New York has banned an NRA-branded firearm insurance program. The program is popular with NRA members and covers the legal fees stemming from a shooting. The ban is an abrupt change and calls into question the very concept of gun insurance.

In 2013 several states considered mandating firearm insurance as a way to shift the cost of gun violence onto gun owners. This never took.

But now New York is going in the opposite direction. It found a technicality in its insurance law that forbids coverage of criminal acts. The entire reason for firearm insurance is that legal self-defense shootings can still end up in criminal court.

Bob Hartwig, an insurance expert at the University of South Carolina, says, “If you happen to be speeding and you caused injury to another individual, your auto insurance will defend you even if you were speeding.”

Hartwig says without this insurance, gun owners acting in self-defense could end up paying thousands of dollars in legal fees.