On Wednesday afternoon, CNN continued its recent anti-gun activism as host Ana Cabrera gave the mayor of San Jose, Sam Liccardo, a forum to advocate essentially taxing legal gun owners while blaming them for the costs of gun violence.
The Democratic mayor treated gun ownership as if there were no benefits to society -- only costs -- and repeatedly asserted that they should be "footing the bill" for gun violence. Cabrera set up the segment:
Should all gun owners have to pay for the damages of gun violence? It has been two weeks since a gunman killed nine co-workers in San Jose. Since that massacre, the U.S. has suffered at least 29 mass shootings that have killed 25 people -- this is according to a tally by the gun violence archive. Now, that is more than two mass shootings per day. No other peer nation on Earth experiences anything remotely approaching that.
She then elaborated:
Now the mayor of San Jose, California, is trying to make gun owners foot part of the bill for that staggering toll with gun insurance and fees. The proposal would require San Jose gun owners to obtain liability insurance for their weapons and pay a fee to cover the public cost of gun violence. Other measures introduced include a requirement to videotape gun and ammo sales, and improved information sharing on high-risk individuals.
As he explained how the added costs for gun owners would work, Liccardo claimed that taxpayers are subsidizing Second Amendment rights as he rationalized the proposal:
The victims of unintentional shootings will at least have some way to pay for the hospital bills and other serious kinds of costs that they have to incur, and equally important, our taxpayers won't be footing the bill for gun violence as they do today. We know that the Second Amendment does require everybody be able to own a gun, but it does not require that taxpayers subsidize that ownership.
Without ever pointing out the evidence that gun ownership benefits society by making it possible for civilians to defend themselves when police are not around, Cabrera only asked a few follow-ups that mildly questioned whether the idea was justified. Cabrera asked: "But why do gun owners -- the majority of whom are responsible gun owners -- deserve to have this extra financial burden? Why is it fair?"
Even though it is much easier for criminals to hide illegal guns and refuse to comply while law-abiding gun owners might be put off by added costs, Liccardo likened gun insurance to car insurance requirements. He further hoped that gun owners would be pressured to use trigger locks or locked storage containers, defeating the purpose of having guns ready to use for self-defense:
Cabrera suggested that such rules might be worth it if it just saves one life in one of her follow-ups: "Every life saved is worth it, right, if it saves one life? But I know your city has had at least eight shootings in the last two weeks -- you said -- so basically since the mass shooting that claimed lives at the rail yard there, how would this law have prevented those?"
Over the weekend, as CNN reacted to a court ruling that struck down California's assault weapon ban, the network was heavily slanted to the left as there were six gun control activists who appeared as guests throughout the day, including Parkland father Fred Guttenberg; the Brady Campaign's Kris Brown; Richard Martinez, whose son was killed in the Isla Vista shooting; Pulse night club survivor Brandon Wolf; Stockton school shooting survivor Judy Weldon; and Newtown Action Alliance Foundation's Tina Meins.
Guttenberg was allowed a forum to rant against the judge who ruled in the case. No conservative guests were included in any of the discussions, as is par for the course these days on the liberal propaganda network CNN has become.
This episode of CNN Newsroom was sponsored in part by Cetaphil. Their contact information is linked.
CNN Newsroom with Ana Cabrera
Jun 9, 2021
1:24 p.m. Eastern
ANA CABRERA: Should all gun owners have to pay for the damages of gun violence? It has been two weeks since a gunman killed nine co-workers in San Jose. Since that massacre, the U.S. has suffered at least 29 mass shootings that have killed 25 people -- this is according to a tally by the gun violence archive. Now, that is more than two mass shootings per day. No other peer nation on Earth experiences anything remotely approaching that.
Now the mayor of San Jose, California, is trying to make gun owners foot part of the bill for that staggering toll with gun insurance and fees. The proposal would require San Jose gun owners to obtain liability insurance for their weapons and pay a fee to cover the public cost of gun violence. Other measures introduced include a requirement to videotape gun and ammo sales, and improved information sharing on high-risk individuals.
And San Jose mayor Sam Liccardo joins us now. Mayor, it's great to have you with us. Explain how this works.
MAYOR SAM LICCARDO (D-SAN JOSE): Thank you, Ana. The insurance and fee requirements would really be very straightforward. We would require that every gun owner pay a fee. When they do so, they'll get a form from the city, and then they'll be able to fill out that form indicating the gun insurance policy. Almost all homeowners and renters policies will cover gun ownership -- that way the victims of unintentional shootings will at least have some way to pay for the hospital bills and other serious kinds of costs that they have to incur, and equally important, our taxpayers won't be footing the bill for gun violence as they do today. We know that the second amendment does require everybody be able to own a gun, but it does not require that taxpayers subsidize that ownership.
CABRERA: But would the money then go to insurance companies?
LICCARDO: No, the fees would go directly to the city and potentially to the county as well. We're talking to them as well about the cost that they pay for in the form of emergency rooms and so forth. So the fees simply pay for the public costs of responding to gun violence in the form of emergency medical response and police and all the other things that cities have to do throughout the country to respond to the scourge of gun violence.
CABRERA: But why do gun owners -- the majority of whom are responsible gun owners -- deserve to have this extra financial burden? Why is it fair?
LICCARDO: Well, first of all, the insurance requirement is something that we're all very used to in automobiles, right? We know that it's important that injured victims be compensated. And we know that insurance can be a mechanism to make us drive more safely, right? We have lower premiums for safe driving -- insurance companies have been very helpful in ensuring that technological advances in braking and air bags and so forth have saved literally hundreds of thousands of lives in this country, and so we think insurance can be a mechanism for ensuring that gun owners get gun safes and trigger locks and all the other things -- gun safety classes -- that can make us safer.
And right now, we have 4.6 million children in this country that live in homes where a gun is loaded and unlocked. So we know that insurance is a way that we can all be safer even in a country with 300 million guns. As for the fees, the reality is the public taxpayers are footing the bill for those who choose to own guns. It's appropriate that if gun owners believe in the importance of this right then they pay for the costs that guns incur on the public.
CABRERA: Every life saved is worth it, right, if it saves one life? But I know your city has had at least eight shootings in the last two weeks -- you said -- so basically since the mass shooting that claimed lives at the rail yard there, how would this law have prevented those?
[Liccardo talks about a provision for co-workers and family members to get restraining orders for troubled people who own guns.]
CABRERA: So how much are we talking here? What would be the fee? And how often would people have to pay for insurance, for example?
[Liccardo estimates the fee would be about $25 a year, and that including guns in home insurance would cost little to nothing.]
