Maryland House Democrats introduced a controversial gun safety bill requiring gun owners to forfeit their ability to wear or carry without firearm liability insurance.

Introduced by Del. Terri Hill, D-Howard County, the legislation would prohibit the “wear or carry” of a gun anywhere in the state unless the individual has obtained a liability insurance policy of at least $300,000.

"A person may not wear or carry a firearm unless the person has obtained and it covered by liability insurance issued by an insurer authorized to do business in the State under the Insurance Article to cover claims for property damage, bodily injury, or death arising from an accident resulting from the person’s use or storage of a firearm or up to $300,000 for damages arising from the same incident, in addition to interest and costs,” the proposed Maryland legislation reads.

  • Chocrates@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    Eh, we have a right to travel and states have a right to put limitations on that when it comes to motor-vehicles. The courts have allowed limited oversight on firearms before so this potentially could have legs. I am guessing not in the current Supreme Court though.

    • Narauko@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      The right to travel is an intuited right as a consequence of other explicit rights, but more importantly is a freedom of movement between geographic areas. You can achieve this through walking, riding a bus, riding a horse, hitchhiking, etc, While driving a car is statistically the most frequent way people do this now, it is not the only way. There is no constitutional amendment saying you specifically have a right to drive a car. If there was, drivers licenses would be unconstitutional and mandatory insurance would probably be so as well.

      The more equitable example would be requiring you to buy and maintain a passport to leave your town or neighborhood, putting your actual right to travel behind a pay wall. Poll taxes were deemed unconstitutional for the same reason. You can weaponize these to prevent those you deem undesirable from exercising their rights by making it prohibitively expensive to participate. The constitution deems all the natural rights outlined in the Bill of Rights to be the same as breathing; you were born with the ability, not granted it by the government.