The Box - what would you do?

[IanKennedy]

Wouldn't that make the dealer an accessory to murder?

Quite possibly but is that at all relevant. We're asking if you are going to kill the man with the box does that extend to other devices of Murder. Given that you are not law enforcement the details of what if any laws are being broken are not relevant.

[Mikey]

Vigilantism is illegal also, so I think the legality of the actions involved is probably right out the window for the purposes of this conversation.

[RK_Striker_JK_5]

No. I will not kill the gun salesman because the gun is not necessarily being used for murder. The Box IS/ More to the point, any person who offers it is scum and should be beaten.

[Mikey]

In our latest hypothetical example, the gun is being used for murder.

[Vic]

I think that the point is that the salesman does know what the gun is going to be used for.

[Graham Kennedy]

Has anybody seen the Nic Cage movie Lord of War? It addresses this very question.

Cage is an arms dealer who specialises in finding dubiously legal means to get around arms embargoes. Many of the events are based on real life, though no one person was responsible for them.

In the movie Cage takes the position that he's not responsible for what is done with the weapons he sells. But that line is cut very thin at times. In one scene he's sitting with a guy negotiating over two truckloads of guns and ammunition. Right behind the guy are a few dozen of his men, waving machetes as they drive in circles round a refugee camp, preventing anybody from leaving - they hack to death one woman who tries. It's utterly, abundantly clear that as soon as they have the arms they are going to slaughter the whole camp's population. Yet Cage continues to maintain that it's simply not his concern.

It's a great movie, with one of the best opening sequences I've ever seen.

[kostmayer]

Lord of War is one of my favourite films. Nicholas Cage is far from my favourite actor, but in this he does a great job of making you sympathise with such an immoral character.