San Jose votes to be first U.S. city to mandate gun liability insurance
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[January 27, 2022]
By Nathan Frandino and Steve Gorman
SAN JOSE, Calif. (Reuters) -Gun owners in
San Jose, California, would be required to carry insurance coverage for
their weapons and pay an annual "harm reduction" fee under a newly
approved city ordinance believed to be the first of its kind in the
United States.
The measure, backed on an 8-3 vote on Tuesday night by the City Council
for the state's third most populous municipality, brought an immediate
court challenge from national gun rights advocates.
The bill is subject to a final "reading" by the council next month, a
step considered largely perfunctory, before it becomes law. Once passed,
it would take effect in August.
Even before Tuesday's approval, the ordinance was singled out by gun
rights proponents as a new flashpoint in the national debate between
advocates for tougher firearms regulation and those for the U.S.
Constitution's Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.
The measure would require city residents owning guns to obtain special
liability insurance covering losses and damages stemming from negligent
or accidental use of their weapons.
City gun owners would also have to pay a small annual fee earmarked for
evidence-based "harm-reduction" programs aimed at reducing gun violence,
suicide, domestic abuse and other firearm-related risks, the city said
in a statement explaining the bill.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2022/Jan/27/images/ads/current/humanesociety_sda022411.png)
"We are seeing an epidemic of violence and harm from the use of guns in
cities throughout the country, and San Jose is no exception," Mayor Sam
Liccardo told Reuters in an interview on Wednesday. "We are tired of
waiting for Congress to act."
San Jose, in the heart of California's Silicon Valley south of San
Francisco, is the first U.S. municipality to adopt such an ordinance, he
said. Opponents said they feared the measure could set a precedent for
other cities.
The vote to approve the measure was immediately condemned by gun rights
groups as infringing Second Amendment rights.
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![](../images/012722pics/news_g13.jpg)
An "FU" custom upper receiver for an AR-15 style rifle is displayed
for sale at Firearms Unknown, a gun store in Oceanside, California,
U.S., April 12, 2021. REUTERS/Bing Guan
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2022/Jan/27/images/ads/current/Rolfs_lda_LUAL_2017.png) The Colorado-based National
Association of Gun Rights and its legal arm said on Wednesday it had
filed suit in federal court in San Jose seeking to block the
measure's enforcement as an unconstitutional tax on gun ownership.
"To tax a constitutional right is absolutely
preposterous and places an undue burden on law-abiding gun owners,"
association President Dudley Brown said in a statement.
The California Rifle & Pistol Association said on Twitter that it
was preparing a legal challenge, calling the ordinance an
unconstitutional measure that criminals would ignore.
The bill's supporters cited a 2021 study finding that San Jose
taxpayers subsidize private gun ownership by $151 annually per
gun-owning household - or $40 million a year total - through costs
of police and emergency response to firearm-related violence.
"The Second Amendment absolutely protects the rights of Americans to
own and possess guns, but it doesn't require that taxpayers
subsidize that right," Liccardo said.
According to the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, some
36,000 Americans or more die by firearms every year, or about 100 a
day.
The United States leads high-income countries in gun violence,
accounting for 9% of all firearm homicides globally even with 4% of
the world's population, while also possessing more civilian-owned
guns - 393 million - than any comparable nation, the Giffords Law
Center said.
(Reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Additional reporting by
Keith Coffman in Denver, Brendan O'Brien in Chicago and Akriti
Sharma in Bengaluru; editing by Timothy Heritage, Jonathan Oatis and
Richard Chang)
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