
Radical gun control activists, both in and out of government, are nothing if not persistent. After being soundly beaten time and time again in front of the Supreme Court, they continue to imagine new ways to hamper Americans’ ability to exercise their Second Amendment rights. The city of San Jose has found a novel way to make the lives of law-abiding gun owners miserable. Zusha Elinson reports in The Wall Street Journal:
Dave Truslow, a San Jose, Calif., tech-industry retiree and firearms instructor, recently started storing his collection of more than 100 guns out of town because he wanted to get ahead of a new city law requiring him to carry liability insurance for them.
“I decided I did not want to be required to comply with this,” Mr. Truslow said of the law, which went into effect Jan. 1.
San Jose’s law, the first of its type in the nation, mandates that gun owners in the city of nearly one million have insurance covering costs related to accidental gunshot injuries or deaths. The law doesn’t require policies to cover criminal misuse of firearms.
The law was pushed by former Mayor Sam Liccardo after a series of mass shootings in the area. Mr. Liccardo, a Democrat who recently stepped down due to term limits, said he thinks the law ultimately will result in insurers offering lower premiums to gun owners who safely store and handle their firearms, much like auto insurers give discounts for good driving.
“Just as insurance was a mechanism to dramatically improve road safety . . . insurance with guns could similarly have that effect,” Mr. Liccardo said.
Gunowners who object to the law, including Mr. Truslow, said they already took safety measures such as keeping their firearms in safes. City officials should spend more time focusing on fighting gun violence, he said.
Gun-rights groups filed lawsuits in response to the ordinance last year before it went into effect. A federal judge tossed out the suits but said that some of the claims could be refiled because the complaints had been drafted before the U.S. Supreme Court decided an important Second Amendment case last summer known as New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen.
In that case, the Supreme Court threw out New York’s restrictions on carrying concealed weapons in public, a decision that since has been invoked by judges in striking down several firearm restrictions.
In response, gun-control advocates in state and local governments have looked toward new approaches that could hold up in court. California last year passed a law allowing individuals to sue gun makers over violations of the state’s gun restrictions, basing on a Texas law allowing private individuals to sue to enforce abortion restrictions.
New Jersey Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy in December signed a law akin San Jose’s insurance law, which requires at least $300,000 in insurance coverage related to injury, death, or property damage for people with permits to carry guns in public.
The San Jose law applies to all gun owners, regardless of whether they carry them in public.
Chuck Michel, president of the California Rifle & Pistol Association, said his organization is preparing new legal challenges to San Jose on Second Amendment grounds. “This is just a way to make it too costly to own a gun,” Mr. Michel said.
Action Line: How many illegal gun owners are going to pay for insurance on their guns? Zero, obviously. Only the law-abiding citizens of San Jose will be harmed by this regulation. Get your guns and your training now. In the meantime, click here to subscribe to my free monthly Survive & Thrive letter.