It looks like the media is trying to give the City of Lancaster some cover for the fact that they are spending a lot of tax dollars to defend keeping laws on the books that have been illegal for the past forty years. The argument presented is that the city’s insurance is covering the legal costs, though taxpayers are still on the hook for the $25,000 deductible. But who pays the insurance premiums? And who will pay when the insurance premium goes up because the underwriter decides that a city passing illegal laws is a greater risk, and therefore needing to pay a higher premium?
The fact that they are running articles like this is indicative that they may be taking heat for wasting taxpayer money on these suits to defend laws that were never legal in the first place. If that’s true, we need to turn the heat up.
This is an example of a city being emboldened to reckless behavior by the fact that they carry Insurance! And so they do this because they can!
Can it be argued tha requiring gun owners to carry insurance might have a similar effect? That gun owners would be less careful, because they have the insurance to cover their negligent acts?
(I don’t know if anyone has studied whether or not we are slightly more reckless when we are required to own car insurance; however, I have heard of studies that link greater seat-belt wearing with higher accident rates. Apparently, the human mind has a certain subconscious risk acceptance, and if we lower the perceived risk, we tend to take riskier actions.)