1. a. What did Robert Hass mean when he said “The nature of the product demands that its distribution be handled in such a way as to minimize illegal and unintended use”?
b. Do you agree with Hass? Explain.
c. Do gun manufacturers have a social responsibility for their products beyond the demands of the market and the law? Explain.
2. Following the Newtown murders, Cerberus Capital Management, a very large investment firm, decided to seek a buyer for one of its companies, Freedom Group, which makes the Bushmaster rifle that was used in the school shootings. Apparently, the California State Teachers’ Retirement System, which has $750 million invested with Cerberus, encouraged the sale. Cerberus said the sale was designed to meet its obligations to investors. Following Newtown, Dick’s Sporting Goods suspended sales of what it called modern sporting rifles, and Walmart reportedly removed ads from its website for guns similar to the one used in Newtown.
a. Do those decisions appear to represent a shareholder or stakeholder approach to management? Explain.
3. Law professors Lucinda M. Finley and John G. Culhane, writing in The New York Times, recently advocated imposing a new tax on gun manufacturers and importers. The tax would be applied to each gun sold, and the proceeds would be used to create a compensation fund for innocent gun violence victims. What do you think of that idea? Explain.
Does the gun industry bear any portion of the blame and responsibility for Adam Lanza’s decision to murder 20 children and 6 adult staff members at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, on December 14, 2012? Lanza, who also killed his mother and himself, carried into the school a Bushmaster XM15 assault rifle along with two handguns. Efforts to pass new federal gun control legislation have, at this writing, been unsuccessful, but many scholars and journalists have suggested that the firearms industry should police itself as a means of reducing gun violence. They argue that the industry has been negligent in failing to take measures that would reduce the distribution of guns to criminals.