Gun Manufacturers and Responsibility Discussion Board Question

As much as John Allen Muhammad and John Lee Malvo are responsible for their crimes, Bull’s Eye and Bushmaster as a gun shop should also be held responsible. This is because it is their moral obligation to know every detail about their buyers with respect to the law. The law gives a guideline which is a standard that should be used by the dealers of firearms and therefore they failed to examine the safety of their deal with the two killers. Losing the documentation of the firearms also worsens the situation making them fully responsible for the deaths committed by the two killers.

On the other hand, it is ironic to sue a gun manufacturer when certain malicious people commit violence. The thought and action of violence is in the hands of the doer and therefore the Bull’s Eye Shooter Supply Company is not morally responsible for the deaths caused by the gun users. In this case, they would be legally responsible if and only if they have crossed the boundaries beyond which the law prohibited. It would therefore be unfair to charge them for the violence.

Among the three parties put on the weighing gauge, it is clear that only the sellers and the buyers are responsible for the deaths that resulted from the violence. I agree that the seller is responsible because the government had prohibited the selling of firearms to the two men but Bull’s Eye sellers never adhered to the requirement. I also agree the manufacturer is not responsible because their supply was not prohibited by the law as opposed to their buyers who sold to the criminals.