DEAR WEHO: Requiring gun owners to carry insurance is illegal and misguided

Have a letter for City Council or City Hall you want us to publish? E-mail it to [email protected].

Good evening.

I’m writing about 5.E. As a security and intelligence professional, and a combat veteran, I am well-versed in the use of firearms, to include escalation/use of force. Requiring law-abiding gun owners to get liability insurance is like forcing men to get gender insurance because #YesAllMen. It’s an unconstitutional and capricious measure. It shows nothing but contempt for your fellow citizens. Now to the meat of the matter:

In California, we have the most restrictive gun control — there is nothing safety-oriented about our laws — in the country. Per the FBI, in 2021, we had the most active shooter incidents in the country: 6

An active shooter or mass shooting as defined by the Feds is a person attempting to kill people in a group setting, and the latter becoming an official mass shooting in the event four people are killed. Furthermore, they cannot be gang-related incidents.

https://www.fbi.gov/file-repository/active-shooter-incidents-in-the-us-2021-052422.pdf/view for reference

We have increasingly rising crime, of all kinds. Am I to pay for the medical bills or funeral expenses of a man who assaults me or worse, my family? That’s unconscionable. This runs contrary to California’s (seemingly) surprisingly strong castle doctrine and stand your ground laws. I say seemingly because these laws are meant to protect some of the wealthiest people in the state, who also have an incredibly high risk.

If you want positive impacts on crime, use our lobbyist to get Sacramento to repeal AB109, let’s all repeal Prop 47 and 57, and recall George Gascon. With extreme prejudice.

Get rid of gun free zones around our most vulnerable.

Encourage shall-issue, or better, join 25 (26 once Florida passes it) states in adopting constitutional carry.

Is your intent to price out lawful firearms owners who are not in the 1% of their natural rights, more than we’ve already been restricted? Are you going to pay me fair market value for my firearms.

Per the CDC’s own study, as well as other studies, lawful gun owners will, in a given year, use their firearms to deter, defeat, or prevent crime anywhere between 500,000 and 3,000,000 times.

In Chicago, something like 97% of all crimes involving a firearm involve stolen or black market or straw purchase firearms. Not a single measure proposed would prevent these crimes.

The only measure proposed that could have at most a 0.1% impact on preventing “gun violence” is a waiting period. It could have delayed or prevented the incident in Tulsa most recently, but there’s no saying the assailant wouldn’t have gotten a firearm some other way, or just used bladed weapons.

You’re also about 3-5 times more likely to be killed with a knife than any long gun (all shotguns, bolt action rifles, semiautomatic rifles, and lever action rifles)

Waiting periods are both unconstitutional and incredibly dangerous. For every crime prevented, there are dozens of victims created. Women and LGBTQ+ members are especially vulnerable to abusive persons/estranged partners during these periods.

Lawful gun owners, particularly concealed carry citizens, have a lower crime rate than peace officers, across the board.

I could continue on bullet points that most council members will dutifully ignore, for the cause. Instead, I will just tell you that during COVID and the riots of 2020, Californians saw the fragility of our society, and the abdication of law and order by progressive District Attorneys, city councils, county boards of supervisors, and our Attorneys General, now-Sen. Xavier Becerra and the Honorable Rob Bonta. This is nothing but an assault on our rights.

I can’t possibly imagine an actual criminal getting this insurance. “Oh, sorry I killed your partner. Let me call State Farm and get this all sorted.” Not a single gun control law seems to have been written by a functioning adult, and this is no different. If you’re going to go through with asinine legislation about firearms, at least learn to understand those of us who are defending all of our rights and read the research provided by groups and researchers like the Firearms Policy Coalition (www.firearmspolicy.org) and John Lott.

And lastly, you don’t have the right to pass this. Who the hell are you to tell me how I can and can’t defend my family?

Thank you,
Charlie Jasper