responsibility

[CuriousDestruction]

okay, so for those of you that don't know me here on VT, i actually like to pick people's brains about moral and ethical issues. so i think i'm going to start posting a few of them.

here's the first one. you sell a gun to a man/woman legally. an hour later they go out and kill 5 five people with said gun. are you responsible? legally? ethically? morally? personally?

feel free to ask clarifying questions and such.

[Sage]

No. You have no control over what someone else does. By legally selling them a gun, you are doing nothing wrong- and don't bring out a moral argument, if you had a moral problem with selling guns in the first place, you would not be doing it, and so the hypothetical situation is void.

[CuriousDestruction]

legally selling them a gun is legal. but doesnt the fact that they killed people make you an accessory? you provided them with the means... and i'm not asking about anyone. i'm asking YOU. if YOU sold them the gun, would YOU be responsible?

[Obscene Eyedeas]

No u would not be responsible. end of. if i knew when i sold you it that you were going to kill someone then yes

[Sage]

but doesnt the fact that they killed people make you an accessory? you provided them with the means... and i'm not asking about anyone. i'm asking YOU.

Way to not skew the question there, man.

[CuriousDestruction]

Way to not skew the question there, man.

i wanted to make it interesting

[INFERNO]

You would not be responsible for a few reasons. First, during the 5-hour gap from after you sold the gun to before the person started shooting, you had no interaction with the person and could not have done anything to provoke them. If you did provoke them, then the shooting would have occurred right away since they were so volatile. Second, you have no control over the mindset people have prior to buying the gun. If the person wanted to kill people who hurt him/her, then you had no knowledge of that and no control over that. Third, since you sold the gun legally, there was evidence of a gun license and so you assume the person is not going to use the gun for illegal purposes. This one is the weakest of the three reasons.

Legally, you had nothing to do with the killing because you did not know the killing would occur and if you did, you could not prevent it nor warn others. It's like if I sell someone a cup of hot coffee and they splash it on their ex-boyfriend. I had no knowledge that would occur and did not sell them the coffee with that in mind, I sold it so they or someone else would drink it.

Morally and ethically, if you agree that selling the gun makes you an accomplice, then there is a question as to whether everyone is an accomplice. For example, I sell you some shoes, you wear them after purchasing them and go for a run. 5 minutes into the run, you fall and break your arm. Am I responsible? No because I had no way in making you fall nor in aiding your fall. However, if you say that selling the gun means I'm an accomplice, then you're saying I'm at fault for the fall.

Out of all the other factors involved, I am the one to blame and if this is true for all situations, then all other factors should be at fault to, so in a way, everyone is an accomplice to everything. In the gun example, let say I'm A and the shooter is G. This means, somehow I influenced person B who affected C and C affected D and so forth until G. This means everyone in the chain is an accomplice, maybe not to the murdering but an accomplice to something. Furthermore, this means G can blame A through F as being an accomplice even if they're unrelated to the shooting. Moral? Ethical? No and No.