🚀 go-pugleaf

LongBow wrote:
> dhammond@cadvision.com (Dave Hammond) wrote:
> >mkhughe@north.nsis.com (mkhughe) says:
> >>troyw@praxis.net (Troy Williams) wrote:
> >>>Trying to take gun makers to court

> >>Hey why doesn't anyone take Rope,Pipe,Car,Pharmecutical,
> >>et al to court over deaths/suicides do to their wares????

Because that is absoluely insane.  When I grow a crop of barley, and
then it's used to make a beer which a drunk driver uses to run over an
old man, I am not responsible for the driver's actions.  The beer makers
aren't responsible for the driver's actions.  The auto manufactorer
isn't responsible for the driver's actions. The driver's parents or
spouse isn't responsible for the driver's actions, nor is the old man. 
THE DRIVER ALONE IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE DEATH HE CAUSED (though if his
friends allowed him to leave the scene drunk they are also at fault). 
Only those directly involved with the circumstances (friends, driver,
victim) have any chance to avoid the situation.  The victim likely had
little notice of the peril.  Only the driver and anyone who allowed the
driver to drive is at fault.  The car maker can't be responsible for a
man leaving a party drunk and happening to use their car for the crime. 
The manufactorer wasn't at the party.  They never saw him leave drunk. 
They never drove the car that committed the crime.

In the same way, if I own a company making rope and some idiot hangs a
guy with that rope, I am not responsible.  I sell hundreds of thousands
of my ropes a year.  My company cannot and should not be asked to
monitor the use of all my ropes all the time.  As well as violating
privacy, the cost would be astronomical.

If I design a new type of gun, and get a patent for it, and start my own
company, and suddenly my guns are in use for crimes, I AM NOT
RESPONSIBLE.  If Smith & Weston guns make up 72% of all shooting deaths
in Winnipeg between 1986 and 1995, you cannot argue that Smith & Weston
should be financially responsible for those 72%.  One I make my gun and
sell it, it is no longer my responsibility to watch over its use (we do
have laws limiting who may purchase a gun, but if the information given
is forged or inaccurate it is still not the maker's responsibility --
and if someone within the criteria then commits a crime, how was I to
know?)

> >$$ Probably because that would be the natural extention of a train of
> >   logic, a commodity that seems to be in short supply in the on-going
> >   gun debate;-)

Logic should tell you that every person in this country commits actions
which affect others, and that it should be I and I alone who should bear
responsibility for what I do.  If I pass blame onto the store and the
store passes blame to the manufactorer and the manufactorer passes blame
to the steel producers, where does it end?  Personal responsibility must
take hold, as we cannot simply accuse the next person in line of being
responsible for what we do.

-- 
Lars Ormberg
(no, you're thinking of Nathan)
larso@gpu.srv.ualberta.ca

* The treachery of a Queen.  The courage of a Captain.  The Destiny
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