Apparently the NRA is Now Selling “Murder Insurance”

According to a gun control group I have never heard of until this media campaign, the companies underwriting the new NRA Carry Guard “insurance” plan,  Chubb and Lockton, are actually selling “murder insurance.” And they should stop doing so. (Not sure why Guns Down America is not all over Lockton Affinity for also administering Second Call Defense plan, or Lloyds of London for underwriting it.)

Without going into details — which others like Kevin Creighton at Misfires and Light Strikes and Marty Hayes of the Armed Citizens’ Legal Defense Network have done already — I suspect that if you are involved in a “bad shoot” and/or are adjudicated guilty of murder that many legal defense plans won’t pay out. (Unlike the case of George Zimmerman who needed a legal defense plan and who, despite the Guns Down claim in the screen cap below, was found not guilty of the charge of second-degree murder, as well as a lesser included charge of manslaughter.)

And even if you have a self-defense legal plan, if you are convicted of murder, you are going up the river.

Furthermore, my expectation is that people who are thoughtful and concerned enough to get self-defense insurance are also the least likely people to just “shoot someone and claim ‘self-defense,'” as the Guns Down site puts it (see screen cap below).

I carry auto insurance not just because I am required to by law, but because I want to minimize the downside risk of getting in an accident, both accidents I may cause and ones that are visited upon me by others. Having that insurance doesn’t make me drive more recklessly. It doesn’t make me go out “looking for trouble” on the road. To the contrary, it reflects my risk-aversion.

Of course, the question of whether insurance allows people in general to engage in more risky behavior than they otherwise is an interesting empirical question that I imagine social scientists have addressed. I just need to find that literature.