Am I My Brother's Killer?

I have been thinking a lot lately about responsibility. Specifically, two recent events have got me to thinking about the point where individual responsibilty ends and corporate responsibility begins.

Last week, a funeral was held in Newmarket for Constable Robert Plunkett, a York Region Police officer who was killed in the line of duty. He was in the process of apprehending a young man who was stealing an air bag out of a stolen vehicle when the thief panicked and accidentally killed him.

A day later, two people were killed and six were wounded when gunfire raked a Vancouver restaurant. Vancouver police have said the shooting was gang-related, and that several of the victims were known to them.

So how do these events get how thinking about corporate responsibility?

It should be apparent to everyone that the thief who killed Constable Plunkett and the gunmen who shot the restaurant patrons are responsible for their actions. They are responsible for the actual acts that caused death and they are responsible for choosing to take part in criminal activities. Possibly, the two dead Vancouver men are also responsible for their own fate, if they were in fact criminals and if the act was in fact part of a gang war. That is the easy part.

The corporate responsibility lies in the people who provide the rationale for the crimes. The car thief was specifically attempting to steal the vehicle's airbag, which he would then resell to a disreputable mechanic, who would then install it into a vehicle requiring a new airbag. The mechanic might charge full price and pocket the difference between the cost of an airbag purchased from a dealer and the reduced price of a stolen airbag purchased from a thief. In some cases, the mechanic might pass a bit of a savings on to a customer who was not terribly concerned if the air bag was stolen.

Undoubtedly, the gangs in Vancouver are involved in a number of criminal enterprises, including the sale of drugs and the smuggling of illegal immigrants. If the drug business is lucrative enough to warrant murder, it is because the users are buying the merchandise. If people smuggling earns enough warrant to justify early morning hits in restaurants, it is because employers are willing to hire cheap illegal labour 'off the books' and because people are willing to patronize firms that employ these modern day serfs.

Obviously, there are degrees of responsibility. Should a mechanic who purchased a stolen airbag be sent to jail for participating in the death of Constable Plunkett? Should an occasional marijuana smoker be held accountable for the deaths of the two men in Vancouver? If not, what should -- or can -- be done to get people to understand that there is no such thing as a 'victimless' crime?