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?
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.