From the grave: Noonan on gun manufacturers' moral cooperation in evil
The current gun culture may or may not be a moral evil. It depends on the intent of the firearm's possession. There is no evil in hunting. There is evil in expecting to use it in a race war - either impending or immediate. Gun manufacturers who are invincibly ignorant of purchaser motives or who believe in their hearts that their products are used to repel invasion and insurrection (rather than participate in one) may or may not be engaged in even moral evil - especially if this is how the weapons are intended to be used. They are guilty of personal (or corporate) evil or cooperation with evil if they consciously support, or even promote, purchase and use of firearms in insurrection or a race war. Such a question used to be academic. It no longer is in the Trump and post-Trump world.
Doing good or evil, including on capital punishment, is secondary to their responsibilities to the Constitution within the political theory it embodies. Natural law, especially the Catholic point of view on it, is not toheguiding principle here. Natural rights are, including the contractual nature of government. The three essential rights are not being executed by the government without due process, and not having liberty and property infringed upon without representation, aka the right to be left alone and protected from the biases of one's fellows.
Gun ownership, unless for bad intent, is a protected liberty. In the social contract, we exchange some measure of liberty (not killing fellow citizens) and property (through taxation) to be kept safe by the government, so long as this does not interfere with basic rights. If gun ownership represents a specific public danger, it can be infringed upon. I suggest either enacting regulations to Federal Acquisition Regulations to prevent manufacturers from getting government contracts if they sell arms and ammunition to civilians. This can be done without an Act of Congress.
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