RESPONSIBILITY

San Jose Set to Become First U.S. City to Make Gun Owners Get Insurance

The mayor says additional fee would go toward covering the $442 million annual cost of gun violence.

Gun owners in San Jose, California, have been taken one step closer toward being made to shoulder more of the costs of rampant gun violence. In a vote Tuesday night, its city council passed new rules that would see the city become the first in the United States to the require most gun owners to pay an annual fee as well as carry liability insurance. The law would ease the estimated $442 million in gun-related costs shouldered by taxpayers each year, according to Democratic Mayor Sam Liccardo. “Certainly the Second Amendment protects every citizen’s right to own a gun. It does not require taxpayers to subsidize that right,” Liccardo said ahead of the vote this week. The ordinance will now need to be approved at its final reading next month, and then it could take effect as early as August, according to CNN. However, pro-gun activists have threatened to take the law through the courts.