Is Purchase of Black Market Firearms Immoral?

there should be no such thing as "black market firearms"..... everyone has a right to own a gun, they should not have to ask the gov for permission to buy

I guess if the black market made copies of guns that violated another companies rights... that would be immoral


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Clearly not that often no, given the amount of people who ignore the regulatory and license requirements and buy "illegal" firearms.

But yes, most people do not really want to go through all the bother and take the risk of being caged for a few years. That's not in dispute - people factor all these sorts of things into their preferences and actions.

 

Of course they do but they would not see it as the law dictating moral stance - and neither should they

I would have less issue with your poll if it simply read yes/no/other and kept morals out of it because the yes vote looks like you are weak and can only inform your moral stance based on what legislation has been written and there is also an implication that not owning a firearm is immoral

 

Call it a moral stance or whatever else you like - law makes determinations about what one ought to do. I suppose you could say the law is merely the collection of interests behind it dictating their preferences, like everyone else. On this count, I'd agree with you. The problem comes when we start asking ourselves if we ought to obey the law, and under what conditions.

So I'm not so much saying the law is dictating a moral stance, as much as I'm saying that the response we as individuals have to the law is basically a moral question in nature.

That was not my intention. Own or don't own whatever you like.

 

This is a good point, actually morality is quite subjective and affected by culture. So that it's not sure that something illegal is also immoral and that something immoral is also illegal.

In Italy it's illegal to drive a car before of being 18, should be infer that it's immoral to drive a car when you are 17?

In Italy pornography is immoral, but you can buy it substantially everywhere [so it's not illegal to sell pornographic material].

 

To answer the poll I would need a further option: not ethic.

As for myself I consider ethic to respect law [just because the order of our societies is based on the respect of the rules, the so called "social contract"], so that if it becomes illegal to purchase a firearm, I will never buy it on the black market. Period.

 

It may be easy to confuse legal with moral under any system of common law which relies on custom, habit, and that form of tradition of respect for (historical) precedent.

 

Ok, but note that I'm Italian and Italy is a country where Latin Right is at the base of our tradition, not common law [which is more Anglo-Saxon]. So here we are simply observing that culture affects in deep even our conceptualization and awareness of "right".

 

Our system has a Constitution and supreme law of the land upon which the common law must be based, even if only by precedent.

 

You see, Italy has got a Constitution too ... and it's evident that customs cannot be beyond or even against what the Constitution says. Probably, taking the needed time to examine the matter in deep, we could find out that the difference is more in definitions than in substance.

 

I am not sure what you mean. In our case, our Founding Fathers, ordained and established our secular and temporal morals as civil Persons in our republic. Are you saying that is may be difficult to find representatives to government who are willing to bear true witness to our supreme law of the land?

 

Well, no, not that, to be more clear for an English speaker, I'm thinking to the difference between Common Law and Civil Law. In good substance, within the limits of the Constitution, laws are the written codes [there are real "codes" in countries with systems based on Civil Law] which the judges have to follow. The jurisprudence here has got a limited value, limited to the duration of a section of the High Court [Cassazione] in Rome. A court of low level [first degree] knows that a certain section of the High Court will judge in a certain way, so its judgment will keep in count that jurisprudence [positive and superior].

 

I am sure there is a difference between that and common law; but it seems it may be more procedural than an actual distinction from common law based on precedent. In the US, both law and equity are combined. Persons may also petition for redress of grievances. Not all of the electorate of the United States is well versed in the actual practices of the Judiature and must be able to explain themselves as best they are able, in a reasonable manner.

 

Yes, I think it's about how to apply laws to cases [trials].
In Italy [and in general in countries where the Civil Law system exists] the precedents are not so influential on the single trial. It's the way the High Court is known to evaluate sentences to be influential.

I make an example, in an Italian low level Court it will be rare to hear a lawyer basing the defense of a suspect on the base of precedent sentences issued by other Courts or even by that Court. But that lawyer could underline how the High Court had "cassato" [cancelled] a sentence which was very similar to the one which the Court of the trial is going to issue.

May be it's the direction of the jurisprudence to be different:

it's not

"the other Court in a similar case did ..."

but

"when an other Court did something similar the High Court canceled its sentence"
[or modified it, or confirmed it ... anyway the accent is put on the activity of the High Court in similar cases, not on the sentences of the other Courts].

 

I suppose so. It would be easier for us if we had a Constitutional office of public defender to help the citizenry regarding any infringements to their Individual Liberty.