Laws are weird, at least in modern times.

The idea of a law was to keep society safe, and to punish those who threaten that safety. It’s a nice concept.

But punishment of lawbreaking doesn’t always hold steady. I recently learned that computer programmers can be charged with crimes they didn’t commit, simply because their code was used to commit said crime.

Say, for example, someone plays around a writes the code for a computer virus, but does nothing with it. They built it for fun, they see how that code can disrupt their own computer and they leave it at that.

Then, by whatever means, some hacker gets hold of said virus and uses it to shut down a big bank for a few days.

By the laws of some countries, the person who wrote the original virus will be charged as part of the crime.

Yet, this rule doesn’t apply in all situations. When some kid murders a dozen kids in a school with an AR-15, ArmaLite isn’t held accountable for building the weapon. Weapon manufacturers throw their arms in the air and claim “We just built it, we aren’t responsible for how it’s used.”

And I agree.

But why doesn’t that apply to all?

Money, obviously. Weapons manufacturers have far more capital to spend on lobbying the government than computer nerds who write code in their parent’s basements.

This is the modern legal system in a nutshell.