Last week, two California senators introduced an amended bill that would require gun owners in the state to obtain liability insurance for their firearms.
Introduced by Senators Nancy Skinner, D-Oakland and Catherine Blakespear, D-Encinitas, the amendment Senate Bill 8 was proposed following the mass shooting incidents that occurred in California last month.
“Victims of gun violence and their families suffer serious economic, mental, and physical harm, but have little or no recourse to compensation for that harm,” Skinner said in a statement.
Skinner added that insurance is the method society uses to compensate those harmed by things like car accidents, medical malpractice and defective consumer products.
“Requiring gun owners to carry liability insurance puts the burden where it should be: on the gun owner,” the senator said.
“This bill is a common sense approach to improving community safety,” Blakespear added. “Under current law, it is the victims of gun violence and society at large who bear the cost of gun violence. This must change.”
Bay City News Service (via napa valley Register) reported that if SB 8 becomes law, California would be the first US state to enact a firearms liability insurance requirement. It was also noted that SB 8 was inspired by a similar law passed in San Jose, CA. While San Jose’s gun insurance law has met with some pushback from gun rights movements, surprisingly it also saw opposition from taxpayer organizations, who are concerned that the law requires gun owners to weapons pay a fee to a private non-profit organization.
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