[Brian4Liberty]

San Jose's Gun Tax Has Nothing to Do with Reducing Crime
By Tate Fegley

CNN touts San Jose as being “poised to take a step closer to first-in-the-nation gun ownership requirements.” At first, I had thought that the poorly worded headline must be mistaken, as there are cities, such as Kennesaw, GA, that have required residents own guns. In San Jose’s case, “gun ownership requirements” means paying an annual tax and being required to purchase insurance to exercise the right (privilege?) to own a firearm.

CNN also published an opinion piece by San Jose mayor Sam Liccardo defending the recently passed legislation, saying “gun owners should cover the costs of gun violence.” Why should individuals who played no role in the crimes of others be held responsible? I don’t know the answer, but it seems that holding criminals responsible for their own misdeeds is becoming increasingly unpopular in California governance.

Liccardo emphasizes the costs to taxpayers of gun violence, citing a report by the National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform. What stands out to me from the report is that it seems that it is only entities dependent on taxpayer money that unabashedly publicize how crazily inefficient they are in order to argue for more resources. Estimates in the report are typically on the high end; e.g., even though the median time served for murder in the US was 13.4 years in 2016, the National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform’s estimated cost for incarcerating a shooting suspect in California is based on twenty-five years of imprisonment, costing $81,203 per year. Other expenses include police response to a homicide—not including investigation, which is another $12,200—costing $4,480 and $2,500 to clean up the crime scene. And, for some reason, “gunshot surgery” on a dead victim costs $45,200. Liccardo expects anyone who goes plinking with a .22 rifle to help pay for that.
...
Liccardo, in stating that incentives by insurance companies have reduced auto fatalities, links to a page run by the Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence, which links to an article by progressive outlet The Nation, which cites a report by Ralph Nader’s Center for Auto Safety.

By going down this rabbit hole, one sees that Liccardo is making things up. The author of the Center for Auto Safety report does not even mention insurance as a reason for why traffic fatalities went down. Liccardo’s comparison is based entirely on misdirection and obfuscation.

In trying to implement both annual taxes and insurance requirements, Liccardo is throwing things at the wall to see what sticks, as the memo on the proposed legislation fully anticipates legal challenges on multiple fronts. Liccardo seems to be running a play out of the Obamacare playbook (or, really, a play based on Justice John Roberts’s sophistic opinion that declared Obamacare’s individual mandate a tax, which should have invalidated it, since taxing bills are to originate in the House). The Obama administration’s argument was not that the penalty for violating the individual mandate is a tax, but that the federal government may force individuals to purchase insurance based on the Commerce Clause. In this case, Liccardo is covering both bases: the legislation has both an annual fee for gun owners (a tax) and a mandate to purchase insurance. Thus, if only one burden on gun owners is overturned, the other remains.

Another legal challenge the bill’s proponents expect to face is “the constitutionality of permanent seizure of the firearm as a consequence of noncompliance.” Liccardo is surprisingly candid that the goal is disarmament:

Skeptics will say that criminals won't comply. They're right; yet that's an important feature of these proposals, not a defect. These ordinances create a legal mandate that provides police with a lawful means for seizing guns from non-law-abiding, dangerous people.

The response to every officer's call for domestic violence in my city, for example, includes the question, “do you have any guns in the home?” If that gun owner lacks proof of payment or insurance, the police can seize the gun.
...
Regardless of any laughable claims about reducing the burden on taxpayers, proponents know they will face legal challenges and that the taxpayer will have to pay for them. They know that the measure will do nothing about gun violence, as that is not the point. The point is to put extra burdens on gun owners and increase the powers of the state to disarm the public.
...
More: https://mises.org/wire/san-joses-gun-tax-has-nothing-do-reducing-crime

 

[Anti Federalist]

San Jose Mayor Talks About Seizing Guns from Owners Who Don’t Pay City Fee

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/...izing-guns-from-owners-who-dont-pay-city-fee/

AWR HAWKINS 6 Feb 2022

San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo (D) spoke to Slate about seizing firearms from people who refuse to pay the city’s new $25 gun owners’ fee or comply with the city’s new liability insurance requirement for gun owners.

Breitbart News reported that San Jose’s city council passed the fee ordinance and the liability insurance ordinance on January 25, 2022.

Slate notes the city fee is $25 and quotes Mayor Liccardo saying the funds collected will go to a foundation overseen by “Stanford professors, an epidemiologist who has been focused on gun harm, and nonprofit experts who understand domestic violence prevention programs, suicide prevention.”

Liccardo explained that the ordinance requiring the fee is “civil,” rather than criminal in nature. However, he made clear that failure to pay the fee can result of seizure of a firearm.

He said:

For example, there’s a bar brawl and they’re patting down everybody and someone’s got a gun. “Have you paid your fee? You have insurance?” “No.” OK, well, there’s an opportunity for us to remove the gun. And then when the gun owner comes back and demonstrates that they comply with the law and they’re a lawful gun owner, they get their gun back. But in the meantime, you’ve taken a gun out of a bar brawl. And that’s not a bad thing.

Liccardo then took exception to the suggestion the city fee is actually a tax on guns:

I don’t blame anyone for being emotional about this. These are really important issues that go to the core of what we believe about freedoms and rights and our own safety. But I’d say this. First, it’s a fee, it’s not a tax, and I won’t go into the details about what the difference is, but the reality is that in this country, there have been taxes on guns and ammunition since at least 1919, and they’ve been upheld by the courts. So the fact that there’s a constitutional right attached somewhere to the exercise of a particular activity doesn’t mean it can’t be regulated, taxed, or have a fee imposed.

The text of the Second Amendment ends with four words, “Shall not be infringed.”

 

[phill4paul]

San Jose Mayor Talks About Seizing Guns from Owners Who Don’t Pay City Fee

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/...izing-guns-from-owners-who-dont-pay-city-fee/

AWR HAWKINS 6 Feb 2022

San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo (D) spoke to Slate about seizing firearms from people who refuse to pay the city’s new $25 gun owners’ fee or comply with the city’s new liability insurance requirement for gun owners.

Breitbart News reported that San Jose’s city council passed the fee ordinance and the liability insurance ordinance on January 25, 2022.

Slate notes the city fee is $25 and quotes Mayor Liccardo saying the funds collected will go to a foundation overseen by “Stanford professors, an epidemiologist who has been focused on gun harm, and nonprofit experts who understand domestic violence prevention programs, suicide prevention.”

Liccardo explained that the ordinance requiring the fee is “civil,” rather than criminal in nature. However, he made clear that failure to pay the fee can result of seizure of a firearm.

He said:

For example, there’s a bar brawl and they’re patting down everybody and someone’s got a gun. “Have you paid your fee? You have insurance?” “No.” OK, well, there’s an opportunity for us to remove the gun. And then when the gun owner comes back and demonstrates that they comply with the law and they’re a lawful gun owner, they get their gun back. But in the meantime, you’ve taken a gun out of a bar brawl. And that’s not a bad thing.

Liccardo then took exception to the suggestion the city fee is actually a tax on guns:

I don’t blame anyone for being emotional about this. These are really important issues that go to the core of what we believe about freedoms and rights and our own safety. But I’d say this. First, it’s a fee, it’s not a tax, and I won’t go into the details about what the difference is, but the reality is that in this country, there have been taxes on guns and ammunition since at least 1919, and they’ve been upheld by the courts. So the fact that there’s a constitutional right attached somewhere to the exercise of a particular activity doesn’t mean it can’t be regulated, taxed, or have a fee imposed.

The text of the Second Amendment ends with four words, “Shall not be infringed.”

It's past time for politicians that even utters such beliefs to be dosed in burning pitch and covered with feathers. Only then will the bullshit shenanigans come to an end.