A California city has approved a law forcing gun owners to have insurance and pay an annual $25 fee.
“Certainly, the Second Amendment protects every citizen’s right to own a gun. It does not require taxpayers to subsidize that right,” Democratic San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo said, according to CNN.
Gun owners are also required under the law to have insurance. The law, which received its first approval in January, will need approval on second reading this month before it can go on the books, taking effect in August.
Even before the second reading, a lawsuit has been filed to block the process.
“We’ve opposed this ordinance every step of the way and we will see this through to the end,” Dudley Brown, president of the National Association for Gun Rights and executive director of the National Foundation for Gun Rights, told CNN before the Jan. 25 vote that gave the law initial approval in the Silicon Valley city.
“If the San Jose City Council actually votes to impose this ridiculous tax on the constitutional right to gun ownership, our message is clear and simple: see you in court,” Brown said.
Brown’s organization, an advocacy group for the Second Amendment, filed a lawsuit against the law the day after the first reading, according to KRON-TV in San Francisco.
The National Association for Gun Rights has just sued the City of San Jose (@pnjaban is one of the plaintiffs attorneys), alleging that the city’s new firearms fee and liability insurance requirement violates constitutional law.https://t.co/fW8dAkH3hu pic.twitter.com/mWz2u7NeLC
— Cyrus Farivar (@cfarivar) January 26, 2022
San Jose, California insists that it is "constitutionally compliant" in requiring gun owners to purchase liability insurance and to pay an "annual gun harm reduction fee" to exercise a right specifically protected by the Second Amendment.https://t.co/yGQhD0mR9i
— reason (@reason) February 5, 2022
Even in a gun-control state like California, it’s a law that could go too far.
In an interview with Slate, Liccardo said that “when people become aware of the fact that, ‘hey, whether you own a gun or not, you’re actually paying for this,’ it starts to get folks thinking about, well, ‘how could we better distribute the costs of gun ownership and gun harm?’”
Liccardo said gun owners “may not be reporting the guns to the insurance companies as they ought to be.”
“When you notify the insurance company, the insurance company can start to ask questions like, ‘do you have a gun safe? Do you have a trigger lock? Have you taken gun safety classes?’ And those kinds of actions can help to reduce the premium for the insured, just as drivers got safe driver discounts on our premiums,” he said.
Gun owners who do not pay the fee will face a fine, he said, but they will not be subject to criminal charges. However, he said, they could have their gun seized, and illustrated a possible scenario.
“Encountering people with guns, out on the street, in bars and nightclubs — you can imagine a host of different venues where a police officer would really like to have the ability to remove a gun from a potentially combustible situation. 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,” he said.
Liccardo insisted that the fee is legal.
“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. Newspapers pay taxes, even though that’s an important First Amendment right.,” he told Slate.
The fee, he said, is hardly a burden.
“Given the fact that buying a gun in this country costs hundreds if not thousands of dollars, depending on the model you take, a $25 fee is probably not terribly onerous, it seems to me. Nor is insurance, which can be obtained at little or no additional cost,” he said.
The fee will go to a not-for-profit whose focus not even Liccardo could clarify.
He said its board of directors “will be comprised of a host of folks, including, for example, Stanford professors, an epidemiologist who has been focused on gun harm, and nonprofit experts who understand domestic violence prevention programs, suicide prevention.
“We’ve invited and at least one member of a gun group has actually joined this effort to create this nonprofit, because we want organizations representing gun owners to be at the table, helping us to understand, how do we best communicate, how do we best invest? And overwhelmingly, under the ordinance, these dollars are going to serve occupants of gun-owning households or significant others who are in relationships with those who own guns,” he said.
via wnd
They need to send the $25 fee to the NRA who is the largest non-profit civil rights organization in the USA that prevents gun violence and promotes gun safety. The fee should automatically cover the cost of insurance. That is, if the courts do not strike down this crazy law!
It’s a RIGHT and must not require any “fee” to enjoy one’s RIGHT. Next thing would a “fee” of $25 or so for ***Each Gun*** and that would be aimed at collectors who don’t hurt anyone. Then the “fee” gets increased each year until it is so high that only the Super Rich Elite can afford to own a gun. In other words, a “Gun Tax.” Never trust a politician!
Just wait until the government starts charging people money to use their 1st amendment rights. This is a continuation of the left’s attempt to turn the Bill of Rights into a list of privileges.
Ha! Right! That money will go right into Newsom’s pockets!
They can pound sand. If this passes everyone who believes in our constitution should boycott California completely.
Get rid of corrupt Newsom and the corrupt Pelosi Crime Family!
That is California’s job, just let them suffer until they do.
Well, I agree. But I’ve read reports that say California has used voter fraud for years! That’s how these dirtbags Newsom, Wino Pelosi, and hateful corrupt racist Waters gets elected!
But it is still up to the people in California. They must be getting tired of those useless criminals.
Newsome is part of the Pelosi crime family. I think he is Nancy’s nephew.
I heard he was married to Wino Nancy’s niece.
Every vehicle with California plates should have full coverage when it leaves the California borders or have the vehicle (car, truck, motorcycle, RV, boat, etc) impounded until absolute proof of insurance is shown.
This article has absolutely nothing to do with vehicles. It is about gun control and California attempting to circumvent the US Constitution and our inalienable rights given to Americans under the 2nd amendment.
A California city has approved a law forcing gun owners to have insurance and pay an annual $25 fee. People should go to him with a rope and haul is Communist Ass to a big tree and let him swing.
So DAMN tired of these asinine communist demos attacking Law-biding citizens for what the communist demo Terrorists are doing aka BLM/Antifa are still murdering people and are not arrested, charged or imprison and these A-hole are all COMMUNISTIC DEMOCRATS
Agree! A bunch of these radical Democrats need to rounded up and hung! Most of the Democratic Party now are Globalist Communists who are destroying this country! They are enemies of this country! The Democratic Party needs to be destroyed and a new Party formed! Where are the spineless do absolutely nothing Republicans? They need to get off their butts and do something!
Ditto
Interesting bait and switch in the analogy, given that newspapers don’t pay taxes for being a newspaper exercising their free speech rights. They pay taxes on the money they make by selling newspapers. Huge difference. Gun dealers in the state already pay taxes when they sale a firearm. If we followed the analogy correctly everyone that buys a newspaper would then have to pay an additional fee to the government to fund an anti-free speech committee. They would also have to get insurance in case someone stills their newspaper and uses it to commit arson of some sort; which is illegal anyway. This whole thing is classic double-speak in service of an unstated political objective to end gun ownership by the peasant class.
Makes you wonder what freedom of speech is going to cost. Are the Democrats trying to “market” your rights now?
It’s all about taking away our Constitutional Rights starting with our Second Amendment and, stso by step, setting up a communist dictatorship.
It amounts to extortion. Either pay us or you can’t own or possess a gun.
This “tax and insurance” is just a sneaky ass way to create a state gun registry and profit for an inalienable right given to all Americans by the US Constitution. Its totally bogus! Taken to the US Supreme Court, it would not stand a chance of being inacted.
It’s Commiefornia, it is no longer part of America. Hasn’t been for a long time. The rest of us should send their representatives to “our” government home to contemplate their fate while we figure out if we are going to let them stay or make them swim to a new home. Either way, “their” government has to go.
PS: No way we should let that lousy Pelosi move to Florida before we make her swim to Hawaii or some place.