A drugs company might make cyanide capsules, that are very difficult or impossible to trace, and advertise them as tools for murder. Do you think free society should tolerate that? I’m not sure.
Key word you used was “advertise”. In a free society said company would be shooting itself in the foot. No law or other intervention would be required to quickly and efficiently impact their business. Anyone known to associate with the company would also be at risk.
The other point is the difference between murder and defense. Just about any object could potentially be used for murder. Some objects are more effective than others. That doesn’t shift the responsibility from the murderer to the company however. Items often have more than one use.
What do you mean by “tolerate”?
It’s not a matter of whether the free society “should” tolerate it, it’s a matter of “will” it tolerate that.
The CIA has, in fact, produced just such pills and zillions of other murderous devices. The liability associated with producing and selling such equipment would determine if it would be tolerated or not. I am pretty skeptical about the legitimate security applications of these kinds of assassination/murder devices. Unless there’s a genuine market for their use, the liablity could not be profitably borne. But in the world in which we actually exist, liability does not limit such devices because the government is immune from prosecution by its own courts, so we have them whether we like it or not.
Clayton -
If you ever go to a computer show, they sell hacking software. It’s not illegal to have and own, it is illegal depending on what you do with it. Cyanide is a little different, but it falls under the same principle, right?
A liberal attitude of tolerance towards how people use their own property generally breeds a healthy and free society. Market forces will, however, tend to make undesireable behavior such as this very costly. Like Clayton mentioned, this company would be near uninsurable unless there was a serious market demand for murder pills–and if there were such a demand for murder pills, its unclear whether this society would be able to manage much longer without killing itself off.
also, I imagine that if a company sold murder pills, it would be a small operation which existed among the dregs of society. Chances are, it would be neither tolerated nor outlawed because polite society would be unaware of its existence. Its not like its going to be Pfizer airing commercials during the Super Bowl for this stuff.
This.