During the recent WLOS Town Hall discussion on gun control, Asheville City Councilman Cecil Bothwell suggested a way to potentially reduce violence would be to mandate all gun owners (the legal ones, at least) carry  insurance for each weapon they own.

Cecil Bothwell

The idea drew scoffs from the largely pro-gun rights crowd at the WNC Ag center that night.  But the idea is getting kicked around some of the more progressive circles.

For example, NPR's Morning Edition looked at the issue and the comments from listeners were pretty revealing.

Justin Wolfers, professor of economics and public policy at the University of Michigan wrote:

The economic answer is simple: Make potential gun owners take account of these potential social costs. One way to do this would be to charge an annual license fee for each gun you keep. Research by economists Phil Cook and Jens Ludwig suggests that the typical social cost of one more gun-owning household is somewhere between $100 and $1,800 per year. While that's a wide range, if we set a gun ownership license fee this high, it would force gun owners to face the true social costs of their choices, which would lead many fewer to buy guns.

Another economist said a similar thing, that increasing taxes or fees on firearm ownership would deter some from owning guns.

However, this would also lead to more guns being bought and sold illegally, in order to avoid the extra government cost. These sales would, obviously, not include background checks.

Some of the comments from the NPR folks:

• "This would in fact save lives because its not guns that kill people its irresponsible people who kill people. If you give them an incentive to not be irresponsible then it reduces the overall risk to the society.You can bet that if gun-owners were made more accountable for actions that were performed with their guns that these owners would do a better job keeping them out of the public spaces where they can do harm."

• "Suicides - there's something to think about. I buy a gun with mandatory liability insurance, I shoot myself dead, and now my family gets a settlement from the insurance company because it is the gun's fault that I am dead. So under this new rule dreamed up to profit lawyers and insurance companies (the 2 very best parts of American society), you're a fool if you kill yoursef with anything other than a gun. Or do I need liability insurance for rope, medication, & rooftops also?"

What do you think?  Would an insurance mandate for guns (much like health care) help reduce gun violence?