Samuel colt is long dead and he was a piker compared to Solyndra. Your worrying about things Sam Cold did well over 100 years ago is akin to a white person here in the USA being blamed for slavery. Which by the way is a real good example of a looter shakedown.

Many people in their responses to the question regarding investing in gun manufacturers have oversimplified this into "A gun is just a tool." Of course, a gun is just a tool, but investing in any particular gun manufacturer (or any other company) is a more complicated matter. For instance, I had no idea until I started this investigation that Samuel Colt was a crony capitalist of the highest order.

Please read
http://finance.townhall.com/columnist...

One of the companies I had been considering investing in was Colt. Look elsewhere in this post for the word "Solyndra", and you'll see why investing in a gun manufacturer is not equal to investing in a gun.

You mentioned the "Peacemaker". For me, buying Colt stock would be a prime example of what I meant by buying a gun manufacturer stock that would contradict some of my other values. The web site in the link below called Colt the "Solyndra of its day".

"Lucky for Colt (and the generations that would later benefit from his contribution to the industry), the war with Mexico broke out in the 1840’s, and Samuel Colt saw his opportunity. The aspiring gunsmith quickly found an audience with the US Government for his innovative firearm designs. Realizing the full potential of crony-capitalism, the entrepreneur almost went broke entertaining politicians, generals, and frontiersmen. He was, undoubtedly, the Solyndra lobbyist of his day. With the helpful contract from America’s military, Colt quickly etched his name in America as the creator of the “gun that won the West”."

http://finance.townhall.com/columnist...

You are participating in the free market (or what's left of it). You have no control where the firearms are sold in the secondary market. If that were your criteria, you'd hardly be able to buy any product that is exported or imported. It's good to be on the positive moral side, short of being stupid.

Excuse me, but I asked the question, so I damn well know what I meant in my question. Don't even think about telling me what I meant in my own question. If you re-read what I initially wrote, I wrote, "Am I supporting statist thugs?" Not only did you ignore this part of the question, you twisted my words into "Increased gun sales do not lead to increased chaos". I never said anything of the sort, nor did I imply it. If you re-read what I wrote, I blamed the recent chaos on the "looter/moocher cabal", not on gun sales.

I was merely making an example to illustrate my point.

You said..." I am seriously wondering whether I would be furthering the cause of those whom I do not support." Like Who?

Thanks.

This is not such a case. I am seriously wondering whether I would be furthering the cause of those whom I do not support.

And remember a popular 6-gun of the Old West was called "The Peacemaker", aptly named when used in self-defense or by legitimate officers of the law against outlaws, to "keep the peace". But it's still a tool, in the wrong hands, it could also be called a "lawbreaker".

"Morality" arguments are usually utilized by the looters to get you to do things that are in conflict with your interests. They all tend to revolve around "Self Sacrifice" of some sort. So the answer is....form an objectivist standpoint, morality does not come in to the picture.

A defining attribute of a moral action is that it be a chosen action. Whether an action is good or bad is how rational it is. Those who go by gut reactions without thought are not being moral but are amoral. Those who purposely act irrationally are immoral: a category of moral action which is motivated by a hatred of life and the Universe in general.

The poster should understand that what others do is not the defining criteria of moral action. You have to decide whether your action will cause someone to use force against someone else. I have never been good at sales because I tend to tell the purchaser up front what can go wrong with a product and not what is good about the product because I would be transferring my troubles to someone else, despite the others wrong choice for buying the product. That is my only golden rule to not do to others what I don't like. It is nice and not pushy like the usual Golden Rule. If you are afraid that your investment will cause more deaths or injuries because of your action, please do not invest though any causation on your part would be nearly non-existent. Would you invest in a drug company? There, besides possibly saving lives, you might consider all those who would somehow abuse the use of the drugs by not following directions or being careless around children. A friend of mine just recently thought that a child proof heart drug container was OK around a 3 year old. Kid need her stomach pumped.
Probably the most bad moral action you can take is to invest due to that going-to-get-rich emotion behind most gambling type investments rather than an investment towards creating something new and useful.

NO, that was not the concern expressed in the question. But supporting guns certainly ignores those oppressors.

The "morality" of working with nuclear weapons gets into the nuclear industry, as a whole. Without the weapons research, we might not have had nuclear energy or nuclear medicine.

There are any number of offshoots to a particular industry...some moral, some not. I'm not sure we can completely have one without the other.

One other thing...firearms can and are used to feed hungry families...moral, or not?

What if you were investing in a company who manufactured legal guns, which were then sold to a government who "fast and furious'd" them over the border into Mexico and they killed people with them.

It would depend on how much you think your investment would have changed the outcome with or without your involvement, perhaps.

I know this is a rather extreme example, possibly more about "chain of responsibility" or something, but if you are asking about 'initiating force', how far down the chain does it go from your investment, and the actual use of the product for an immoral purpose?

OK, I guess I have too sensitive a guilt meter, a consequence of being raised amongst religionists.

The concern is over supporting the statist oppressors.

That is a fine question.

This is exactly what my question was addressing. Thanks.

If Hillary is elected, which is very likely, the gun manufacturers will continue to manufacture at full rate. She will be building up 3-letter agencies to a war footing. The intended enemy, of course, is us.

Lots of overthinking here . KISS.

same faulty argument as policies against guns...no gun ever went looking for someone to harm or kill...it is not a conscious being...nor are the ingredients in the gun responsible for the violence a gun may result in...so you can invest in electricity, materials, and the bullets fired from the gun...without violating "initiation of force"

the 2nd amendment is a poorly written summary of John Locke and David Hume's philosophical posits on natural rights of the individual to individually defend themselves by whatever means necessary...

i trade the markets for profit, whether they are going up or down...i will short the NYSE at the same time i pledge alliegence, shoot off fireworks, eat apple pie, and bring marshmellows to the bondfire of crashing markets, with chocolate, and graham crackers and celebrate the 4th of july...while proclaiming "I Am John Galt"...

As I sometimes like to do, I'll comment before reading the others, and most likely after.

I se no inherent moral conflict, in the sense that even if inspired by increasing chaos and threats of further gun control, I would think most of the new profits of the gun manufacturers are to individuals for legitimate self-defense purposes.

A possible exception might be a manufacturer who only supplied the government, or worse, a major arms manufacturer who sold clearly offensive weapons either to our government or other to promote immoral conflicts. If one could identify such companies. To me the "military-industrial complex" is hardly a myth, and I would not want to invest in it.

Cain killed Abel with a rock...as the legend goes.

It is moral??for an objectivist to invest in gun stocks ad long as heshe invests equally in gun barrels and triggers. Otherwise heshe is promoting an unfinished product that only a left winger would want.