Lousy dingy mutts
As explained in the news article "The Dogs of War",
a few months ago a new law that completely bans pitbulls went into
effect in Ontario. Those dogs that were already born may live, but they
had to be sterilized and must always wear a muzzle in public. Pitbull
owners oppose this, of course, but it was up to them that it had to go
this far. After all, the main weakness of the free market system is how
externalities are handled. No group of people can keep externalizing
the costs of some fun activity on the shoulders of other people and
assume that they can keep doing this activity until the end of the
world. Whenever some group gets to enjoy the benefits of some activity
but gets to externalize the costs, they never seem to voluntarily
restrict that activity, but eventually have to be forced to stop.
As a legislator, I would have used a more market-oriented approach analogous to the way the risks of automobility are currently handled. Just like owning a pitbull, driving a car causes other people a small but potentially lethal risk, which is covered by a compulsory insurance. Therefore, were I the legislator, I would simply enact a compulsory dog insurance so that this insurance must fully cover all damages that the dog causes to other people. For example, if the dog attacks and kills the kid next door, this insurance would pay something in tune of $10M. Smaller damages and injuries would elicit smaller reasonable payments, of course.
In an insurance-based system anyone could freely own a pitbull or any other type of dog --- assuming that they can get someone to offer the full-coverage insurance for it. Obviously the insurance companies would discriminate between dog breeds so that the owner of a cockerspaniel or a dachshund would pay a lot less each year than a pitbull owner.
Pitbull owners like to claim that their dogs are not really dangerous, but the evil mass media has demonized them and created mass hysteria against them. Very well, in the insurance-based system that I propose here the pitbull owners could put their money where their mouths are. Either convince some existing insurance company to offer inexpensive pitbull insurance schemes (all insurance companies are always interested in making easy profits), or if for some reason, no insurance company agrees to do this, start an insurance co-op among the responsible pitbull owners.
If the claims of the harmlessness of pitbulls are true, the company will make a tidy profit after it covers the small harm accidentally caused by these friendly misunderstood dogs. However, if the claims about how harmless pitbulls really are turned out to be false (perish the thought), the insurance company would either go bankrupt or have to increase the price of this insurance to a realistic level where it corresponds to the real risks of pitbull harm. This way, the power of free market would reveal how dangerous the pitbulls really are.
Of course, the pitbull owners still have the argument that those dogs whose owners raise them responsibly are harmless, but a bunch of criminal slimeballs who like to act tough and terrorize their surroundings raise their dogs to be dangerous and this way give all pitbulls and their owners a bad name. But this problem would be solved by allowing the insurance companies discriminate between owners so that the responsible owners pay less and the slimeballs pay more. And if the insurance co-op of the responsible pitbull owners could not distinguish between responsible owners and slimeballs, they don't get to complain when other people and the law can't make this distinction either, yes?
After pondering the implications of this scheme further, I realized that it could also be used to solve the problems of gun ownership, also currently a very relevant topic in Ontario. The free market is a powerful force for good and should be used instead of just imposing blanket bans. The vast majority of gun owners are good responsible law-abiding people, and only a small minority of criminals causes essentially all problems. I was thinking of some kind of scheme where you can own all the guns you want but have to belong to a "gun club" (which anyone would be allowed to start), and this club would be somehow collectively financially responsible for its members' bad behaviour involving guns, most likely through some kind of gun owner's insurance scheme. This way, the gun owner community would effectively self-police its members by rationally discriminating against the irresponsible gun owners, and a law that has real teeth against uninsured gun ownership would take care of the rest.
As a legislator, I would have used a more market-oriented approach analogous to the way the risks of automobility are currently handled. Just like owning a pitbull, driving a car causes other people a small but potentially lethal risk, which is covered by a compulsory insurance. Therefore, were I the legislator, I would simply enact a compulsory dog insurance so that this insurance must fully cover all damages that the dog causes to other people. For example, if the dog attacks and kills the kid next door, this insurance would pay something in tune of $10M. Smaller damages and injuries would elicit smaller reasonable payments, of course.
In an insurance-based system anyone could freely own a pitbull or any other type of dog --- assuming that they can get someone to offer the full-coverage insurance for it. Obviously the insurance companies would discriminate between dog breeds so that the owner of a cockerspaniel or a dachshund would pay a lot less each year than a pitbull owner.
Pitbull owners like to claim that their dogs are not really dangerous, but the evil mass media has demonized them and created mass hysteria against them. Very well, in the insurance-based system that I propose here the pitbull owners could put their money where their mouths are. Either convince some existing insurance company to offer inexpensive pitbull insurance schemes (all insurance companies are always interested in making easy profits), or if for some reason, no insurance company agrees to do this, start an insurance co-op among the responsible pitbull owners.
If the claims of the harmlessness of pitbulls are true, the company will make a tidy profit after it covers the small harm accidentally caused by these friendly misunderstood dogs. However, if the claims about how harmless pitbulls really are turned out to be false (perish the thought), the insurance company would either go bankrupt or have to increase the price of this insurance to a realistic level where it corresponds to the real risks of pitbull harm. This way, the power of free market would reveal how dangerous the pitbulls really are.
Of course, the pitbull owners still have the argument that those dogs whose owners raise them responsibly are harmless, but a bunch of criminal slimeballs who like to act tough and terrorize their surroundings raise their dogs to be dangerous and this way give all pitbulls and their owners a bad name. But this problem would be solved by allowing the insurance companies discriminate between owners so that the responsible owners pay less and the slimeballs pay more. And if the insurance co-op of the responsible pitbull owners could not distinguish between responsible owners and slimeballs, they don't get to complain when other people and the law can't make this distinction either, yes?
After pondering the implications of this scheme further, I realized that it could also be used to solve the problems of gun ownership, also currently a very relevant topic in Ontario. The free market is a powerful force for good and should be used instead of just imposing blanket bans. The vast majority of gun owners are good responsible law-abiding people, and only a small minority of criminals causes essentially all problems. I was thinking of some kind of scheme where you can own all the guns you want but have to belong to a "gun club" (which anyone would be allowed to start), and this club would be somehow collectively financially responsible for its members' bad behaviour involving guns, most likely through some kind of gun owner's insurance scheme. This way, the gun owner community would effectively self-police its members by rationally discriminating against the irresponsible gun owners, and a law that has real teeth against uninsured gun ownership would take care of the rest.
Your proposal is interesting. However for firearms the insurance would be politically untenable because one obvious effect would be to charge Blacks much higher insurance rates. Black men in both the US and Canada commit violent crime with firearms at a rate many multiples of Whites. Asians - well at least the Chinese and Japanese (not the Hmong) - commit violent crime in America and Canada at a fraction of the rates of Whites - so they'd probably pay the least.
In our PC society we're not supposed to mention how powerful a predictor race is of many types of behavior. I was amused to note that the coverage of the shootout in Toronto I've seen tried to blame the US rather than note that Black gangs in Canada behave pretty much like Black gangs anywhere else in the world.
It's common knowledge among criminologists that Canada has a lower murder rate than the US because it has fewer Black men as % of the population. But how often do you see commentators mention this?
Posted by Pistolero | 12:31 AM
I was also going to say that the issue of race is very relevant to the pit bull topic - the people arguing that pt bulls are not more dangerous than otehr breeds are essentially arguing that race does not exist; but for dogs rather than humans.
Posted by Glaivester | 9:27 AM