by Marty Hayes, J.D.
Did you see the article about “Murder Insurance” the Wall Street Journal put out last month? In order to write this article, the reporter(s) contacted the self-defense insurance companies and ended up doing a somewhat in-depth look into only two of them, US Law Shield and USCCA. Their reporters also contacted us, despite the fact that the Network is not a self-defense insurance company, but we refused to discuss either our members or our business with them.
The link to the WSJ article is behind a paywall (for WSJ subscribers, see this link), but there is another article which takes much of its content from the WSJ feature in Insurance Business (linked here).
If you read either article, realize that anything they wrote about the Network was gleaned from our website – based on what was reported, likely our most recent Annual Year in Review. Mention of the Network in their article, without making any attempt to explain that our assistance to members isn’t insurance, shows how poorly the WSJ and other media outlets which have excerpted or reprinted the piece understand the issues. We would have preferred not to have been mentioned in their article because it is so incomplete as to confuse honest people who genuinely want to understand their interaction with the criminal justice system after self defense.
I found several comments in the article interesting, and I frankly believe it was reasonably well-written and factual – at least, I have no reason to believe otherwise. A few things about USCCA interested me, namely that the owner of USCCA and his ex own three jets. Last time I heard it was only one. The article also reported that he has majority interest in the insurance company which underwrites the USCCA insurance policies. I wonder if that is legal. I am not sure how I feel about that, but I suspect it makes sense financially.
The article also discussed the Kayla Giles case, intimating that she did indeed purchase a USCCA policy with the intention of killing her ex-husband. The idea that purchasing legal insurance that paid for legal representation if you then committed a crime and called it self defense is not a well thought out strategy, though. After all, if you are found guilty despite getting your legal fees paid for, you will still go to jail, as did Giles.
Pondering that inference in the article started me wondering if our members take extra risks in possible self-defense situations, because they are part of the Network? I certainly hope not. Membership in the Network should do one primary, positive thing for our members above and beyond actually helping after an incident. That is to help them sleep better at night. I hope they chose to be an armed citizen because of the perceived dangers they face, and only purchased membership in the Network just in case a threat presents itself, and not because they would have a free legal defense, so they could take additional risks by engaging in behavior they would not normally do. If you change your lifestyle after becoming a Network member, maybe you should re-assess your choices.
The facts saw Kayla Giles purchasing a USCCA policy, and then 12 days later, killing her ex. Could it not have been just as likely she felt a compelling need to purchase a gun and the USCCA policy because of the threat he posed to her? You could be accused of doing the same thing, that being that you bought a membership in the Network so you could kill someone and get away with it. The only way I can see to defeat that accusation in court is if you testify that your purchase of the membership did not change your lifestyle habits one bit, except to make you more cautious about potentially dangerous situations due to the educational package which is included in with membership. Speaking of our member education package, I still hear comments about some members not watching the videos we provide at https://armedcitizensnetwork.org/videos (login required–contact us if you need help logging in). Folks, if you have been putting this off, you are really doing yourself a disservice.