San Jose community members have differing views on a first-in-the-country ordinance passed by the San Jose City Council on Jan. 25 that would require gun owners to carry a $25 liability insurance and pay an annual “harm reduction” fee.
A second city council vote is needed on Tuesday to ratify the ordinance. It will then become effective starting Aug. 8.
Harneet Kaur Ranauta, SJSU public health graduate research assistant and Students Demand Action president, said the ordinance could promote safety.
Students Demand Action is an on-campus group that organizes the local community and policies to end gun violence, according to its webpage.
“[The ordinance] could be an effective first step [to improve public safety],” Kaur Ranauta said in a call. “But then I also know that we still have to do a lot of work on many risk-factors to not make people think that they need to own a gun to feel safe in a society.”
The insurance and fee were created to reduce the risk of gun harm by incentivizing safe behavior and easing taxpayers of the financial burden of gun violence, San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo said in a Jan. 25 Twitter statement.
The annual fee will go to nonprofit organizations that reduce forms of gun violence including suicide and domestic violence. It will also fund gun safety training, mental health counseling and addiction treatment, according to the ordinance.
However, none of the money collected would pay for litigation, lobbying or political advocacy, according to the ordinance.
The insurance and fee proposal exempts people from law enforcement, those with concealed carry permits and low-income individuals. According to the Office of Mayor Liccardo official website, insurers could offer lower premiums to gun owners who take safety classes and install trigger locks.
David Cohen, San Jose District 4 councilmember, said over the phone how difficult it is to create gun violence prevention policy.
“There is so much pushback and anger from advocates for gun ownership that often make it very difficult for jurisdictions to make a meaningful impact,” Cohen said.
He said most people who die or get injured by guns are shot by legally-owned guns in instances of violence, suicide or accidental shootings.
According to the Pacific Institute of Research and Evaluation, gunfire kills or injures more than 200 people in San Jose every year. San Jose residents incur annually around $442 million collectively in gun-related costs, which is equivalent to $432 per resident, according to the evaluation.
This gun-related cost is a comprehensive one, including funds paid by victims and their families, but also by perpetrators, employers, insurers and taxpayers.
The study calculated this annual cost by taking into account the direct costs – healthcare, policy and emergency services, criminal justice-, the cost of lost productivity of victims and perpetrators, and an estimation of the societal cost caused by the lost quality of life and the pain.
Matthew Reddy, a 2020 SJSU forensics alumnus, firearms instructor, and range safety officer at Coyote Valley Sporting Clays said he’s against the ordinance.
“The new requirement is essentially a tax on a constitutional right, and is therefore illegal,” Reddy said in a text.
This ordinance only concerns legal gun owners and is not about new measures to take care of guns purchased illegally, called “ghost guns,” he said. Ghost guns are un-serialized and untraceable firearms that can be bought online as kits and assembled at home.
“The insurance and fee requirement is only applicable to those who legally own firearms, therefore it will do nothing to discourage criminals from obtaining or misusing firearms,” Reddy said.
Cohen said there’s a “fundamental misunderstanding” about the purpose of the ordinance.
“People assume that gun violence is referring to criminal use of guns. What we’re trying to do here is to address that loss of safety that occurs when there is a gun in the house,” Cohen said. “I’m excited about the fact that San Jose is taking a leadership role in this issue.”
Gun rights groups, including the Colorado-based National Association for Gun Rights, filed a suit against San Jose the same day the ordinance was approved to the Northern District Court of California because the group believes it threatens the second amendment, according to the group’s lawsuit.
The National Association for Gun Rights stated in the suit that the ordinance is unconstitutional considering the penalties for nonpayment of the insurance and fees include the seizure of the citizen’s gun.
For its supporters, this ordinance is expected to lead a movement in the country of new policies against gun violence. Meanwhile, its opponents fear that the measure could set a precedent for other cities.
Liccardo first pushed the gun owner insurance ordinance after the July 28, 2019 Gilroy Garlic Festival shooting that left three people dead and 12 injured.
He once again proposed the insurance and pushed for a gun owner fee after a gunman killed nine people and himself at a North San Jose Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority rail yard on May 26, 2021.
"Certainly, the Second Amendment protects every citizen's right to own a gun,” Liccardo said in a Jan. 24 press conference. “It does not require taxpayers to subsidize that right.”
