So, let me get this right. An NRA member with a one year free membership for purchasing gun liability insurance; shoots someone. The person dies of the bullet wounds. The shooter states it is in self-defense and thought the person was aiming a gun when it was just a cell phone. Basically, oops. The NRA member could be charged with manslaughter since the two people didn't know each other and there is no apparent motive or quite possibly murder.
Enter the court is NRA membership liability insurance, believes the member and covers the bond and all legal fees up to date of release on bail. The NRA has just decided the member is above the law and wrongfully charged. Who decides whether the law applies, prosecutors or the NRA?
Let's just say, the Las Vegas shooter survived and his defense is mental health. He has been a lifelong member of the NRA and has NRA liability insurance. Are mental health issues covered and who decides whether the NRA member walks on bail, the judge whom usually puts it out of reach in a case of death of 58 people or the NRA that guarantees bail for any liability?
It is immoral to issue liability insurance that gives confidence of bail and/or representation and/or any other liability to the person or a family effected by THE gun. It completely lifts the responsibility of the gun owner to act responsibly with a gun. This is about as ludicrous as it gets. And, yes, the NRA will provide for legal representation in order to mitigate their losses.
By Andrew G. Simpson
A man (click here) lays on top of a woman as others flee the Route 91 Harvest country music festival grounds after a active shooter was reported the night of October 1, 2017 in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Police say at least 58 people were killed, plus the gunman, and nearly 500 hospitalized, making it the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history.
...The main NRA program of concern (click here) in New York, Carry Guard, is underwritten by Illinois Union Insurance Co., an excess and surplus lines carrier subsidiary of Chubb Ltd. Lockton administered it through its Lockton Affinity subsidiary, which is a licensed excess line broker in New York.
The program provides NRA members with personal liability insurance protection in the event they are charged with a crime after defending themselves with a firearm. The program also includes a safety training program. Those who purchase the program also receive a free one-year NRA membership. The insurance promises to mitigate the financial and legal consequences that might arise from armed encounters, even if the member did everything right.
Carry Guard came in for scrutiny following the mass shooting at Parkland high school in Florida on February 14. Gun safety advocates called for the NRA to stop offering the program and for Chubb and Lockton to withdraw from it. One gun control group has referred to the program as “murder insurance.”
New York Department of Financial Services (DFS) officials determined that some of the coverages themselves and limits are not permissible under the state’s law; that the NRA is not a licensed broker in the state yet Lockton paid the group royalties and profit-sharing; that the tying of the insurance to a free membership valued at more than $25 is illegal; and that Lockton Affinity neglected to obtain the necessary declinations from standard markets on policies placed in the excess and surplus lines market....
