Comment on Why shouldn’t firearm manufacturers be held accountable for the use of their weapons in crimes?
AFKBRBChocolate@lemmy.world 9 months agoBut as the person said, it’s legal to kill a person in self defense. If it’s legal to do something, and a company give you a tool to do that legal thing, why should the company be responsible if you use that tool to do something illegal? If it was illegal to even have a gun, it might make sense to hold manufacturers responsible, it it isn’t illegal to have or use them in some situations.
SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 9 months ago
The sticky part is that killing isn’t just not always inherently legal, but is usually not.
AFKBRBChocolate@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Killing? True. Shots fired? Probably not true.
To me, philosophically, it doesn’t matter what the percentage is though. Unless we say it’s illegal to have the gun, it makes no sense to hold the gun manufacturers responsible for gun deaths. What are they doing to make people use their legal device in an illegal way?
SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Laws are increasingly meaningless when we’re discussing morality.
AFKBRBChocolate@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Yeah, and to a certain extent that’s appropriate. Legislating morality is problematic because there’s so much subjectivity.
JustZ@lemmy.world 9 months ago
What about the law of public nuisance?
It is not gun makers paying the millions of dollars in damage every time a mass shooting occurs, it is towns and communities.
AFKBRBChocolate@lemmy.world 9 months ago
If you’re arguing that guns should be illegal, okay, let’s have that discussion. But if you aren’t, and guns are legal to have and to use in certain situations (ranges, self defense, hunting), then why should manufacturers be liable for improper use? We’ve had several instances of people driving their car through groups of pedestrians, some people punch out their mufflers to make their cars super loud, and people drive off roads on protected lands - all things that are illegal to do - but we never say the car manufacturers are liable because cars are legal to have and use within restrictions.
As soon as you say it’s legal to have a gun, it should be perfectly fine to make a gun that meets whatever safety standards and other regulations are applicable. If gun manufacturers are doing something that encouraged people to commit murder with their products, then you might have an argument.
SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Oh, and simply discharging a weapon is typically illegal as well.