From Fox News:
Maryland bill would ban gun carry for owners without insurance policy of at least $300K
Gun owners in Maryland would be required to buy at least $300,000 in liability insurance or forfeit their ability to carry a firearm under a new bill.
The controversial legislation, introduced by Delegate Terri Hill, D-Howard County, would prohibit the “wear or carry” of a gun anywhere in the state unless the individual has obtained a liability insurance policy of at least $300,000.
“A person may not wear or carry a firearm unless the person has obtained it and is covered by liability insurance issued by an insurer authorized to do business in the State under the Insurance Article to cover claims for property damage, bodily injury, or death arising from an accident resulting from the person’s use or storage of a firearm or up to $300,000 for damages arising from the same incident, in addition to interest and costs,” the proposed Maryland legislation said.
Ever since Bruen made all states shall issue, Blue states have tried to figure out how to legislatively get around Bruen.
This method imposes a financial burden on CCW.
Notice the text, “liability insurance issued by an insurer authorized to do business in the State.”
Maryland may for one or both of two things.
Extremely limit the number of insurance companies that can provide this type of insurance so that almost nobody can get it…
And/or
Make such an insurance policy prohibitively expensive, so people won’t carry.
Imagine you pay a few hundred dollars for training and permit fees, then discover you have to pay another few hundred dollars every month for insurance to carry your gun.
Add another homeowners or car policy cost to many people’s budget and they won’t be able to handle it.
Mandating insurance to exercise a right is probably unconstitutional, but Maryland doesn’t care.
The goal is to stop you from enjoying that right.
And, the gun control advocates do not understand why we oppose “common sense” measures like required training, insurance, storage laws…
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It is all well and good, until some anti-gun politician, sheriff, police chief, etc… decides they can make it impossible via overregulation.
Curiously, if similar requirements were placed on other methods of exercising basic human rights (licensing preachers for example), they would go absolutely mad with outrage.
RE: “licensing preachers for example” — That depends on the preacher, doesn’t it? A pro-abortion “Catholic” or ANY imam? Yes, they’ll go ape-sh!t. A pro-life evangelical or an armed rabbi? Eh, they had it coming.
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It fascinates me how the level of their support for basic rights depends greatly (if not entirely) on the political alignment of the people trying to exercise those same rights. Compare and contrast urban minority criminals versus J6 protesters. The former gets “no-cash bail” and revolving-door lockups; the latter gets held incommunicado, without counsel, and without trial for years. The difference? The former votes 93% Democrat, and the latter supports Donald Trump.
good example of punishment for citizens and making crime easy. it will get to the point that ordinary citizens will break laws and start killing criminals…
It’s not “enjoying” a right, it’s exercising a right. $300K in coverage is infringement.
I suspect they’ll next do what NY did, which is to outlaw gun liability insurance. I forgot what NY criminal politicians called it, something like “murder insurance” perhaps?
Or they’ll re-brand it in the media as a “loophole” that those evil 2A supporters use to carry guns wherever they go. The public outcry will be to “close the insurance loophole”, and then not only will they have the law that requires insurance, but another law that renders that insurance legally unobtainable.
A poll tax by another name… would be just as clear of an infringement. (Shakespeare I ain’t.)
I’m shocked, shocked I tell you. ?
I strongly oppose these kinds of mandates. That being said, I also think it’s prudent for people with carry permits to consider insurance directed at folk who carry. I carry it with a company that provides $1.5 million bond and $1.5 million civil liability plus representation for just under $500/yr. Happily, I haven’t had to test it…
You might want to double-check what rights you’re giving up to the insurance company by getting that insurance. Typical practice would be that the company gets to call the shots in any liability lawsuits (not surprisingly) and might “settle” on terms you would not like. Could they, for example, agree to a settlement that requires you to surrender your weapons?
Just remember what happened to any number of gun makers that allowed insurance companies to run their legal cases.
In general, you are not giving up any rights, and you are not obligated to accept their representation, or agree to any deal they want. At worst, they can simply decline to represent you, or you can decline their representation. To me, that’s not such a big deal, because the most important things are those that happen shortly after an incident — when you are the most vulnerable and most likely to make a mistake when talking to the police, etc. This particular insurance guarantees rapid response by lawyers who specialize in exactly that — protecting your rights and providing counsel for interrogations, etc — and provides for a one million dollar bond. They also pay for experts. The bond alone is worth the insurance — remember that a $100,000 bond means at least $10,000 you will never see again for most of us who don’t have a hundred grand in petty cash.
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If they start playing the “mitigation instead of litigation” game six months down the line, I have no problem changing counsel midstream if I need to. I have a stack of business cards from criminal attorneys in my desk. Even if I do, I’ve saved a few hundred thousand dollars.
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Most folk don’t realize how expensive this stuff is. As a forensic expert my nominal fee is $500/hr, and $4000/day for trial, and I’m *cheap,* because I’m semi-retired and only work occasional cases that interest me. In the last major murder trial I worked, my opposing expert was charging $700/hr and $6000/day, as I remember. He netted over a hundred grand, I think. Clinicians (I’m a forensic pathologist) charge a lot more. It costs two arms and three legs to get a surgeon on a the stand. Now add two or three more experts — a biomechanics guy, an Emergency Room physician, some other clinician, a private investigator, etc. Now consider lawyer fees, court fees, etc
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I consulted for the defense for the Chauvin/George Floyd case. In that case, the defense hired a panel of around 14 experts to evaluate the death (for a description of our reasoning in that case go to: https://www.billoblog.com/wordpress/index.php/category/george_floyd/ ). I don’t know what the total bill was for that, and I think we all lowered our rates for the case, but at an average of, say $400/hr, that’s about $5600 per hour. At one 40 hour week, that’s a quarter of a million dollars, not counting trial time. For *just* the medical experts.
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It’s often a lot cheaper for indigent cases — Tennessee pays $250/hr for indigent defense, but that’s why they have such a hard time getting people to do the work.
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When I lived in Georgia, there was a joke in my jurisdiction. There were two prominent lawyers in the county. The joke was that if you were innocent, you’d go to lawyer A with a check for everything you had in your bank account, and he’d do you right. If you were guilty, you’d go to lawyer B with the deed to your house, and he’d get you off. In either case you came out of it with not much more than the shirt on your back.
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And that’s the problem. Even if you *win* you are broken. The process is the punishment. One of my colleagues was sued because a family didn’t like the way he ruled a case in the death of their child. A large religious organization was footing the bill for the plaintiff, and they didn’t care how much it cost on their side. He got a “blue-ribbon” panel of experts too review the case, and everybody agreed with his diagnosis. So they sued all the experts, saying that they “colluded” to protect him, I’m told. He won, of course, but in doing so he lost his house and cashed in all his 401Ks and retirement savings to pay for legal fees. At the age of 60, he had zero retirement.