Chicago’s new tax on gun purchases — ostensibly meant to provide a revenue stream to help the locality pay for the associative enforcement and health care costs of gun violence — went into effect on Monday, and surprise: A handful of House Democrats are wondering why we shouldn’t do something kind of similar at the national level. Womp.

Last month, New York Democrat Rep. Carolyn Maloney introduced the “Firearm Risk Protection Act” that would impose a $10,000 penalty on any gun owner who fails to purchase mandatory liability insurance.

“For too long, gun victims and society at large have borne the brunt of the costs of gun violence,” Maloney said in a written statement. “My bill would change that by shifting some of that cost back onto those who own the weapons.” … Six states — California, Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York and Pennsylvania — have all introduced gun liability insurance legislation over the past few months. None has produced any results. … Still, Maloney maintains she won’t back down from the fight. “We have a long history of requiring insurance for high-risk products — and no one disputes that guns are dangerous,” she said in her written statement. “While many individual states are debating this issue right now, it makes more sense for Congress to establish a national requirement to allow the insurance markets to begin to price the risks involved consistently nationwide.”

The bill would require gun buyers to provide proof of insurance from a company approved by a state insurance regulatory authority for “losses resulting from use of the firearm while it is owned by the purchaser.” In a nutshell, you need to take out a preemptive policy for any violence you might inflict with your firearm — which doesn’t really make sense, because the people inflicting non-defensive gun violence are criminals anyway. This is just another poorly disguised legislative attempt to deter gun ownership, and man, talk about regressive! Looks like self-defense is only for people who can afford to take out an extra insurance policy.

No way the bill has a chance making it out of the House, obviously, but the number of hoops liberal legislators are trying to force law-abiding gun owners to jump through, on behalf of measures that wouldn’t actually do anything to address gun violence itself, is pretty jarring. I don’t think we’ve posted it yet, and Bill Whittle’s virtual State of the Union feels pretty darn prescient right now: