Ethical Question

[Rocketmedic40]

Sort of inspired by, but not limited to, the ongoing events in the Middle East:

Would you deliberately seek to own a gun or tool surplused from an organization that (likely) committed human-rights abuses?

For example, there’s a lot of third-generation S&W semiautomatics coming back in and floating around places like Robinson Trading Post in decent shape. As a firearm, there’s nothing wrong with them, and most have been carried a lot and shot a little. But in the back of my head, I don’t know if I’m super-comfortable carrying something that was used as a facilitator for what I personally don’t agree with. For the same reasons, I haven’t picked up any German Russian-capture milsurps…as much as I love them (and I do), I don’t want them enough to buy them.

I don’t believe in ghosts or bloody nightmares, but I also don’t want Bull Connor’s nightstick or the Trapdoor from Wounded Knee in my karma…

What are your thoughts?

 

[NYlakesider]

Sort of inspired by, but not limited to, the ongoing events in the Middle East:

Would you deliberately seek to own a gun or tool surplused from an organization that (likely) committed human-rights abuses?

For example, there’s a lot of third-generation S&W semiautomatics coming back in and floating around places like Robinson Trading Post in decent shape. As a firearm, there’s nothing wrong with them, and most have been carried a lot and shot a little. But in the back of my head, I don’t know if I’m super-comfortable carrying something that was used as a facilitator for what I personally don’t agree with. For the same reasons, I haven’t picked up any German Russian-capture milsurps…as much as I love them (and I do), I don’t want them enough to buy them.

I don’t believe in ghosts or bloody nightmares, but I also don’t want Bull Connor’s nightstick or the Trapdoor from Wounded Knee in my karma…

What are your thoughts?

Your humanizing a inanimate object.

You want something go get it, I would be more concerned with condition not its possible use.

Now if it came with serious provenance that it was owned by a certain real bad person, that is another category. Your conscience will have to be your guide!

 

[IAM Rand]

Don't blame an inanimate object. Do you specifically know it was used for wrong or killed someone? Give it a good home and don't worry about it.

 

[Rudi]

That was then. This is now. Not an issue for me.

 

[Jon651]

From a more optimistic perspective, if you purchase a firearm that is preferred by a group you do not like doesn't that mean that they don't have it?

 

[wuluf]

Obviously, some people collect items with historical significance. I'm not a collector and, as a child of Holocaust survivors, I would never want any Nazi memorabilia. But I don't fault those who do. Except for actual Nazis, of course!

 

[2500]

Reminds me of a story I heard back when I was going to church. Pastors wife was asked about accepting money from a criminal. She replied, "The devil's had it long enough"

 

[tomhenry]

What are your thoughts?

My thought is that these hypothetical philosophical meanderings are a waste of time and bandwidth.

My thought is I don't care. Either way. I don't care about a gun's history or about events that might not have ever happened.

 

[Autonomous]

Much ado about nothing.

 

[Denverd0n]

If I'm buying it to use it, then the only thing I care about is its functionality. If I'm buying it as a collectible, then I would care about whether or not it is within the category of things that I collect, and whether or not its provenance will add to its value. Otherwise, I can't imagine any reason to care who might have owned or used it in the past. I really don't see it as a matter that touches on my ethics at all.

 

[Muss Muggins]

Who used to own these 3rd Gen pistols? Asking for a friend . . .

 

[Onomea]

"Would you deliberately seek to own a gun or tool surplused from an organization that (likely) committed human-rights abuses?"

I would not go out of my way to search for and find a gun or tool that had that background, but I would not be dissuaded from buying it or owning it because it happened to have that background if it was a gun or tool that appealed to me.

To me, it isn't a question of ethics.

 

[Rustyt1953]

Karma is derived from Eastern Mysticism which I take no truck from.

A gun is no more responsible for its users actions than Lizzie Bordon's axe was.

 

[rockquarry]

Don't look for something to worry about.

 

[Muss Muggins]

Karma is derived from Eastern Mysticism which I take no truck from.

A gun is no more responsible for its users actions than Lizzie Bordon's axe was.

I wouldn't mind having that axe. I've got a Coly Pony Pocketlite used in bar gunfight. The owner was exonerated by coroner's jury of homicide, and received his pistol back after being convicted of misdemeanor CCW. Due to the trouble the pistol had caused him, the owner sold it to my father, on my father's condition that the owner provide a providence letter citing the incident. I still have both . . .

 

[silicosys4]

I bought a pawnshop PPK that turned out to be a WW2 SS-issued gun. Didn't bother me, I even shot it a few times before I sold it.
I am pretty sure I lost at least some relatives to the Nazi occupation in WW2.
History is history. I also have a WW2 1911a1 that was in the European theater.

I did pass on buying an Ed Brown one time that had been a suicide gun. The finish was scratched at the muzzle from the prior owners teeth and the shop wanted way too much considering the finish damage.

 

[WCCPHD]

Assigning human characteristics to inanimate objects is what the anti-gun people do, i.e. gun violence.

Assigning the potential rights violations of a former owner to an inanimate object is the same thing. Its a false narrative and is the currency of those who operate solely on emotion and are devoid of logic.

There are a lot of really bad things going on in the world today, worrying about this is a waste of brain cells.

The best advice I can give is "Don't like it, don't buy it."

 

[Bald1]

Buy the gun not the story……. That said, I’d love to own the gun that sent Bin Laden to the promise land

 

[Matt_X]

No. I delibrately sought firearms whose history or association with history appealed to me. So that was mostly US milsurps, and if they had later served with our allies or US police service, that added to the interest. There was an interesting one that came out of Etheopia whose markings indicated it served with some bad actors. Interesting, but not for my collection. Someone else wants it, either because for its history or to turn it into a shooter, that's fine.

Objects just like places can be a connection with the past.

 

[The Big D]

Sort of inspired by, but not limited to, the ongoing events in the Middle East:

Would you deliberately seek to own a gun or tool surplused from an organization that (likely) committed human-rights abuses?

For example, there’s a lot of third-generation S&W semiautomatics coming back in and floating around places like Robinson Trading Post in decent shape. As a firearm, there’s nothing wrong with them, and most have been carried a lot and shot a little. But in the back of my head, I don’t know if I’m super-comfortable carrying something that was used as a facilitator for what I personally don’t agree with. For the same reasons, I haven’t picked up any German Russian-capture milsurps…as much as I love them (and I do), I don’t want them enough to buy them.

I don’t believe in ghosts or bloody nightmares, but I also don’t want Bull Connor’s nightstick or the Trapdoor from Wounded Knee in my karma…

What are your thoughts?

I think you’re confusing “ethics” with “morals.”

That said…and as another noted…it’s an inanimate object.

Be safe.