Gun Insurance: A few Free Thoughts

A few ruminations on the problem of a society generously supplied with homicidal people with guns, and what to do about it.In addition to the various measures currently under consideration (bans on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, closing background check loopholes, etc), we could require that, without exception of any kind, each gun in America must be insured in the name of its owner. A few specifics:
1. Insurers may sell any policy they like(subject to each state’s insurance regulations), but the minimum standard policy must include the following:
2. A person injured accidentally by the insured gun, whether by the insured or another, would be compensated according to a grizzly schedule of benefits such as is common with life and accident policies: certain amounts for the loss of various body parts, certain amounts for various levels of disability, certain amounts for various levels of disfigurement, and so forth. In addition, ordinary and necessary medical expenses would be covered. Other health insurance would be then secondary.
3. The beneficiary of a person who died of his or her injuries would receive a specified standard death benefit.
4. All of the benefit amounts would be multiplied dramatically (perhaps ten times) if the injury or death was the result of an intentional act.
5. Except for medical expenses, there would be no recovery if the person injured or killed was related, by birth or marriage, to the insured. (The degree of relatedness would have to be established.) This would prevent an insured from killing a spouse and then himself, for example, in order to confer financial benefit on his children. (Of course, he could obtain life insurance and then wait beyond the suicide exclusion period to act, but that is a different issue.)
6. Except for medical expenses, there would be no recovery if the injury or death was the result of the gun owner’s (or another’s) legally correct actions in defense of himself or others, or of his home. If these or similar measures were in place, insurance companies would be doing society’s work for us by rating those who
sought insurance, just as auto insurers presently do drivers. A driver with a bad enough record cannot obtain insurance, perhaps at any price, and so can drive only at the continuous risk of serious criminal consequences.Over time,more and more uninsured guns (including those uninsured because their owners are uninsurable) would be discovered and confiscated,while responsible gun owners would enjoy very modest rates.It might even be possible to provide by law that a gun owner who met certain criteria (no violent crime, no adjudicated mental problems, above a certain age, no restraining orders, sufficiently secure gun storage, passed a safety course, etc.) would be entitled to get his or her base policy for a certain specified(modest) annual premium. If the gun were kept at all times at a licensed gun club or shoot-
ing range, the premium would be even lower. On the other hand, it would be announced in advance that, after some specific period of time, a factor in rating an insured would be whether he or she had ever been discovered to have an uninsured gun. Insurance companies would presumably require guns kept at home to be secured in specified ways, and guns to be kept at the ready (for example, in businesses) would command a higher premium. They would probably also increase premiums for owners who purchased more than a moderate amount of ammunition per year, perhaps excluding that purchased and used at a licensed gun club or firing range.
Such a measure may turn out to have the full-throated support of the insurance industry (lots of new customers!).In all likelihood, some companies would decide simply to incorporate it as part of the liability provisions in their homeowners’ policies.
The mere existence of this sort of program could be expected to have a favorable impact on health care costs in America, since some proportion of those injured with guns today, many fatally, have neither money nor health insurance, and therefore impose a cost on the society at large which could be partially offset by this insurance. There is already lots of precedent for this sort of requirement in modern American society. We have long required insurance for our cars,motorcycles and aircraft, and an increasing number of states now require it for motorboats.
Furthermore, since the premiums for very responsible gun owners should be quite modest, the gun lobby might come to see it as an “it could be worse” outcome. In fact, the gun industry might view it as a revenue opportunity and try to get licensed to sell insurance themselves. And on a different note, we need (in addition to a noexceptions comprehensive background requirement, of course) an obligation on the part of every gun owner (leaving aside the issues of insurance and registration)to report to the local police in writing, within 4 hours of its discovery, the loss or theft of
any gun.
Would these measures eliminate the shootings that have so many people wondering whether they live in an acceptably civilized country, capable of governing itself in ways that provide for a secure and orderly society? No. Would they reduce the problem? Absolutely. Is there any excuse for not enacting them? None.

Joque Soskis  is a humanist, retired attorney, retired professor of criminal justice and a former law enforcement officer. This article was published first in the Feb 2013 newsletter of http://firstcoastfreethoughtsociety.org  FB:https://www.facebook.com/joque.soskis?ref=ts&fref=ts

The Novel Approach to Love

 
Romance in novels has been a driving force in stories since the dawn of time, from the legendary Egyptian myth of Seth being brought back to life by his love Isis to Bella and Edward in Twilight. Love is something every human wants, so choosing to write love into your story is usually a very sound plan. Certainly most stories out there can and do put romantic love in the center of them but for the writer looking for a more unique angle perhaps a different sort of love may work better.
 
If you’re stuck for ideas of different sorts of love than look to the movie, “Love Actually’, as it was the perfect showcase for all the sorts of love out there. There were the romantic loves of course, like the innocent romance between the movie stand-ins John and Judy and the Prime Minister David with his secret love for his catering assistant, Natalie, to name a few, but there are other stories of love that I… well…loved. 

The love between the rock singer, Billy Mack and his manager, Joe is a great example of love. A friendship is a type of love and not because its romantic but because its based on true shared values and goals in many cases. They build a relationship between them without even knowing it. When Billy gets everything he thinks he wants back into his life, he realizes it means nothing without the man who helped him do it. Is that not the definition of a true life-long love? 

I think the best story in that movie was between the new widower, Daniel and his stepson, Sam. After suffering a devastating lose, Daniel and Sam are facing a future together that could go either way. They are not blood related and the only bound between them is gone so now what? Daniel is scared Sam is withdrawing into his own private world and doesn’t know how to reach him until he finds out Sam has a crush on a girl at school. It’s the chance to help his stepson so Daniel helps him find his way to her side. They find love for each other as a true father and son. They create a new bound based that will last forever. 

I’ve explored different sorts of love in my novels and used them to build solid stories around them. In Rachel Wicks and the newly released sequel, Rachel Blackburn, I have my main character take on a marriage simply for the love she has for her friends. It takes nearly everything from her, especially when her husband turns out to be an abusive brute. She dares to fall in love with a man out of her reach only to lose it. In the second book, she dares to try her hand at romantic love again with the man she loved once before but there is another man in her way. She can’t just chuck it all in and forget about finding love and peace in her love because she has a daughter that she must continue to try to go on for her. There are many sorts of love in Rachel’s story and it drives it forward. In my third novel, The Starlings of Chatham Street, due out on March 15th, 2013, I leave romantic love far in the background and plunge deeper into the love between friends. Four women must work and bound together to escape the hell of life inside the workhouse. If there were no love to work with the story would never find a proper footing, so don’t simply put it aside, it can always work for your story.

Take these different kinds of relationships and use them to build the right sort of relationship your novel needs. A battle story may not have room for a romance but there is always room for bounds between friends. A story about siblings hating each other can use a mutual conflict to help them find peace and love between them. It’s a big world out there and there are countless ways to bring people together. Let your imagination soar!

Doreen McNicol

http://www.rachelwicks.com
http://www.doreenmcnicol.com 

Paying to Breathe in China

 
From my earliest memories in China and Taiwan over 20 years ago, I remember the highly visible air pollution swirling around me.  In Nanjing, huge piles of coal and black smoke spewing out of tall towers were easy to see.  In Taiwan, black ash rained down on my balcony and the smell of the burning from the dump in back of the school where I taught sometimes was bad enough to cancel classes.  After a visit to a friend in Beijing, I clocked a full ten minutes of the plane lifting up until we made it into clear, blue skies.  People sometimes wore masks, but most didn't.  It was so scary in Taiwan that I made a promise to my body to leave after my one-year teaching contract.


As the skies darkened, the trajectory of modernization that China was on in the 1990s became crystal clear -- everyone wanted his or her own car to drive.  Gridlock was assured as each of my friends who never thought they'd own a car actually became a car owner.


Third-world countries have the advantage of seeing the mistakes of developed countries, but like willful teenagers who feel invulnerable, they move full steam ahead on the same collision courses with pollution and environmental degradation.   It  was no surprise to me that breathing has become a newsworthy topic in Beijing of late.  Headliners made up words like "airpocalypse" and "airmageddon" to describe the severe extent of the problem this January and February.  Generally, cancer in younger people has risen in China.  How much is induced by air pollution?

Although there are few good ideas on how to deal with the terrible air, there are scientific measurements to tell them just how unhealthy breathing is in Beijing.  Particulate matter can and is quantified.  If anything above 300 is "hazardous," and the index stops at 500, what do the readings of over 1,000 micrograms say about what's entering the tender lungs of Beijing residents?  And those outside Beijing can't breathe so easily either.


Supply and demand makes entrepreneurship go round -- good fresh air is no longer plentiful or free.  Enter the businessmen who see profit in selling sophisticated face masks for the equivalent of $50.  Zhao Danqing's factory has sold over 1 million so far.   A joint venture of a Shenzhen company and a California company teamed up to build a huge dome above parts of the Beijing International School.  Under the dome, the students play tennis, soccer, badminton, and basketball protected from the lethal air outside the dome.  Lowering the particulate measurement from 650 micrograms outside the dome to 25 inside the dome makes other schools, government sports facilities, and even wealthy families want domes too.  In fact, you can buy a 54,000 square foot dome for a reasonable $1 million.  With a wealthier general population, home air filters are selling well.  $1600 will buy a machine capable of filtering a bedroom.


A creative entrepreneur who became rich from re-cycling, Chen Guangbiao, is selling cans of "fresh air" gathered from far outside Beijing for 80 cents apiece with the proceeds going to charities.   He even handed out cans for free on a street in Beijing to make his point that China needs to think of its children and grandchildren instead of GDP growth.
But, as they gasp to breathe in the poisonous air, is anyone listening?    


Comments?? E-mail Suellen at ZimaTravels.com

STYLE

This blog was stimulated by a reader review on one of my books. A three star review, which is like damning with faint praise. Most of the reviews on this book are five star, with a few fours thrown in. People like it.

Reader reviews are an interesting part of being a writer. You can learn a lot from them. You also have to remember that it's impossible to make everyone happy, no matter what you do. This particular reader dinged me because she didn't like and/or understand my style of writing.

Style is a subjective thing. You like Picasso or you don't You like ZZ Top or you don't (I like both). The reader seemed to think I didn't understand how to use commas (I do) and said most of my sentences were 5 or 6 words long (they aren't) and that Robert Ludlum could write twice as many pages to tell the same story (he could). Ludlum is also dead.

My style is consciously direct, clipped, fast moving. I could write sentences that went on and on if I wanted to, with plenty of commas. My English background is unusual. I know what I'm doing, even though I do make mistakes. I break rules on purpose. I don't follow the Chicago Manual of Style. My style would make most editors completely crazy, but it is correct.

Think of  writers who break the rules: Hemingway, Thomas Wolfe, Steinbeck, Lee Child. Raymond Chandler comes to mind. William Shakespeare. In fact, pretty much every good writer you ever heard of.

This reader was disturbed because the sentences were too short for her liking. She probably wouldn't like Lee Child either. He sometimes writes sentences of two or three words. What do you think I should take away from a review like this? Should I be worried that my sentences are too short? Should I feel upset and inadequate, a failure when held up against Robert Ludlum?

Right, mate, no way.

Some reviewers love to make unflattering comparisons to other authors. I have reviews that compare me favorably to James Rollins. I have a review that says Rollins is a much better writer. I don't copy Rollins or anyone else. My style is mine and not anyone else's. I don't think I'm as good or better or worse than James Rollins and other successful writers. I try and learn from them. I am what I am, as Popeye said.

I had one reviewer give me 2 stars without reading the book. That's a lousy review. She said she read the description, though, and didn't like it. I mean, SHE DIDN'T READ THE BOOK! All of which means you need to take reviews with several grains of salt. Believe in yourself: that's what counts.

Alex Lukeman

Author of WHITE JADE, THE LANCE, THE SEVENTH PILLAR, BLACK HARVEST. THE TESLA SECRET

Banking Day

It's banking day again
Mom's been planning this for a week
Time to get her big stash -  enough to last a month
She doesn't use credit cards
No way she's going to give some thief a chance to snatch her identity
Count on it!  Mom sticks to cash

In one hand, she has her Walgreens important papers wallet,
A little brown paper lunch bag,
And her detailed list of the cash she wants from the bank
            all small bills
            and an exact count of each
In her other hand is her trusty quad cane at the ready

When we arrive at the bank, I lag behind and wait in the back
Mom wants to make sure that I don't hover over her at the window
           and tell her what to do
She marches down the rich burgundy carpet precisely angling her quad cane
          guarded by the arched cathedral ceiling
          security police, and the nosey eyeballs of video cameras

She is impatient as she waits in line for the two customers ahead of her
          to finish their business
When, at last, she maneuvers her way to Grace's banking window
          two other available clerks are left waiting

Grace and Mom have known each other for nearly twenty-three years
Grace was Dad's favorite banking clerk
"She's all business,"  Dad would say

Mom launches into her well worn instructions     
Pointing precisely and reading aloud from her list
         the denominations and the number of  the bills she wants
Then she reminds Grace that they must be new bills
Grace smiles and gathers her familiar resources
A couple of customers now in line breathe deeply
        shuffle and shift to the other foot

Grace counts the stiff new bills twice into neat little piles
Mom methodically counts them again being careful to thumb each one thoroughly
        to make sure none are stuck together
Finally, she puts everything into her brown paper bag
All the while chatting about the robberies, scams on TV
       and the days when she and Dad would come to the bank together

At last, Mom turns, peers across the lobby's expanse
        and begins to pick her way in my direction
The customers in line exhale, change to the other foot and relax
She concentrates steadfastly on her trajectory
        brown paper bag and Walgreens wallet in hand
        confident that no one outside the bank will guess what's in them
When she finally joins me at the door
She stops, turns, glances back and flatly declares

       "They need more clerks in this bank
        I had to wait too long in that line
        Now, that's just plain poor management!”

c  9/07
Sandy Hartman

Challenges for a Writer

Last year ended on a really unhappy note, with the massacre at Sandy Hook. Stephen L. Wilson set up Indies In Action and together IIA put together a collection of poems and stories for a charity designed to try and help the families. Our book "Angels Cried" was picked up to be promoted on A&E TV and has been heavily blogged to the greater good, it was in the top 100 selling books over Christmas on Amazon.

With the New Year came a new meaning to my writing. Instead of struggling with a useless editor holding me back, I was approached via indiePENdents.org editor Julia Petrakis to help with book 2 of my Chronicles series, as book 1 was an award winner. Julia is very impressed with my progress as a writer in the short time we have been working as a team, and with the help of Autocrit I am catching up with my backlog of work. We are working very well and with Julia's help book 2 should be out in a week or two. Another big news item is that book 1 is now with the publishers in Maryland. In April I hope to send a story to a publisher here in the UK for their on line magazine at Black Library, this is the opening book in Mordhiem series. 

 Alan Place

http://hereiamattheedge.blogspot.co.uk/

http://alsdomain.weebly.com/index.html

http://yezallstrongheart.weebly.com/2/category/al%20place/1.html

http://indiependents.org/indie-seal-books.html

http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=152423744&trk=tab_pro

https://www.facebook.com/awplace

http://www.amazon.com/Al-Place/e/B0076M5BNG/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Al-Place/e/B0076M5BNG/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0

Throwaway Words

What’s the difference between good writing and text that puts audiences to sleep, or drives them to Angry Birds?

One major factor is the presence, or absence of unnecessary text. A lot of bad writing can be salvaged if you just get rid of the unnecessary words — what I call throwaway words.

• In light of this
• At this point
• The following information ...
• The information you requested is below
• Note that
• It is to be noted that

Those phrases can all be cut from any text. Try it — what’s left stands on its own and has more impact.

Those are just a few of the most common throwaway phrases. Everyone uses them. One difference between a good writer (or editor) and a poor one is that the good writer/editor recognizes these and throws them away before letting anyone else read the text.

There are other burdensome phrases that a good writer should replace with a single, punchier word:

• In recent months — just write “recently.” Even better, specify when the observed phenomenon began: “Since September, ...”
• The month of — February can be nothing but a month.
• In a nutshell
• At the end of the day — does this mean that the situation is different in the morning?
• At a later date or time — write “later”
• In the near future — write “soon”
• With a view to — write about the goals, instead.

Often, bad writing is a result of trying to make something seem more important or prestigious than it is. Some of my favourite bamboozlers are:

-          Undertaking to do the following

-          On the ground
This phrase is supposed to mean “engaged in the situation about which we are talking,” but it’s been so overused, almost all meaning has been worn away.
It also can lead you into inadvertent humour, where you are the punch line. I remember working on a government news release several years ago, in a department staffed by people who loved to say “on the ground.” Someone wrote about sending money for airplane fuel so that organizations could deliver emergency food supplies. “This will ensure airplanes on the ground can reach the most critical areas,” read the release, or something like that.
I pointed out to the writer on that file: “Airplanes on the ground don’t need fuel. Airplanes in the air do.”
Yes, we can have a ridiculous argument about the correct semantics of that, but it still shows that your use of the most current catch-phrase can at least distract the audience from the important message, if not leave you open to ridicule.

-          As such – a misused linking phrase

“A stable IT system depends on the ability of its users to make informed decisions, particularly when adding functionality. As such, we are proposing the following changes."

In that sentence, "as such" doesn’t make sense. "Therefore" is the right word.

Don't use phrases just because you once heard a smart person use it. You're smart; use your own words.

Avoid clichés like the plague

Using someone else’s words brings me to clichés. Clichés are words or phrases that have been so overused, they’re jokes. They make your writing, and therefore your thinking, seem derivative, unoriginal and therefore, unimportant — something no one has to read.

Wouldn’t you prefer having your audience believe they can’t afford to miss what you’ve written?

While most writers today know better than to use phrases like beating a dead horse, black as the Ace of Spades or nipped in the bud (or, worst of all, avoid that like the plague), yesterday’s clever new phrase has a way of turning into today’s cliché.

Here’s a challenge, oh writers — come up with some new catch-phrases to replace these:

-          Been there, done that

-          It’s now or never

-          That’s so random

-          Think outside the box

-          Push the envelope

-          snowpocalypse

-          fiscal cliff

-          from day one

Send your original ideas to Writers Get Together, and maybe we can provide a resource for managers working on their next motivational speech!

Good luck.

Scott Bury 

Scott Bury is an editor, journalist, novelist and blogger based in Ottawa, Canada. His first book, The Bones of the Earth, is available on Amazon, iBooks, Smashwords and other major e-book retailers. More of his writing can be found on his blog, scottswrittenwords.blogspot.com.

His next book, One Shade of Red, will be available in March, 2013.