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by avar 2917 days ago
From the article:

    > "calculated ignorance of illegal
    > activity is not an acceptable excuse"
I.e. the court's argument is that he was perfectly aware that he was building these for drug cartels. If we take that judgement at face value I don't see the problem with this. You don't get to wink wink nudge nudge your way out of being a knowing accomplice to a crime.
1 comments
sbarre 2917 days ago
By that logic, shouldn't gun companies be prosecuted for the crimes committed by the drug cartels who use their weapons?

Given the current state of affairs in the US and the publicly available statistics on gun crime, one could argue that continuing to manufacture guns is knowingly supplying criminals, no?

It's a slippery slope..

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pc86 2917 days ago
A better analogy is an FFL knowingly selling firearms to cartel members, which is already illegal.
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gmiller123456 2917 days ago
No. The guy in the article wasn't prosecuted for every hidden compartment he made, just the ones he made that he was well aware were going to be used for illegal activity. Just like guns, the vast majority of them won't be used for anything illegal, even though some of them will be. But the moment you knowingly and willingly facilitate criminal activity, you become a party to the crime. That's true with guns, secret compartments, candy bars, or anything else.
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avar 2917 days ago
That's absurd. The legal test is whether a reasonable person could have known that they were an accomplice to a crime.

The article makes it clear that this man knew he was building these for cartels, and tried to weasel his way out by claiming he'd never seen drugs with his own eyes, but had seen almost a million in cash from some very shady guys.

This would be like running a "Taxi service" that catered to Balaclava wearing gentleman exiting a bank, claiming that you had no idea you were helping with a robbery. Perhaps they're just really ugly businessmen in a hurry? Would that mean nobody could drive a Taxi anymore? Of course not.

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sbarre 2916 days ago
You were downvoted but you make a good point, and I think your example is better than mine.. Point taken.
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