How does this apply to anthrax ?
I'd request you to explain this a little more, because I fail to see the similarities between anthrax on the one hand and child porn on the other hand.
Having anthrax didn't hurt anyone. Seeing a child porn pic didn't hurt anyone.
The wrongful act occurred before. If someone sells anthrax, they should be immediately reported and turned over for trying to spread something used entirely for terrorism. If you found kiddie porn, you need to immediately help stop its perpetuation.
In theory, suppose I was this chemist who wanted to exercise my mind and create and keep anthrax safe in an industrial container I made. Who is going to know unless I give anyone a reason to search my house? It's just a vial of anthrax in my house not doing anything. I'm a responsible owner of anthrax by never exposing it to anyone who could misuse it. I may be someone who wishes to find a counter agent.
The individual selling anthrax or distributing kiddie porn is up to no good. So buying anthrax, regardless of intent, and letting that person go along their way is what's wrong. Not the mere possession of anthrax.
A Wal Mart clerk selling guns is just doing a job. They aren't trying to hurt anyone. So buying a gun isn't in the same league as buying anthrax. It's not contributing to terrorism or child molestation. It just makes that store a couple hundred dollars richer.
If it helps, I'll try another analogy.
I would say buying from a shifty pawn shop is worse than buying a gun from an established business. We know the pawn shop is contributing to theft. The store selling guns is a legit business that has no intent to contribute to societal harm.
In this case, owning a diamond ring from a pawn shop which you know bought the ring from a thief is worse than buying a gun from a local hunting store.
Even though owning a diamond ring should certainly be a right, what isn't a right is knowingly contributing to something immoral.
So in the case of anthrax or kiddie porn, think of it as buying from a shady pawn shop where you knowingly contribute to something immoral and is therefore not a right.
This is why regular firearms can never be placed in the same category as buying military grade weapons, tools used by terrorists, or any of the other extreme killing weapons. They aren't sold and used for the same reason regular guns are.
I want as many things to be considered a right as possible and the only time in which it should no longer be considered a right is when there is no other solution to an existing problem.
The very existence of heavily armed cultures with few gun related issues tells us there is an alternate solution. As far as I know, there is no place on earth that thrives with the legal sale of antrax.
Edit:
Just another random point.
I could argue the
ownership of guns belongs in civilized society. I'm not quite sure cause I haven't completely thought this through.
In a world of animals, might makes right. A group of thugs could rape an unarmed woman.
In a world of dignity and civilized culture, only the upstanding female citizen could own a gun and a group of thugs wouldn't be armed and could not use brute force to hurt a woman.
In this way it seems like guns actually belong in a first world culture because responsibility and contributing to society is what grants someone additional power.
