Public policy loony tunes in and out of government
June 15, 2008

by Joseph P. Tartaro
Executive Editor

Judging from some recent news reports, the lunatics in the private and public sectors have taken over the asylum again!

Apparently common sense and normal logic don’t count for much in some quarters as people in and out of government push their own public policy agendas.

For instance, in Nassau County, NY, legislators unanimously banned the possession, sale or disposal of handguns painted to look like toys. Handguns must be black, gray, silver, nickel, army green or gold-plated. I didn’t see anything in the language that allows even “blue” guns.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg banned painted guns in 2006, but in late May, Nassau Executive Thomas Suozzi said he pushed for a similar ban because such guns pose a danger to law enforcement and the public and to support Bloomberg’s ban.

The Nassau law goes into effect immediately, but owners of such guns have 30 days to turn them over to police or change them to acceptable colors. It would appear that the Nassau County ordinance is not limited to residents of that county. Anyone passing through with a “gun of a different color” would be subject to the same law, and there is a good possibility that the county law will be challenged in court.

California
Colored guns aren’t the only bug in lawmakers’ bonnets. In late May, the California state Assembly passed three pieces of anti-gun legislation and sent them on to the state Senate for concurrence. The bills are AB-2235, AB-2062 and AB-2948 which would ban the sale of firearms and ammunition on the property or inside the buildings that comprise the Cow Palace in San Francisco, thus locking out future gun shows.

AB-2235 would prohibit the sale of handguns other than “owner-authorized (or ‘smart’) handguns”—handguns with a permanent, programmable biometric feature that renders the firearm useless unless activated by the authorized user. No proven, viable handgun of this type has ever been developed or offered for sale, although New Jersey has previously passed similar legislation.

The bill would require the California Attorney General to report to the governor and legislature when owner-authorized handguns are commercially available so that only “owner-authorized” handguns could be approved for sale in the state.

AB-2062 would make it a crime to privately transfer more than 50 rounds of ammunition per month, even between family and friends, unless you are registered as a “handgun ammunition vendor” in the Department of Justice’s database. Ammunition retailers would have to be licensed and store ammunition in such a manner that it would be inaccessible to purchasers. The bill would also require vendors to keep a record of the transaction including the ammunition buyer’s name, driver’s license, the quantity, caliber, type of ammunition purchased, and right thumbprint, which would be submitted to the Department of Justice. All ammunition sales in the state of California would be subject to a $3 per transaction tax, and mail order ammunition sales would be prohibited.

Polar bears
The gun-grabbers are not the only policy wonks who want to deal in the world of science fiction.

On May 14, the Interior Department announced that it was putting the flourishing polar bear on the Endangered Species list, and the reaction was almost instantaneous.

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin announced that her state would sue to block Washington from listing the animals as “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act.

And it’s a good thing, too—because the new bear-population protections mask what may be the most serious threat to American economic might in decades.

The polar bear, you see, marks the first species on the “threatened” list whose supposed predicament is linked directly to global warming.

Senators immediately spoke out against the listing of polar bears, while the global warming crowd cheered. Alaska industry and political leaders reacted with disappointment, even vehemence, to the May 14 decision to protect the polar bear as “threatened,” despite assurances from the Bush Administration that the listing would mean no new regulation in Alaska.

Industry officials worried that the listing decision would give environmentalists a new tool for opposing development in the Arctic, especially new offshore oil exploration and development. Politicians attacked the science behind the decision as speculative.

Republican Sen. James Inhofe of Okalahoma, ranking member of the Environment and Public Works Committee, said he was disappointed with the Department of Interior’s decision to list polar bears as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, at a time when polar bear numbers have increased. Inhofe said the decision to do so appears to be based entirely on “unproven computer models.

The US Fish and Wildlife Service estimates that there are currently 20,000 to 25,000 polar bears. These numbers are substantially up from lows estimates in the range of 5,000-10,000 in the 1950s and 1960s.”

The suits should start filling the court calendars soon. And that’s just the polar bear suits. Now consider another wacky idea for resolving the great gun debate.

Firearm insurance
“We can fix the gun problem. We can make America safer, without limiting our right to bear arms. And we can do it without an expensive, dangerous, and futile ‘War on Guns,” wrote John Gear, a Vancouver business consultant who specializes in systems approaches to solving problems, in a recent issue of The Progressive Review.

“Rather than trying to limit access to or take guns away from law-abiding adults, we must instead insist that the adult responsible for a gun at any instant (maker, seller, or buyer) have enough liability insurance to cover the harm that could result if that adult misuses it or lets it reach the wrong hands,” Gear wrote.

“To solve the real problem (keeping guns out of the wrong hands without restricting other people) we must use an idea that has worked to limit losses from many other hazards: insurance,” he continued. “That’s right, insurance, the system of risk-management contracts that lets people take responsibility for choices they make that impose risks on others.

Insurance is what lets society accommodate technology, Gear claims. He says the various states’ crime victims’ compensation funds should get and distribute the money whenever a crime involving guns is committed or a gun mishap occurs.

He said when a crime involving a gun occurs, the firm who insured it pays the claim. If the gun is not found or is uninsured then every fund will pay a pro-rated share, based on the number of guns they insure. “This will motivate insurance firms—and legitimate gunowners—to treat uninsured guns as poison, instead of as an unavoidable byproduct of the Second Amendment,” Gear wrote.

“Thus, insurance will unite the interests of all law-abiding citizens, gunowners and others, against the real problem with guns: guns in the hands of criminals, the reckless, the untrained, and juveniles,” he said.

“That’s it,” Gear said in conclusion. “No mass or government registrations. Except for defining the rules, no government involvement at all. Each owner selects his or her insurance firm. By reaffirming the right to responsible gun ownership and driving uninsured guns out of the system, we use a proven, non-prohibitionist strategy for improving public safety.”

The trial lawyers will love this idea.
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