In the gun control debate there are two competing interests which make it difficult for the different sides to find common ground.
On one side, you have the gun control advocates who, in the interest of public safety, would like to see more gun control imposed. On the other side, in the interest of personal safety, the gun rights advocates want to see as little regulation as possible.
Part of their concern is that they feel part of the personal safety is to be safe from the government. And as a result, any "infringement" of their gun ownership by the government is a violation of their constitutional rights.
So how can we alleviate both concerns? One way would be to privatize gun control.
That's not as hard as it might sound. The bulk of this work could be done with three pieces of legislation. First, make it illegal to be in possession of an uninsured gun. Second, make it illegal to sell gun insurance to anyone who hasn't passed a background check. Third, if you, for any reason, are no longer in possession of the insured gun, you must notify your insurer and cancel the insurance.
For gun collectors and hobbyists, many of them actually already carry insurance. I understand that the NRA even offers it. It's not outrageously expensive either, just $165 per year.
The insurance would compensate anyone who is hurt by he gun owners guns. So, for example, the families of the children who were killed in the Newtown massacre would have been financially compensated.
While it's not a new thought to require insurance as an aspect of gun control, it could actually be used as a tool to implement gun control too.
It would effectively do all the things that the government would want to be able to do, but which raise concerns among the gun owners regarding "big government."
The way things would work is that first, before buying a gun, you would have to clear a background check, conducted by the insurance company. The government wouldn't even need to get involved, except to divulge any needed criminal history.
Once you clear that background check you are issued an insurance card with a picture on it.
Second, once you purchase a gun, the serial number of that gun would be recorded by the insurance company, (the same as the vin number on your car is).
Insurance companies could "pool" these serial numbers, sharing only the information of who insures each serial number. Law enforcement agencies would have access to that pool, but only to identify the insurer of the firearm.
Then if, at some point, the gun is used in he commission of a crime, the investigator could search the database to find the insurer, then seek a warrant from a judge. ,
Once granted a warrant, they could subpoena the ownership information from the insurer regarding the owner of the gun.
In this way there could effectively be a "national registry" but it would be held by private enterprise, and would also have the executive branch checked by the judicial branch in protecting any undo intrusions into gun owners.
Third, insurance companies could cross check that shared network of gun owners with the health insurance they provide. If certain mental health diagnoses are made, they would automatically be cross-checked with the gun ownership registry.
Then the gun insurer would automatically be notified that the gun owner is no longer capable of clearing a background check. (The insurer would actually have an interest in this because they won't want to be paying out damages.)
At that point the insurance company could notify the gun owner that he/she has specified period of time to sell or give away his gun(s) citing that they no longer clear the background check and can no longer insure the owner.
Furthermore if a gun owner is convicted of any crime which would fail him in a background check, it would trigger the same response.
Effectively, this puts the onus of gun control on the insurance companies, but they have profit incentive. Go capitalism!
This also has an extended impact on gun safety.
For example, insurance companies would have an incentive to offer discounts for owners to take gun safety classes, purchase gun lockers etc.
Additionally, it would answer a lot of the concerns about "assault weapons" which can be used to in mass shootings. You want your assault rifle? That's fine but you have to pay a higher premium for it. You want your high capacity magazines? Fine, but you have to pay the premium.
You want to hoard 50 guns for the day the ATF comes to take away your guns? That's fine, but you have to insure every one of them, paying the premiums on each.
The costs of such things would be set by the free market. Conservatives have always been in favor of that.
So that takes care of the legal gun purchases but what about the illegal ones? Well there are some solutions to that implied here as well.
The law would be that it would be illegal to be in possession of an uninsured gun, period.
It would be accompanied by a mandatory prison sentence of five years for each weapon in your possession. Simply make it not worth it to own guns illegally.
There could be a 90-day amnesty period where owners of illegally obtained guns could turn them in to local police stations before the laws went into effect. Certainly that's not going to dry up the whole supply, but it would begin to dry it up.
The other way it addresses illegal sales is through the mandate that you must notify your insurance company if you are no longer in possession of your gun.
There are four reasons you would no longer be in possession of a gun. You would either sell it, gift it, lose it or have it stolen.
If you sell it or gift it, the recipient would be legally required to insure it so the onus is on them now. If it's stolen you would be required to file a police report. If you don't the law would allow for the possibility of being prosecuted for any crimes committed with it.
If you lose it, you must report it lost to the insurance company, or again, you could be held responsible for any crimes committed with it.
Why so harsh? Because the vast majority of illegally obtained guns come in two manners, about 15 percent of them are stolen and the other 85 percent are purchased either through black markets or through straw purchases.
The initial purchase of virtually every gun is purely legal. Many people buy guns though a third party who can clear a background check. Making the "law abiding citizen" who cleared the background check responsible for the whereabouts of the gun (or cancelling the insurance) can help curb straw purchasing.
Prosecutors wouldn't be interested in going after the guy who had the gun stolen from his locker at the shooting range two days ago and just didn't know it. But if the same person keeps reporting 100 guns "lost" every week, insurance companies could flag that and notify the police.
Certainly, it's not going to dry things up overnight, but it will have a strangling supply. That guy who was going buy the gang 10 guns is't going to be eager to go do 50 years in jail by purchasing them for you.
In two years, five years, 10 years, that supply gets smaller and smaller and the going rate for a black market hand gun goes up and up and up. Pretty soon, it's not cost effective to buy a $5000 handgun to hold up a corner store for $200.
And all those guns that are floating around without serial numbers? If you have a gun without a serial number, it can't be insured. If it's not insured, that's five years in prison.
It's been stolen? Then it's not insured. Five years in prison.
You "found" a lost gun? Well if you did't turn it in but kept it, say hello to your new roommate.
The real beauty of this idea is that if you start seriously considering it, it's a cash-cow for the insurance companies. Then you have a lobby with even deeper pockets than the NRA to help the legislation get through.
In sum privatizing gun insurance allows for a way universal background checks without involving the government. It even offers a way to maintain them. It allows for a way to create what is tantamount to a national gun registry without it being governmental one. It offers incentives to gun owners to increase safety. And it does all this without even whispering at the 2nd Amendment.
Best of all, it's passable because it means money. All of that and it even takes care of the victims and families of gun violence.