Most Americans like to consider themselves to be good, conscientious, and caring citizens, especially in regards to their everyday interactions, and when things go wrong and they get upset with something so that they do something ugly, that this is considered to be the exception to their normal everyday behavior and never the rule. So that, the basic feeling is that our laws in regards to crime and punishment are fair laws in the sense that when somebody commits a crime against another person, for instance, such as assault and battery, or rape, or murder that it is justified that they are punished for having done so.
The above seems to make sense, that is to say, when somebody commits a crime against another person, that they that committed the crime should be punished for it. However, modern life is far more complicated than we might imagine, for not only are there in almost any given situation, often real mitigating circumstances, but the responsibility of the ultimate bad act, itself, may not entirely be in the hands of the person committing it.
For instance, look at the vociferous debate about gun control, so that those that decry all the gun violence that is committed in America, make a strong argument, that the very nature of guns which allows people to basically be able to point and shoot at their target with lethal effectiveness, is the reason why we have so many deaths and injuries via gun violence, each and every year. That is to say, that guns are extremely effective in their purpose, which is in essence, the killing of others, and that the abundance of such lethal weapons in the hands of those that are less morally adept than others, is a significant reason why so many people are killed each and every year via gun violence. The lawful response to such is to incarcerate the purveyors of gun violence in prison, while within that argument, there is at its core, the belief that the manufacture, distribution, and sales of these weapons should be severely curtailed. On the other hand, the defenders of our current gun laws hide behind either the 2nd Amendment or like to come up with cute little sayings, that guns don't kill, that people do, but in actuality, it is the gun used by people, that does indeed do the killing.
Further to the point, guns don't just create themselves out of thin air, for they are first designed, than manufactured, before being distributed and sold through gun stores or gun shows; in addition to the fact that necessary parts, machines, and infrastructure has to be available in order for all of this to readily occur. This means, that those that make and sell the parts that are utilized in order to construct handguns by gun manufacturers, as well as the final manufacturers of these legal weapons, ultimately have a responsibility that they must and should be held accountable to. That is to say, those that are in the process that enables a gun to be made, be it the purchasing of goods, the design of such goods, the creation of the goods, the quality control of such goods, all are contributing to the final product, which is a firearm, that is a lethal weapon, of which, for a certainty, is used in this country for exactly the task it was designed for.
This means, that if you are in any part of the gun industry, periphery or not, that you as an individual, have a responsibility to the ultimate and very predictable outcome of the product that you aid and abet, whether you wish to own up to that fact or not, for that is your choice, but at least be cognizant of it, because that is the truth.