Quick edit: If this is considered in violation of rule 5, then please delete. I do not wish to bait political arguments and drama.
Edit 2: I would just like to say that I would consider this question answered, or at least as answered as a hypothetical can be. My personal takeaway is that holding weapons manufacturers responsible for gun violence is unrealistic. Regardless of blame and accountability, the guns already exist and will continue to do so. We must carefully consider any and all legislation before we enact it, and especially where firearms are concerned. I hope our politicians and scholars continue working to find compromises that benefit all people. Thank you all for contributing and helping me to better understand the situation of gun violence in America. I truly hope for a better future for the United States and all of humanity. If nothing else, please always treat your fellow man, and your firearm, with the utmost respect. Your fellow man deserves it, and your firearm demands it for the safety of everyone.
First, I’d like to highlight that I understand that, legally speaking, arms manufacturers are not typically accountable for the way their products are used. My question is not “why aren’t they accountable?” but “why SHOULDN’T they be accountable?”
Also important to note that I am asking from an American perspective. Local and national gun violence is something I am constantly exposed to as an American citizen, and the lack of legislation on this violence is something I’ve always been confused by. That is, I’ve always been confused why all effort, energy, and resources seem to go into pursuing those who have used firearms to end human lives that are under the protection of the government, rather than the prevention of the use of firearms to end human lives.
All this leads to my question. If a company designs, manufactures, and distributes implements that primarily exist to end human life, why shouldn’t they be at least partially blamed for the human lives that are ended with those implements?
I can see a basic argument right away: If I purchase a vehicle, an implement designed and advertised to be used for transportation, and use it as a weapon to end human lives, it’d be absurd for the manufacturer to be held legally accountable for my improper use of their implement. However, I can’t quite extend that logic to firearms. Guns were made, by design, to be effective and efficient at the ending of human lives. Using the firearms in the way they were designed to be used is the primary difference for me. If we determine that the extra-judicial ending of human life is a crime of great magnitude, shouldn’t those who facilitate these crimes be held accountable?
TL;DR: To reiterate and rephrase my question, why should those who intentionally make and sell guns for the implied purpose of killing people not be held accountable when those guns are then used to do exactly what they were designed to do?
How about camera manufacturers? If someone uses a Nikon camera to create CSAM (“child porn”), should the Nikon company be liable to the victims? Cameras are made, by design, to produce images of what’s in front of them, even if that is a child being sexually abused. There have been proposals to require digital cameras to spy on their users to ensure that illegal images can be more easily tracked. If a camera manufacturer refuses to do this, citing “privacy” or “freedom of expression”, should the victims of CSAM be able to hold that manufacturer liable?
Some countries, such as the Soviet Union, have restricted the ownership and use of printing equipment, including photocopiers, to deter their use to spread illegal capitalist propaganda. Should photocopier manufacturers be held liable for illegal material that a user photocopies?
Or, sticking to the gun example — How about 3D printer manufacturers? 3D printers can be used to create illegal guns. If you use a 3D printer to illegally create a gun, should the 3D printer manufacturer be held liable?
Alternately, we could stick to considering people liable for the choices that they themselves make, and not for merely creating the opportunity for bad users to make bad choices.
Car manufacturers aren’t liable for every incident of drunk driving or every robbery getaway — but they are liable for defects in a car that cause it to go off accidentally. Similarly, gun manufacturers should be held responsible to ensure that guns work properly and do not go off accidentally, e.g. if a loaded gun is dropped.
Those are good points, but let’s use an example of companies being held liable for consumer behavior: drink companies being held liable for litter from their products. In some places, companies like Coke will receive fines for their products being found as litter, to prevent the use of single use plastics. In a system where the consumer has no choice about how their products are received, it becomes a fair method of harm reduction to penalize companies. The individual is responsible for harming the planet, yes, but the company also shares part of the blame for manufacturing products that are designed to be thrown away.
Different example: car manufacturers aren’t liable for drunk drivers, but bartenders can be found liable. Bars and bartenders can be held liable for accidents involving drunk drivers, if they came from a bar. I wouldn’t change that for anything, even if there’s a perceived “unfairness”.
It’s good that you bring up design flaws and manufacturing errors, because currently firearms manufacturers are immune to product recalls. There are pistols out there from Sig Sauer that are capable of accidental discharge, even with the safety on. To my knowledge it’s still manufactured and hasn’t been recalled. The Consumer Protection Agency can politely ask for a voluntary recall, but current laws mean that the government can’t force a recall on faulty weapons. This needs to change.
I don’t have any ideas on how to apply the littering concept to weapons manufacturers, but I think we should figure it out to prevent people from dying. We should also make guns recallable.
Sig Sauer that are capable of accidental discharge, even with the safety on. To my knowledge it’s still manufactured and hasn’t been recalled.
If you’re talking about the P320, Sig changed their manufacturing and offered to repair/replace any firearms that were made with the faulty trigger, as identified by serial number. I personally helped a ton of customers send their guns back to Sig to get this fixed. This happened over well over 5 years ago. While it wasn’t a federally mandated recall, it was a voluntary fix by Sig, similar to how a ton of vehicle recalls work.
Thanks for those extra details. I’m not a gun enthusiast anymore, so I didn’t know that the design flaw was fixed. However, from what I remember about that situation, that information was very difficult to find and was made worse because it wasn’t a voluntary recall. They essentially said “yea, this is a problem. We’ll fix it, but we didn’t do anything wrong”. You did a great service by filling in the gaps left by Sig, but it should have been loudly broadcasted with a recall.
It was pretty cut and dry at the time if I remember correctly. It wasn’t a difficult process, nor was the information difficult to find. Again, if I’m remembering right, it was right on their website. It was a number of years ago though, so I could definitely be remembering it wrong. I worked at a gun store / shooting range at the time and remember it being a big deal and we had customers asking US about sending their guns in for repair. So it was widely known they were doing fixes.
The littering concept is called public nuisance.
I feel like the analogy of the camera would be more valid if Nikon designed a camera that was specifically designed to cater to the needs of child molesters.
Almost all guns are designed as weapons first and foremost. That’s it.
Fencing is a sport that allows people to duel each other. The foils are items of sports equipment - they have specifically been designed to not be lethal.
Guns, on the other hand, are not items of sports equipment. They are weapons that some people use for sport.
In the US, gun companies are quite happy to produce these for supply to the untrained, unregulated masses. And actively promote this as totally normal. I’d say they hold some of the blame.
There’s an entire field of shooting sports. The Olympics has shootings events. There’s guns made specifically for specific competitions like PRS & IPSC.
When manufacturers do market guns for the purposes of broadly shooting at other humans it’s more specifically the self defense market. There’s a difference between making a product for self defense and making firearms for drive by shootings.
Additionally you have companies in the industry who specifically created entirely new branches just for training. Here’s a link to Sig Sauer’s training side.
The core issues are not that individuals have the capacity to do ill but the motivation and desire. To meaningfully impact homicides you need to first understand the different motivations behind them and change the system that created poor circumstances.
For example tackling drug related gang violence by changing the laws on drugs so as to not create room in our societies for criminal organizations structured around their illicit trade.
We don’t blame beer manufacturers for drunk drivers, I can see the argument being similar. But guns are meant to kill by design. It is slightly different if there was an actual reason to be making them, like cameras, then I would say we do not need to hold the comapanies responsible. But these are made exclusively for death, which i think should be held to different standards than “useful” things
Many objects are meant to kill by design. Daggers are frankly entirely useless as a knife except stabbing people but would you sue a company for making one? Even then if daggers were banned people would just use kitchen knives.
The bullet that kills the most people in the US is actually the scrappy little .22 LR, a very weak cartridge. If all guns were banned a knife or a variety of other things isn’t much less lethal.
When was the last time someone killed hundreds of people with a knife??
So we will only hold him manufacturers liable when a single actor with a single weapon kills hundreds of people?
I’m just pointing out there is a massive difference between a stabbing weapon and a long range automatic/semi auto weapon
What about the manufacturers of knives, screwdrivers, automobiles, hammers? Yes, firearms are made to be used to kill, where the others aren’t, but the intention to kill comes from the user.
And the scissors!! Also forks!
Don’t forget pencils!
A firearm is a device with limited applicability. Its one purpose is to harm things.
If it was designed to unscrew things then it’d be a screwdriver. But it’s not. It’s a gun. It’s for shooting things dead. It’s one purpose is patently obvious and any attempt to say “but you don’t have to shoot things with it” should be met with the derision it deserves.
So you’d like to wholesale ban hunting? Is that your position?
I think most urban liberals would ban hunting given the opportunity, but have enough self awareness to realize that’s an untenable position.
Urban liberal hunter here!
Obviously my city has completely banned hunting and I travel 40 miles away to do my hunting…but that situation is now changing.
After years/decades of no hunting, deer over population and the problems that go with it have gotten to a point where the city is testing out a pilot program this fall/winter to allow a small group of archery hunters to hunt a limited amount of deer in the city parks on (I think) two set days where the parks will be closed to other humans through the day.
Assuming the program sees participation and effective results, the intention is to expand it slowly to both increase the number of tags issued as well as have a few more days and locations in the program.
I think a part of this is the small but growing shift among urban liberals from taking positions based on points without context to having more nuanced approaches based on overall world view.
For example: rather than just being “anti gun and anti hunting”, I think people are starting to go beyond that and think about why they’re against hunting. For a lot of people, it’s because they’re pro animal. They like seeing the deer and don’t want to see them hurt. Unfortunately, in our urban (and suburban, and in many cases even rural environments) we have already upset the natural balance, to the point that whitetail deer have no natural predators where they live. Without this pressure they become over populated, leading to increased vehicle accidents, disease, and over browsing in their habitats which leads to even more negative consequences and effects.
So if they like the deer, presumably they want a healthy, happy, balanced population. And if they want that, in an urban environment, that means management. If the population is unsustainably high, it is going to come down, one way or another. At that point, it’s a choice between "would you rather these deer die due to disease, starvation, and dangerous vehicle collisions, all the while wiping out new growth in forests, negatively impacting other species and the health of the ecosystem? Or would you prefer the relatively quick, clean, ethical harvest of hunters, and not only respect the animals in life but also remove them from the population in a way that feeds people natural food that is locally sourced, free range, not full of hormones, and whose harvest actually has a net positive impact on the environment it came from?
And I feel like as “liberals”, for whatever that term may mean to people, get more and more into things like home brewing, fishing, foraging, raising chickens, farm to table, etc., the more hope there is that hunting won’t be looked at in such a negative light.
Yeah, last I checked harming things is not illegal in all circumstances.
Hunting, self defense, in some cases defense of property or of others.
So you are 100% correct, their purpose is to harm things. Some do so efficiently enough to kill them, too. None of this is inherently illegal, so there’s no issue with them being on sale or legal.
A weapon is a tool, killing things is the job that tool was designed to do. No one is arguing different, get your strawman out of here.
Killing things isn’t always immoral or illegal, either. I can hunt wild boar or keep the prairie dog population in check with an AR-15 as long as I have the appropriate licensing and am abiding laws regarding location, etc.
Then there’s the obvious home defense scenario which is unlikely but happens more often than you’d think, the stories just don’t go past local news.
Right, but the duty of care changes based on the risks.
The manufacturer is making a tool with the intention of killing.
You have a point. But you are skipping a road of reasoning here.
The vast majority of ar15 rifles sold will never kill anything. Lots of guns are really only ever used for target shooting.
I’m not arguing about the proportion of guns that kill things or not.
I’m merely stating that the purpose of a gun, is to kill. Otherwise, they wouldn’t.
Target practice, is practicing to kill.
I’m not American, I don’t need to abide by your bullshit constitution.
I’m merely stating that the purpose of a gun, is to kill. Otherwise, they wouldn’t.
Corollary: Vehicles were not designed to kill, so they don’t.
Fantastic! We just solved highway safety!
The car has a number of safety mechanisms to prevent death. A gun does too - but, that is to prevent it’s intended use.
The car is regulated to prevent death. Although, not nearly enough. We have licences, registration, regular maintenance and checks. That are enforced with fines, usually.
The car is designed to move people and things from point a to point b. That is it’s function. There is a side effect of that function, that it can kill people.
If the cars manufacturer had installed a spiked bullbar in a line of new cars. I think it would be fair for litigation to be directed at that manufacturer to determine the function of that bullbar. Because it seems like the intention is to make it easy for people to kill people.
The guns function is to kill. Plain and simple. The manufacturer has the intention to make tools to kill.
The cars function is to drive. Plain and simple. The manufacturer has the intention to move people and things around.
Are you this shallow and unlearned or are you being silly?
Technically the manufacturer is making a tool with the intention of firing a projectile at high velocity and that projectile can and usually is used as a weapon.
What is the intention of designing something capable of firing a projectile at high velocity?
Seriously, this argument is so stupid. Let me try.
Im a manufacturer that cuts wood at a specific size with the intention to use it as a door. It can and usually is used as a door, but doesn’t have to be.
It is a weapon. That is the intention of the tool.
A spade has the purpose of digging, just as the gun has the purpose of killing.
Arms manufacturers would probably argue that guns are intended to be deterrent. And they shouldn’t be held liable that the cops keep executing unarmed suspects with them.
Can’t hurt their profit margins, of course they would say that.
Many of them are produced with the intention of killing animals (hunting) not people. Personally I don’t approve of people buying full automatic assault weapons and such but hunting rifles and whatnot I don’t have a problem with.
Personally I’m a proponent of the Canadian system where you actually need to be approved and pass a test and be licensed to own a weapon with the ability to lose said license if you abuse it. It’s no where near perfect but miles better than letting anyone pick up a weapon at the local Walmart.
Nobody can buy automatic weapons. Haven’t been able to since 1986. I would recommend a class in firearms so you actually know what you’re talking about, strengthening your argument. Currently as it stands, you are just repeating the right buzzwords without being close to correct.
Rich people can very easily buy automatic weapons in most places in the US. You just usually need about 15 to 20 thousand dollars to get one in an auction or gun store. There really isn’t anything holding anybody back besides money and their arrest record.
This also depends on the particular states’ laws about them. In a few states they are completely banned, others have extra restrictions.
In my particular state, people have them at the shooting range all of the time. You can even rent them at most ranges. You can aquire them easily if you get a FFL, and a lot of gun people seem to go that route.
Yup.
I’m not American. This has been standard procedure for the 3 countries I call home. You need a gun licence - and it’s pretty stringently assessed.
I don’t need to abide by American constitutional bullshit. There is no tap dancing from me.
“Spoons made me fat”
Sorry for the low effort reply, but I look at it as simple as that. People often want to find anything other than themselves to blame for their poor choices. Guns may make it easier to make poor choices (arguable), but it’s also hard to eat soup with a butter knife.Your spoon doesn’t make me fat. Unless your spoon has ice cream on it and I’m a willing participant.
Are you also against the requirement of driving licenses?
Do we charge car companies when their vehicles are used to run someone over?
Cars are not primarily designed for running over people. And despite that, they’re regulated more than guns.
Fair point, I think that does highlight an issue with how they are sometimes marketed. If Chevy’s next truck had a front end specifically designed to mow people down and they had a commercial demonstrating its effectiveness in a crowd, I think people would freak out; even the most unreasonable would probably say “WTF Chevy?” A person could make the argument that guns aren’t primarily designed with harming others even with self-defense in mind, but for hunting, but I think that argument conveniently ignores the fact that some gun owners may have never even hunted for their food and they own one simply to protect themselves against someone who doesn’t care whether the gun they own and wield with the intent to harm or commit a crime is legal or not.
Weird comparison, specially when many people literally want the existence of actual gun licenses (with education and examination built into it like driving does).
Not exactly, it’s an interesting point, but to be fair I don’t think I have a strong opinion one way or another on that topic. I think licensing a driver assumes they are a little more aware of the consequences of their actions behind the wheel and they are well trained at dealing with potentially dangerous machinery (lol, reality and expectations don’t always align), but that’s an assumption, people do dumb/negligent things in cars constantly and I’m afraid the threat of losing their license over it doesn’t always (or probably even mostly) work to deter a person who intends to use it as a weapon and/or has already lost sight of the other consequences. When someone decides to use that machine as a weapon it rarely makes sense (at least to me) to ask why didn’t the manufacturer do more to prevent this? That said, it is an interesting idea, in theory at least, treating gun ownership the same way as car ownership with licensing and insurance, a license creates some additional legal liability to hold someone accountable for their actions, but it would still be about personal responsibility not the auto maker. I also don’t think a lot of gun owners want to budge on their current rights because they fear the slippery slope effect of over-regulation and asking the very people who the 2nd amendment is meant to keep in check to write the rules may only benefit them. In the end, my opinion is not that America has a gun problem, it has a mental health problem and a predatory for-profit prison system that creates a revolving door that unfairly targets people of certain backgrounds or social status. Gun control in itself may just be another form of Problem Reaction Solution (Create or allow a problem, wait for the reaction, offer a solution that benefits one side over another that wouldn’t have otherwise been appealing without the initial problem), that and I wonder if the gun debate often gets intentionally steered in circles or nonsensical directions as a form of bread and circus to keep us ignorant to the actual root cause, which is sometimes people do bad things regardless of the consequences. Remember, to keep the people with the pitchforks busy, all you have to do is convince them the people with the torches want to take their pitchforks away, and they’ll never come for the rulers. I rarely take part in these debates because I don’t pretend to have enough knowledge on the subject to create a strong enough argument for either side, but I am glad people are at least discussing these ideas, just the same as I’d be glad to see (or be) a good guy with a gun when threatened by a bad guy with a gun.
If firearms manufacturers are to be held liable, what would be the reasoning to also not hold vehicle manufacturers liable in the use of their product in criminal acts?
Vehicles are probably used in just as many crimes as guns are, I imagine, with vehicular manslaughter, running vehicles through protests and crowds, etc.
I can’t see a logical reason to target one specific product over others when there are legitimate uses for them (i.e. hunting).
Wait until you find out about fiat currency. Shit has been used in crime since before it was invented.
I think the difference is one was designed to transport people and the other was designed to kill something.
Exactly. What are they expecting people to use them for? It’s not as if they have any uses other than destruction, either of property or of life.
Uh, sports, hunting, personal defense, lol
Sports
Assuming you mean clay pigeon shooting and the like, you’re still destroying the clay pigeons.
Hunting
Do I really have to explain how this one destroys things?
Personal defense
The only two ways I can think of using a gun to defend yourself would be harming your attacker or threatening them with harm. “Destruction” doesn’t wholly apply here, but it’s still harmful or at least unpleasant.
lol
Removed by mod
Did you really just compare eating to shooting a gun?
Yea, the logic is pretty stupid, huh?
It’s very simple and logical. Guns only have one primary purpose and that is to kill other people.
The primary purpose of a car is not to kill other people.
So there is really no comparison between the two.
The only people that don’t understand this are morons who have no concept of utility.
Yeah, all those assault rifles and pistols that were designed for hunting.
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Pistols can absolutely be used to hunt small game. Calibers like .22 are used for rabbit and squirrel hunting all the time.
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An assault rifle is one that is fully automatic, while you can get one, it costs quite the sum in licensing fees and background investigations. The weapons used in active shootings are semi automatic rifles, not military grade assault rifles.
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For the same reason we don’t hold car manufacturers accountable for the use of cars in crimes. Or knife makers, or brick makers, or (insert item here). That being said, I’m very pro regulation, and I think guns should be treated exactly like cars. Insurance is required, licensee, that is required to be renewed every 5 years, training, and regular inspections are not too much to ask for a dead item that’s sole purpose is intended to kill.
Ok first, cars aren’t mentioned in the constitution but outside of that…
I can buy a car and use in off road or on private property and need none of that. I can even take it wherever else I want with it on a trailer.
So with what you’re saying I can make or buy a machine gun and supressor and as long as I don’t use it in public it’s totally legal without paying any mind to the government.
The constitution also doesn’t mention guns, just a passage about bear arms or something…
That’s not why but okay. It’s because in those examples there is no foreseeability that the thing will be used to cause harm, just a mere possibility.
My target rifles are not intended to kill.
I’m very pro regulation. I think speech should be treated exactly like cars. Insurance is required, licenses, that are required to be renewed every 5 years, training and regular inspections are not too much to ask for a voice that can easily persuade people to commit atrocities.
Bro’s gonna come up to me and shout me to death
You jest, but there have been people convicted of convincing others to kill themselves with words. Hell, there’s been whole wars waged simply on the words of singular leaders.
Oh sure. Stories are the most influential tools ever invented. Im just saying, its a lot easier to kill someone with a gun than it is with your words, and I think that difference matters.
What about a hammer? Or a rock?
Really, that tired debate? Imagine trying to kill a crowd of people with a rock, hammer, knife, whatever. Now imagine trying to do that with an AR-15 style rifle or whatever the fuck. Now tell me, in which scenario is it easier to kill people?
ok bro you win. i don’t argue with dipshits that blame an item rather that a person.
You can legally kill someone in a self defense situation so just because guns are designed to kill doesn’t make them different from another product that can be used illegally.
Cars can be used to kill people illegally and we don’t hold the manufacturer responsible.
IMO holding manufacturers responsible would just lead to a legal mess and a waste of court time/resources. I’d rather have better background checks, and other limits on gun purchases.
I tentatively agree with you. You mention how this would be difficult and messy in our present legal system, and I guess I’m trying to consider what an alternative legal system might do to address the problem of gun violence without the “mess.” In a “cleaner” legal landscape, it might be desirable to nip the problem in the bud (restrict manufacturing), but we have the system we have and we need to work within it, I guess.
Car manufacturers are held responsible, have you not seen the latest airbag lawsuit?
we could make it very simple and get rid of them as other more mature countries have. you know, the ones that dont have mass shootings of children constantly and arent wondering what to do about all the guns… those places.
3/4 states would need to ratify an amendment repealing the 2nd amendment. I can’t imagine any amendment being ratified in my lifetime let alone one repealing the 2nd amendment.
I’d rather start with legislation that has majority support and a realistic chance of passing.
No. We’d just need to get rid of the ridiculous interpretation that half of the 2nd amendment text doesn’t matter. Well regulated militia doesn’t mean any Tom, Dick or Harry.
Probably more doable but doubtful with the current Supreme Court.
Yes it does.
You simply do not understand what “well regulated” means.
The 2nd Amendment doesn’t give citizens the right to bare arms, it gives States the right to have militias or what is the National Guard today. Any uncompromised Judge would agree with that.
I mean, sure, if you ignore 200 years of judicial precedent and radically reimagine the definition of the 2nd amendment.
So instead of ignoring reality, how about we push laws that severely restrict gun ownership as that actually has a chance of passing and being upheld and maybe some new precedent gets set that allows more, similar laws to further reign things in
After Dobbs you think that matters? Supreme Court decisions mean nothing anymore.
After Dobbs you really think the SC is going to support your position any time in the next 20 years?
I’m not even sure the Supreme Court has any authority anymore.
“[historical] (in the US) all able-bodied citizens eligible by law to be called on to provide military service supplementary to the regular armed forces.”
-oxford language dictionary
The 2nd amendment wouldn’t need to give states the rights to have their own national guard because of the 10th amendment.
States are sovereign governments so yes they have to be granted the right to bare arms.
“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people” -10th amendment
Transition: Any power not specifically granted to the federal government is maintained by the states or the people unless prohibited otherwise.
I would argue that it’s currently impossible, or at least extremely difficult, to remove the civilian firearms from the United States. If I had a magic spell that could make all the guns vanish at once, I’d cast it in a heartbeat. Unfortunately, there are so many firearms already in the US that it’d be absurd to expect all (or even most) people to voluntarily surrender them. The situation is made all the worse because of a minority of criminals and capitalists who would no doubt seek to profit off of a seizure or surrender scheme.
Hope, then, seems to lie with focusing on a healthier, happier future. An America where less people are forced into crime, and where profit for profit’s sake is frowned upon, sounds ideal.
we don’t need to do that. we just need to restrict stuff like 50 round magazines.
a lot hard to kill 50 people if your gun only holds 5 bullets.
We shouldn’t even be talking about how easy it is to kill 50 people.
It’s like saying “Yeah, the Head Chopper 2000 can cut off 3 heads at once but at least it isn’t the Head Chopper 3000. That one can do 10!”
A reload takes about 3 seconds.
The vast majority of firearms deaths have not used high capacity mags.
This is just the typical uninformed screaming.
wtf are you talking about
car manufactures are legally accountable to meet minimum safety standards for new vehicles. they have been sued over it.
Gun manufacturers are also legally accountable to meet minimum safety standards for new guns. And they have been successfully sued when they have not met them. Guns must not fire when dropped, for example.
Hostile but ok… I’m talking about intentionally misusing a car to kill people illegally like running someone over on purpose, not car safety standards like a defective airbag or something.
How does that have anything to do with the example of cars being used to commit crimes? No one said cars don’t have to meet safety standards. Guns have to meet safety standards too. The example was taking something that’s legal to have and using it to do something illegal. We don’t generally hold the manufacturers of those things liable for those crimes.
Edit: cars, not cats. I think we all agree cats should be illegal.
I would support this if there was evidence that manufacturers were knowingly (or purposefully not doing due diligence) selling to distributors who weren’t following the rules or were somehow pressuring distributors to bend the rules to sell more (conspiracy). Otherwise its really on the distributors to be doing background checks, adhering to waiting periods, and using proper discretion. If we want less guns around then there need to be legal limits on sales and ownership, and those limits need to be enforced.
That’s a very fair point. Ideally, firearms shouldn’t be sold to those who would use them illegally in the first place.
It’s the Big Tobacco argument, they knew their products were deadly but ignored it. Gun Manufacturers know their products are deadly but they ignore it.
Everyone knows guns are deadly. Not everyone knew tobacco was. Tobacco companies knew and withheld that information and marketed their products as safe.
So gun Manufacturers advertise they murder more innocent people than any other device? I don’t remember that ad.
No, this isn’t the same. The tobacco companies hid data that showed how unhealthy their products were because if people were aware they might not buy the product. People bought tobacco products for enjoyment.
Everyone knows guns can be deadly. Hell, it’s actually a selling point. No one is hiding that information. But you can use a gun in a legal way or an illegal way. It’s very different.
It’s been suggested that the gun lobby is actively hiding data on how bad their products are to health
While not a 1-to-1 comparison, I think it’s relevant to compare them to Tobacco.
I firmly disagree. I’m not a fan of guns (or tobacco), but these just aren’t analogous situations. The number of people who think a gun can’t be lethal when you point it at someone’s head is essentially zero, but for years they talked about the health benefits of smoking. And “the gun lobby” isn’t the same as “gun manufacturers” the way that the tobacco lobby was basically completely funded by tobacco companies.
Yes, there are a bunch of people who don’t want us to be able to study how many gun deaths there are a year, but it’s not because they don’t want us to know if guns pose a health risk or not. It’s just a different situation.
In my opinion, the difference isn’t enough to invalidate the comparison. Same goes for the gun lobby being co-mingled with weapons manufacturers. Compare the NRA from the 70s to the NRA from the 90s and today. It went from a safety organization to an organization only caring about selling more weapons. I lived in a NRA household growing up, and their literature no matter who was President was constant fear mongering over not being able to have or buy more weapons, implying everyone should buy buy buy.
And apparently a lot of NRA funding as part of that transition came from Russia, which is honestly part of my point. The gun lobby doesn’t seem to be primarily manufacturers, so holding them responsible for the horrific gun death rate in this country doesn’t make sense to me.
Firstly, I hate guns and wish they were far more tightly controlled.
But even I don’t think holding manufacturers responsible for crimes is a good way to go about that. Guns do have legitimate uses.
Should we hold auto manufacturers responsible for a pedestrian who’s hit by a drunk driver? How about we put the workers who built the road in jail, too.
This kind of overreaching liability litigation is why we can’t have quite a lot of good things in this country anymore. We can’t babyproof every aspect of our society.
Imagine if this applies to other tools, like hammers.
Should the manufacturer of the 5 lbs MurderSpike SkullBleeder with night camouflage handle, extra inset bone crackers and instashatter blood flow accelerator head ®™, licensing games and movies to show people murdering each other gloriously with their hammer… be held responsible if by some off chance some person ends up murdering someone with it??? It’s ludicrous.
The example doesnt work
Hammers a made to hammer in nails, they can be used for other purposes but they are made for the one.
Guns are made to shoot a bullet into a animal/perso to seriously injure or kill. They have no other purpose it’s their exclusive use.
Edited: to include animals for the pedantic among us.
Guns are also made to hunt animals for food, so they’re not exclusively made to harm people. It’s all in the intent of the person with the gun.
No one is hunting deer with a glock though
Not with that attitude.
Handgun hunting is actually a thing
The fuck they aren’t. Glock 20 10mm will absolutely drop any animal you point it at. Go ahead and hunt a moose with it if you want.
Guns’ original intention might’ve been to shoot people (and some are of course still designed with that in mind) but there are obviously millions of gun owners around the world that manage to use their guns without shooting people so it’s clearly not their exclusive use…
Okay, so do all bowmakers and swordsmiths now get charged for when people commit crimes with those?
Not necessarily a person. Just saying.
When a gun is used 100% correctly, it will kill.
When a hammer is used 100% incorrectly, it will kill.
Nope, lots of guns are used 100% correctly to shoot inanimate targets, in fact more often than they are used for killing anything. Target practice, competition shooting, recreational blasting, etc.
Because it sets a precedent that has ludicrous outcomes where the manufacturers of any product that are used for wrong are liable for the damages caused by their use and suddenly nobody wants to manufacture screwdrivers any more. PC manufacturers are now responsible for the actions of hackers and so no more pc manufacturing, auto manufacturers are now responsible for vehicular homocides so no more auto manufacturers, etc, etc.
I agree with this, but if a screwdriver company advertised how well their new screwdriver could gouge out eyes they could be seen as encouraging it.
Well, to keep up the analogy, it wouldn’t be the gun manufacturers advertising that…that’s more the realm of the ammunition manufacturers. For a given gun, some ammunition is designed to be lethal, and some ammunition is designed to be non-lethal.
I think my hangup on the issue is a matter of intention and primary purpose. A car’s primary purpose is to transport. A screwdrivers primary purpose is to affix screws. A computer has a wide, unspecified set of applications such that there is no implied purpose outside of personal or economic enrichment. I do not believe that the manufacturers of these products should be held accountable for their products misuse.
However, I’m quite concerned about firearms being used for their primary purpose: killing people. To the manufacturers and legislators credit, as someone else mentioned in this thread, there are at least meticulous safety standards to greatly limit the likelihood of guns killing people OUTSIDE of the users’ intended targets.
However, I’m quite concerned about firearms being used for their primary purpose: killing people
Killing someone is not immediately against the law, though. It depends on your state laws and the context of the killing. In most states you can kill someone to defend yourself from a reasonable threat to your life.
The “primary purpose” is not murder. It’s to kill someone. I would perhaps agree with you depending on the weapon. Like if a company was selling a grenade that explodes with cyanide gas or something. I think they should be held liable for that.
However, I’m quite concerned about firearms being used for their primary purpose: killing people.
That’s where you’re sort of wrong. Their advertised, primary purpose is self defense or hunting depending on the weapon both of which are legal actions. Deliberately using a weapon to commit murder outside of these intended purposes is a misuse of the weapon no different than deliberately using any other item outside of its intended purpose to commit crime.
Edit: this is a simplification of the issue but it’s the basic idea.
Are you looking for an answer to a question, or are you looking for a debate?
At any rate, reducing the utility of an item to what it’s “lowest performance” should be to lower it’s ability to harm for non-intended uses is asinine. Who sets the limits? Does a knife need to be razor sharp? I can cut a lot of things with a dull knife and some time. It would pose less danger to you if all knives I had access to were purposefully dull. To prevent me from procuring an overly sharp knife, make the material strong enough to cut foods, but brittle enough to not be one overly sharp. Knives, after all, we’re made to stab, cut, and dissect a wide arrange of materials, flesh included. This specific design poses limitless danger to you, and needs to be considered when manufacturing these tools.
Guns are not majorly sold specifically to kill people, in the grand scheme of things. Hunting is probably the largest vector of volume gun sales in the US. How do you design a weapon that can be useful for hunting, but ineffective at killing a human? They all possess the innate ability to do so, but so does even the smallest pocket knife or kitchen knife.
I’m also a big gun control advocate, so I’m not defending anything I like. The failings of US gun control are squarely on the idea that everyone should possess a gun until they prove they shouldnt; it’s reactive policy. Active gun control would limit who can possess a gun from the start to those that will only use it for “appropriate” reasons.
Prefacing with my context here: I’m not a gun supporter. I’m also not an anti-gun advocate. But I wouldn’t lose any sleep over a revocation or heavy restriction on the 2nd amendment.
That being said, I would not in any way support a law that held weapons manufacturers legally liable for the actions of their customers using their products without at least one of the following three factors being true:
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The product, in itself, has no legitimate purpose or function other than one that is harmful to its user, illegal, or infringes upon the rights of others. (I agree guns are inherently destructive and primarily intended to end the life of a person or creature, but there are legitimate and legal situations where such destruction is legal and even necessary. Self defense and hunting being the primary legitimate uses, marksmanship a secondary one.)
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The manufacturer is verifiably and willfully propogating non-legitimate uses of their product in a way that is inherently harmful to its user, illegal, or infringes upon the rights of others.
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The manufacturer is grossly negligent in their business practices or sales in a way that they could directly have prevented with reasonable due diligence that results in the use of their product that is inherently harmful to its user, illegal, or infringes upon the rights of others.
The reason I think that this should be the case is that nobody should be held to account for actions that they did not take, are not promoting and could not have reasonably expected or prevented on a case by case basis. Just to illustrate the problem with holding the manufacturer responsible with a blanket liability, simply due to their production of a product with which a crime was committed, the buck wouldn’t stop at the gun manufacturer. The gun companies buy products from vendors to produce their products and support their factories. Those vendors knowingly sell to the gun manufacturers. Would they not also be responsible to the ultimate products that were used in a crime? Not just the companies that sell their metals and hardware used in the gun assembly, but their tools, their work equipment, their consumables like their vending machines and water. All of those things play a part in the production of guns. Government employment grants and subsidies for business also mean that the US, state and local governments are in part responsible for their production as well. And we as tax payers and voters ultimately are responsible as well then.
No, legal liability is and always should be a matter of willful actions and/or gross negligence. Something like a manufacturer knowingly and intentionally selling directly/indirectly to a criminal organization/cartel. Or them not taking their due diligence to make sure that their client is a reputable retailer, not, in fact, a criminal organization or supplying one. Or running ads that seem to be inducing people to buy their guns to be used for armed robbery, intimidation or murder. All of those things are and/or should be criminal and they should be legally liable as such. But simply producing a weapon is not ultimately enough to hold them responsible for any eventual criminal use of that weapon.
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Happy to see some good replies here. Yes, it would mean that we’d need to hold car makes responsible for DUIs, Cutco responsible for knife attacks, even baseball bat manufacturers for violent attacks done with baseball bats.
It could also hold companies responsible even if they aren’t actively manufacturing the dangerous item anymore; for example, let’s say that Smith & Wesson stops manufacturing guns. Their guns will still be out in the hands of folks, and they will still be held accountable for the violence.
Edit: To respond to this:
Guns were made, by design, to be effective and efficient at the ending of human lives. Using the firearms in the way they were designed to be used is the primary difference for me
At a very basic level, guns are designed to, I would argue, send a bullet somewhere. If the gun reliably fails to do so (i.e. it jams constantly), or inappropriately deploys the bullet (i.e. it explodes in your face, shoots backwards at the shooter, or is wildly inaccurate), then I could see why the manufacturer could be held responsible, since the product isn’t doing what it’s supposed to do.
You already answered your own question with the car analogy. Notwithstanding all the rest of it, guns are inherently dangerous. There’s no way to make them “safe,” like removing the points from lawn darts. Gun manufacturers would have a conga line of ambulance-chaser lawyers following them around 24/7 seeking a payday every time someone so much as scratched themselves with the rear sight while cocking their own pistol.
If you think American citizens like their guns, let me tell you this: The American government really, really, really likes their guns. They want to have all the guns and if they had their way you would have none. But the problem is, they buy all their guns from private manufacturers, just like us. If gun manufacturers were liable for what idiots did with their products (arguably including, but realistically probably not including the various police and governmental forces in the US) they’d all be bankrupt tomorrow. And then what? The cops and military would have to buy all their guns from some other country.
Arms production could theoretically be nationalized, but realistically in America it won’t be, either, because everyone in American politics is really against that sort of thing.
I think all of the points you make are fair. Seeing your, and other, responses is making me realize that this issue is far more complicated then just accountability. It seems there are a massive amount of economic, political, and cultural ideologies in play. Hopefully, one day, these ideologies can be joined into an agreement that reduces the violence we see today.
The question is one of negligence calculus, aka The Hand Formula.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calculus_of_negligence
I would state the question this way: should a gun maker have a duty to take reasonable steps to ensure the ultimate purchaser will not use it in a crime?
The concept of negligence calculus comes from a case involving what steps a mariner must take to ensure their boat does not breakaway from its mooring and smash the whole marina to all to shit?
The rule was stated:
[T]he owner’s duty, as in other similar situations, to provide against resulting injuries is a function of three variables: (1) The probability that she will break away; (2) the gravity of the resulting injury, if she does; (3) the burden of adequate precautions.
A good example is the duty of a railroad to protect people at road crossings.
Is it enough to have a policy that conducters blow the whistle? Must the railroad ensure that there are gates, lights, and bells, at every crossing? If it is a blind intersection, must the conducter send the engineer down to the roadway to manually wave off any traffic?
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The probability of the train causing an injury depends on how busy the intersection is.
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The gravity of train injuries is very serious; I’ve seen it, they chop you up like a fish.
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The burden of blowing a whistle is minimal, if it’s a remote crossing that might be an adequate precaution; the burden of installing and inspecting crossing devices such as bells and gates is massive, but again the gravity of injuries resultant from trains is catastrophic.
The evidence a plaintiff puts forth in a civil lawsuit, to a jury of peers, in public, is to say: this is the extent of my injury, these are the circumstances in which I became injured, and this is what the defendant did or did not do to cause the circumstances. The question for the jury is, was the defendant’s conduct reasonable?
The thing with guns, not unlike trains, is that second part of the equation: that the nature of resultant injuries are so serious, such as classrooms full of dead kids so blown apart by bullet that it takes DNA identify the bodies, or shopping plazas strewn with dead families who bled out trying to crawl away. You must think of all the injuries, not just the primary victims. The taxpayers of Newtown, Conn. had to build a new elementary school, paying workers’ comp. benefits to town employees spouses and kids that could go on for decades. Hundreds of millions of dollars in damages.
The burden of prevention could be comparatively minimal. Doing a private background check on every purchaser is minimal. Insurance companies do it for every policy they write and every claim they adjust. And with data analytics it is easier than ever. Family status, work status, gun and ammo buying habits are apparently the major predictors of whether someone is likely to commit a serious gun crime. Here’s another example: credit scores are apparently a better predictor of driving risk than driving history!
These questions of risk can be analyzed and can be apportioned.
In my view, gun owners and makers should be liable in tort for damages caused by their weapons. This is a matter of the intended use of the product and the privity of contract between the manufacturer and the end purchaser, no different than product liability law. People injured by guns should be able to bring the manufacturer before a civil jury and say: these are my injuries, these were the circumstances in which they happened, these are the steps the manufacturer took or did not take to prevent it, and let a jury decide if the steps were reasonable based on the probability that the harm would result and the extent of the burden of avoiding it.
It would be a lot of risk to manufacturers. If found liable, they would be able to sue the end user for contribution, just as in a product liability case; that’s called subrogation.
You can get gun insurance right now but it’s not required, which makes gun owners self insured. Gun makers could get business liability insurance, too; I think most of them self insure these risks, now, though, because they are immune from such lawsuits, that’s why Remington went bankrupt after the suit against it for Sandy Hook went forward, and it was non or under insured.
If end users were required to carry insurance, the risk of damages is on those insurers, which it bear voluntarily in exchange for premiums. This relieves the manufacturers, the end users, and the public. Right now, the communities bear the entirety of the risk, gun owners can buy whatever guns they want, however many they want, and when they’re mental facilities eventually decline to the point of the violent instability, they have no responsibility beyond their net worth.
And, as a matter of principal, even right now, nobody can claim to be a responsible gun owner if they are non or underinsured for damages caused by their gun.
Fascinating! Thank you for this contribution and sourcing further reading material. I just read a bit into the Remington / Sandy Hook lawsuit you mentioned. Despite many opinions posted here suggesting that it’s impossible and/or unethical to blame the manufacturers, there’s a clear case of a civil court recognizing such damages.
But: manufacturers don’t generally sell direct to the consumer, they sell to stores. Doesn’t your argument say that it’s the stores who should be liable, not the manufacturers?
Nope. In products liability cases, everyone in the chain is liable.
What you’re talking about is the general law of privity, that says you cannot sue for negligent performance of a contract a non party to the contract.
Products liability is an exception to privity, especially modernly.
Gun makers would be liable under the normal rules of common law negligence and public nuisance, they are only immune because Congress passed a statutory exemption.
A good comparison here is the explosives industry. The product is so inherently dangerous and the consequences of negligence so serious, that the common law imposes strict liability. This was also true of people who impound a natural water course on their property. In each case, it it the general risk of serious injury to the public at large that justified strict liability. This is the doctrine of ultra hazardous activities. When Congress passed the exemption, it was a direct response to law review articles and a couple of lower court decisions finding that the manufacture and sale of high powered weapons to regular people fit the definition of ultrahazardous for purposes and could be held strictly liabile.
This was an interesting post to read. I do think the ship captain and railroad comparisons are not close enough to gun manufacturers. In the ship analogy it would be the shipwright OP is asking about.
Glad you enjoyed. I don’t mean to suggest they are the same, just illustrate the the concept of a defendant’s general duty to prevent others from being injured as a result of their conduct. It’s a function of the gravity and probability of harm.
Explosives manufacturers might be a better example. They are held strictly liable for any fuckups, so they need to make sure the people they are selling to aren’t going to fuck up. Compliance audits up the yin.
Gun vendors are the close example. And they are exposed to liability, which is why big retailers have been dropping weaponry from their shelve.
It’s true explosives manufacturers need to deal only with licensed wholesalers, because it is a regulated product. But as long as they do that, they should not be liable if the wholesaler vends to unlicensed end customers or terrorists or whatever. That would fall on the wholesaler or retailer.
Each party is responsible for the link in the chain which they actually control.
If a gun was found to be sold in violation of the rules and then used for a crime, yes the retailer is liable. But not the manufacturer.
The opioid manufacturers were found liable.
Asbestos manufacturers were found liable.
Those are good examples. Here’s what killed them:
The opioid makers didn’t just manufacture it, they marketed it aggressively and actively downplayed the risks.
Similarly, asbestos manufacturers sold a product they knew caused cancer in its normal usage without adequately disclosing that.
Could make the same arguments about guns though my brother.
Remington went bankrupt because they got sued for aggressively marketing their guns to incel and meal team six types. They knew they were marketing, using fear, to weak and unstable people. What did they think was going to be the result?
As to the asbestos manufacturer comparison, gun makers sell products without adequately explaining to the public the risk to life, for example, they market weapons for home defense, and perpetuate the myth that a gun in the home makes the home safer, despite full knowledge that having a gun in the home makes the homeowner exponentially more likely to be killed by their own weapon. I think they should put photos of children’s shot up bodies right on the guns at the point of sale, as with cigarettes. That’s how we end up with a segment of a population that wants every person to have a gun, for the idiotic and false purpose of making people safer.
Further, gun makers are marketing a product as “safe when used safely” when in fact they know it is not safe. They know that their customers who are buying these products are human beings who are frail and constantly changing, and that part of the human condition is inevitably losing your faculties, and that their products are likely to be used in an unsafe way.
Regarding my last point here, about the intended usage, manufacturers are liable for both intended and unintended uses of their products. What matters is the foreseeability of the usage. A good example here is ladder manufacturers. The instructions are crystal clear about how to safely use a ladder. But ladder manufacturers know for certain that people will inevitably lean them up against their house in the wrong way or fail to make sure the ground is safe or use them even if they’re not completely stable, they know people will stand on the top rung. I’ve done it. If the ladder manufacturers made a ladder that would crumple the moment it lost stability or tilted, or if the top rung buckled instantly under, say, 150 lbs, they are be liable for a defective product even though the injuries were caused by a consumer’s incorrect usage. Did the manufacturer do enough in the making and selling of the product to protect the public from injuries caused by untinetend but yet completely foreseeable harms, not even to the direct purchaser of the ladder, but also as to people who might be walking by the guy on the ladder? What did the maker think would happen?
Many good points. I’ll think on this further.
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