Police on Long Island have a new weapon to help them keep guns from returning to the streets.
It's a gun crusher. Authorities in Suffolk County showed it off yesterday in Yaphank.
I haven't really thought about this deeply enough to claim certitude, but the challenge came up on Sunni Maravillosa's blog a while back to name one tool that isn't morally neutral.
She said something I agree with:
I've written a fair amount on firearms, and I'm usually careful to point out that a gun is morally neutral, as are knives, swords, sticks, stones, etc. How a person uses an object gives it a moral value for that act, and that act alone. An object just is. Humans -- rightly and wrongly -- imbue objects and ideas with moral overtones.
Still, I had a nagging discomfort that I formed into a comment:
"Can You Name the One Tool that Isn't Morally Neutral?"
Thumbscrews?
Cat-o-nine-tails?
Iron Maidens?
Racks?
Suicide bomber explosive vests?
You could argue they could be used as museum pieces, but that would not be using them for the purposes they were designed for...and while the thing itself isn't evil, the purpose for which it was designed sure seems to be...
Can something specifically designed for evil purpose truly be considered morally neutral?
I don't know if I'm trying to have my cake and eat it too, here, but if these observations have merit, I'd include this obscene "gun crusher" among the other objects.
5 comments:
Well - now they'll be able to torture and kill all of those bad, bad guns out there.
I feel safer already.
I've expanded on this one, David.
After doing a little homework, I discovered something that suggests this Gun Crusher makes no economic sense.
But hey, it makes for great publicity for the sheeple, no?
Gun Crusher Destroys County Economy
I realize that you were being partially tongue in cheek, but feel the need to opine on this subject.
There is no morally evil tool. Even a gun crusher, thumbscrews or an Iron Maiden are guiltless.
The guilty are the morally evil human beings that use their God given intellect to devise such heinous monstrosities. Even more morally evil are the emotionally tortured and morally bankrupt human beings that put these monstrosities to practical use.
Regardless of the terrible results of the use or misuse of any tool, the tool itself is blameless. Only thinking human beings have morality and only human beings, therefore, are capable of evil...either in intent, or in practice.
Just my $.02
Sailor Curt--I think this is what we call a paradox--either that or you and I are both being logically inconsistent--because I called the crusher "obscene," which it wouldn't be if morally neutral, and you called torture devices "heinous monstrosities."
You're right--partially tongue-in-cheek, but I actually just need to think this through some more--as if I have the time...
Touche.
I would have to say that my label of the tools of torture as "heinous monstrosities" is directed more at the aforementioned humans who designed and use them than at the objects themselves.
But I must say that you are right. Using disparaging terms indicates assigning morality to the objects themselves so I undermined my own point by doing so. Thanks for calling me on it. Someone's gotta keep me honest.
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