150

A Monday night sighting of the convicted killer who escaped from an eastern Pennsylvania prison nearly two weeks ago jolted the surrounding community into high alert and prompted school closures Tuesday, after police warned the inmate now has a weapon.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] Katana314@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

Let's say you're a reactor engineer, and you're safeguarding a package of plutonium being unloaded from a truck while some others go to get equipment to move it. You look at a particularly fluffy cloud in the sky for 25 minutes, then look down and the plutonium is gone. You apologize to your superiors about the oversight, not knowing what criminal might have trespassed in the area. Then, terrorists blow up a city with a dirty bomb.

Are you a terrorist directly responsible for the deaths of thousands of people? No. Are you still partly responsible, enough that you should lose any potential jobs in nuclear engineering? Absolutely. Carrying dangerous items bears responsibility for their safeguarding.

[-] Kalcifer@lemm.ee 1 points 1 year ago

Your example is fundamentally flawed. Plutonium on its own does not create the threat of a nuclear bomb -- plutonium is used in the manufacturing of nuclear bombs. The only threat of plutonium would be the levels of radiation that it would produce, as such, one would need to make sure that the plutonium is properly shielded in order to protect the public.

That being said, I do understand the point that you are trying to make, and I do agree with it -- if one looks at things through the perspective of the non-aggression principle, an argument could certainly be made that there exists examples of items whose mere existence is a threat to the safety of others. For example, stockpiling large amounts of fertilizer (e.g. ANFO), improper storage, and handling of dangerous pathogens, nuclear bombs, etc. These examples, by their mere existence, creates a threat to the livelihood those around it, as such, an argument could certainly be made that they should be regulated by law to ensure the safety of the surrounding public; however, in general, I do not see firearms as falling within this category, or, at the very least, it heavily depends on context. I would look at it from the perspective of whether or not the situation at hand constitutes reckless endangerment. For example, say you leave, unattended, a loaded firearm on a public bench. This could be argued to constitute reckless endangerment as the firearm could easily be accidentally discharged by an unassuming passerby -- since an item in the public domain could certainly be expected to be interacted with by a member of the public -- thereby creating a threat to the safety of others -- the individual whom is the owned of that firearm could thus be considered as responsible for endangering others. Another example would be leaving a loaded firearm unattended in a residence with children around. This could be argued as negligence for the safety of the child, and could be legally treated as such. However, if your firearm is in a location that, on its own, creates no immediate threat to the safety of others, and the only way for it to become unsafe if it is taken from that originally safe location by an individual who is not reasonably expected to interact with it -- e.g. theft, and trespass -- why should one be responsible for that outcome?

this post was submitted on 12 Sep 2023
150 points (95.7% liked)

News

23669 readers
3341 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS