Aren’t Efforts to Increase the Cost of Gun Ownership Racist?

You hear these proposals now and then.  Sometimes it is in the form of a tax, like a $100 tax on bullets.  Or sometimes it is more subtle like a claim that gun owners should have liability insurance.

I particularly love the idea of liability insurance.  Have you ever been in an accident and it wasn’t your fault?  A friend of mine once had a pretty ugly situation.  She was living in Charlotte at the time, where apparently people are genetically incapable of making a proper left turn.  I love Charlotte, but come on, Charlotteans, this is a real problem, a cultural glitch, and you need to work on this, okay?  You know how you are supposed to start in the left lane and end up in the left lane?  And if it is a double left turn, the one in the right-left turn is supposed to end up in the second most leftward lane, too.  Now I don’t have a beef with Charlotteans in general, but if you are ever in that town, do not expect people to do this properly.  If you are in a double left turn lane, and you are in the right left turn lane, expect the people in the left-left lane to end up in the wrong lane.  Plan for it and you won’t get hit.

But this friend was in the left-left lane and as she turned, the person in the right left turn lane crossed over into her lane and as a result they collided.  And then when the police came, the other driver and his buddy in the passenger seat said she crossed over the line and hit them.  Now she went and showed how the damage was more consistent with her version of events.  To the testimony of the other driver’s friend, she said, “of course he would say that, he’s his friend.”  Anyway, so the cops wrote it down as “undetermined” and the next thing she knew the other guys were claiming whiplash and so on.  And she went to the insurance company and told them to fight this, and they told her it wasn’t worth it and settled.  And her insurance went up, because of the other driver’s screw up.

How do I know my friend is telling the truth?  I mean, I wasn’t there, I only heard about this later, so how did I know she was telling the truth?  Oh, because about ten years later she learned that she had been the victim of an insurance fraud ring.  The plan was for this guy to intentionally hit people as they make a left turn, and then lie and say the accident was the other driver's fault (probably taking advantage of the fact that Charlotteans are so bad at left turns), claim damages and then collect a nice little paycheck.  In fact, she had been one of the first victims.  Her skillful self-advocacy (“of course he would say that, he’s his friend”) convinced them that it was a bad idea to have a passenger as the witness, so in future crimes they planted a supposed independent witness, who just happened to see the whole thing, on the corner in question.

So the insurance company reimbursed her for something like a decade’s worth of increased premiums (of course with no interest) and sheepishly apologized  All’s well that ends well, right?

Oh, except how many more of you out there have suffered the same fate, where you are in an accident and you know you did no wrong, but the insurance company pays the other guy anyway?  I mean, maybe it isn’t some fraud scheme so much as a guy lying to avoid a hit on his insurance, but how many of you have had that happen to you?  And each of you discovered that in the fine print of that insurance contract, you gave them the right to settle your case no matter how bogus it is.  Indeed, you can’t find one without such a clause.  And it makes sense to the insurance company.  To them you are a stranger, not much more likely to be honest about what you did than the other guy in the accident, and they can pass the costs onto you in the form of higher premiums, so tough on you.

The point of this is that insurance will roll over and settle your case—and force you to pay the bill—often in extremely weak cases.  Do you trust them to recognize a righteous shooting when they see it?  Or do you think innocent victims of crime will end up having to pay the medical bills of the criminals they shoot?

But I digress.  Glenn Reynolds appropriately smells the rat behind the “force gun owners to buy insurance” scam:

It’s just an effort to raise the cost of gun ownership, and to accomplish back-door gun registration so that antigun newspapers can run lists of gun-liability-insurance policyholders. But proposals like this do serve to underscore the bad faith of the anti-gun crowd, who are willing to try anything to get their way.

Are the criminals who get black market guns going to buy insurance?  No.  It will just be the law abiding people who do that.  I mean while we are at it, why don’t we just force everyone to buy liability insurance for murder?

No, wait...  forget I said that.  I don’t want to give them ideas.

So whether it is a tax or insurance, the goal is the same: increase the cost of gun ownership.

So doesn’t that make these proposals racist?  Or at least racially discriminatory?

I mean how long have we heard the argument on Voter ID?  Oh, it’s just like a poll tax!  And poll taxes are wrong, and they hit minorities more than whites, and therefore Voter ID is wrong and racist!

This is a typical example.  And in Crawford v. Marion County Election Board (2008), the Supreme Court rejected that argument.  Which has not stopped the left from making it.  Which is itself interesting.  The left maintains that the Constitution contains an unwritten right to privacy that includes a right to an abortion.  And we are supposed to respect and defend that right because the Supreme Court has spoken.  So why don’t they say that about Crawford?  Gee, you almost get the feeling that they know that Roe is an exercise of judicial legislation and are only mad when they don’t get the judicial legislation they want.

But if an ID is like a tax and thus hurts the poor more and is consequently racist, well, you know what is also like a tax?  A tax!  As in a tax on bullets.

And for that matter, so is insurance.  I mean yes, it isn’t the government collecting from you, but it is a cost imposed on you by (in this scenario) the government and obviously it hits the poor hardest, and minorities tend to disproportionately poor so... racism!

And of course in order to buy a handgun, you have to show an ID.  Otherwise running a background check on you is pretty pointless, isn’t it.  So... racist!

Indeed, some liberals argue that it is racist to exclude felons from the vote because felons are disproportionately racial minorities.  Well, you know what felons also can’t do?  Legally own a gun (or explosives, for that matter)!  So... racist! 

Furthermore, often to get a license you have to take a course on handgun safety.  These aren’t free and even if they were, clearly their burden would fall more heavily on the poor, so... racist!

I have often joked that the Democrats have always believed black people should be subject to strict gun control.  Their opinions have only evolved so that they now believe that all people, regardless of race, should be subject to these restrictions.

But that joke may be wrong.  I mean if you detect a light, smirking tone to this post, you would be right, but underneath it all, might I be hitting on a real point.  An actual poll tax is wrong.  No question about that.  And there is no question that in the past poll taxes were used to keep down the black vote in particular, as well as other racial minorities.

Voter ID, on the other hand, seems quite justified.  Indeed, it might combat racial discrimination by voter fraud.  And likewise requiring a background check before you buy a gun seems rational, and so requiring an ID so the background check isn’t a waste of time also seems like a sensible approach.  And I support banning felons from voting, too.

So I don’t like actual poll taxes.  I am okay with voter ID, and I am okay with excluding felons from the vote.  But many liberals aren’t.  They think these things are all racist, or at least racially discriminatory.  And how many times can someone do a thing that they themselves claim is racially discriminatory before you decide that they are engaged in racial discrimination themselves?

At one moment these people say, “requiring a person to pay taxes to exercise their right to vote is racially discriminatory.”  And then the next they say, “you should, however, pay taxes before exercising their right to bear arms.”  Why shouldn’t you conclude that this person’s intent is to exclude minorities?  The same can be said for excluding felons from owning guns, and requiring an ID to buy a handgun.

Indeed beneath it all is a creepy equivalency between the poor and racial minorities.  Now, there is no question that racial minorities are disproportionately poor, but it is not even close to a one-to-one equivalency, and it is becoming even less so every day.  And yet in the liberal mind it is automatic: poor = minority.  Indeed, very often in their minds, poor = black.

And there is an even creepier assumption of helplessness among the poor (which remember, the left sees as equivalent to minorities).  I will not say getting an ID is easy.  Everyone knows it is a pain in the behind to go to the DMV.  You can only hope to do it on your day off, and bring something to do while you wait in line.  But it’s not anything that poor people or non-whites can’t do; it’s just a test of endurance and that kind of endurance knows no bounds of race or income.

But according to some liberals, those poor people, they can’t do such a simple thing themselves.  And if they can’t do that, then they surely can’t be trusted with a gun, either, right?  I mean, when it comes to protecting your life or your property, the poor—which the left sees as synonymous with racial minorities—just can’t be expected to help themselves, right?  They need the government’s help.

Or so the reasoning goes.  And there is a word for it: paternalism.

Well, it is either that, or most of the uses of the race card outlined above is in fact a feint.  And I am not saying that it is 100% one or the other.  I think there are many limousine liberal types who are infected with such paternalism.  They might tell themselves they are all for racial equality and they might even believe it, but underneath it all, they believe that minorities generally, or certain minorities, are just too helpless to help themselves.  So some people who advocate against voter ID but for increasing the cost of gun ownership do so out of racism.  And there are others who don’t actually believe any of these policies are racist, who just use the race card as a way to get their way, or to sell a claim of victimhood to the minority community.  In other words, I don’t think it is all one thing or another.

But there is no question that many, if not all, gun control measures, will fall hardest on the poorest Americans.  Stripped of the right to defend themselves, some will be left with only the police to protect them, and losing what little wealth they have to the thieves who prey disproportionately on them.  And others will break the law and buy a gun solely to protect themselves in a fashion that should be lawful, undermining respect for the law and putting them at risk of arrest and incarceration.  And the fact that this will happen to a group that is disproportionately made up of racial minorities, women who just left an abusive ex, and so on, should make anyone pause.

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My wife and I have lost our jobs due to the harassment of convicted terrorist Brett Kimberlin, including an attempt to get us killed and to frame me for a crime carrying a sentence of up to ten years.  I know that claim sounds fantastic, but if you read starting here, you will see absolute proof of these claims using documentary and video evidence.  If you would like to help in the fight to hold Mr. Kimberlin accountable, please hit the Blogger’s Defense Team button on the right.  And thank you.

Follow me at Twitter @aaronworthing, mostly for snark and site updates.  And you can purchase my book (or borrow it for free if you have Amazon Prime), Archangel: A Novel of Alternate, Recent History here.  And you can read a little more about my novel, here.

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Disclaimer:

I have accused some people, particularly Brett Kimberlin, of reprehensible conduct.  In some cases, the conduct is even criminal.  In all cases, the only justice I want is through the appropriate legal process—such as the criminal justice system.  I do not want to see vigilante violence against any person or any threat of such violence.  This kind of conduct is not only morally wrong, but it is counter-productive.

In the particular case of Brett Kimberlin, I do not want you to even contact him.  Do not call him.  Do not write him a letter.  Do not write him an email.  Do not text-message him.  Do not engage in any kind of directed communication.  I say this in part because under Maryland law, that can quickly become harassment and I don’t want that to happen to him.

And for that matter, don’t go on his property.  Don’t sneak around and try to photograph him.  Frankly try not to even be within his field of vision.  Your behavior could quickly cross the line into harassment in that way too (not to mention trespass and other concerns).

And do not contact his organizations, either.  And most of all, leave his family alone.

The only exception to all that is that if you are reporting on this, there is of course nothing wrong with contacting him for things like his official response to any stories you might report.  And even then if he tells you to stop contacting him, obey that request.  That this is a key element in making out a harassment claim under Maryland law—that a person asks you to stop and you refuse.

And let me say something else.  In my heart of hearts, I don’t believe that any person supporting me has done any of the above.  But if any of you have, stop it, and if you haven’t don’t start.