If you lend your brother, who you know is on antidepressants, a long extension cord he tells you is for his back patio - and he hangs himself with it, are you ready to be accused of being culpable for your brothers death?
I dunno about social media companies but I quite agree that the party who got the gunman the gun should share the punishment for the crime.
Firearms should be titled and insured, and the owner should have an imposed duty to secure, and the owner ought to face criminal penalty if the firearm titled to them was used by someone else to commit a crime, either they handed a killer a loaded gun or they inadequately secured a firearm which was then stolen to be used in committing a crime, either way they failed their responsibility to society as a firearm owner and must face consequences for it.
Minotaur@lemm.ee 8 months ago
jkrtn@lemmy.ml 8 months ago
Oh, it turns out an extension cord has a side use that isn’t related to its primary purpose. What’s the analogous innocuous use of a semiautomatic handgun?
Minotaur@lemm.ee 8 months ago
Self defense? You don’t have to be a 2A diehard to understand that it’s still a legal object. What’s the “innocuous use” of a VPN? Or a torrenting client? Should we imprison everyone who ever sends a link about one of these to someone who seems interested in their use?
jkrtn@lemmy.ml 8 months ago
You’re deliberately ignoring the point that the primary use of a semiautomatic pistol is killing people, whether self-defense or mass murder.
Should you be culpable for giving your brother an extension cord if he lies that it is for the porch? Not really.
Should you be culpable for giving your brother a gun if he lies that he needs it for self defense? IDK the answer, but it’s absolutely not equivalent.
It is a higher level of responsibility, you know lives are in danger if you give them a tool for killing. I don’t think it’s unreasonable if there is a higher standard for loaning it out or leaving it unsecured.
rambaroo@lemmynsfw.com 8 months ago
Knowingly manipulating people into suicide is already a crime and people have already been found guilty of doing it. So the answer is obviously yes. If you knowingly encourage a vulnerable person to commit suicide, you can and should be held accountable for manslaughter.
PhlubbaDubba@lemm.ee 8 months ago
Did he also use it as improvised ammunition to shoot up the local elementary school with the chord to warrant it being considered a firearm?
I’m more confused where I got such a lengthy extension chord from! Am I an event manager? Do I have generators I’m running cable from? Do I get to meet famous people on the job? Do I specialize in fairground festivals?
Minotaur@lemm.ee 8 months ago
…. Aside from everything else, are you under the impression that a 10-15 ft extension cord is an odd thing to own…?
solrize@lemmy.world 8 months ago
This guy seems to have bought the gun legally at a gun store, after filling out the forms and passing the background check. You may be thinking of the guy in Maine whose parents bought him a gun when he was obviously dangerous. They were just convicted of involuntary manslaughter for that, iirc.
PhlubbaDubba@lemm.ee 8 months ago
Yup, I was just addressing the point of tangential arrest, sometimes it is well justified.
solrize@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Well you were talking about charging the gun owner if someone else commits a crime with the gun. That’s unrelated to this case where the shooter was the gun owner.
The lawsuit here is about radicalization but if we’re pursuing companies who do that, I’d start with Fox News.