Reply #209: Both items pass energy. [View All]

[Callisto32]

The purpose of a hammer is to drive nails.

The purpose of a gun is to drive bullets.

You didn't use shorthand. You said guns put bullets into people. Bull. If someone puts a nail into a board, they wouldn't say the hammer put the nail into the board, they USED the hammer to put the nail into the board. But we will be happy to say "guns kill." BS. Guns drive bullets, people direct those bullets, same as people direct nails.

Both hammers and guns can be used, by people, to do both positive and negative things. Will you tell me that using a hammer to kill a person is less wrong because the hammer was not "designed to kill." No, of course not. Why? Because it is the action, and not the item that actually matters when making moral determinations.

You claim that guns are designed to kill, and so are somehow bad, but neglect to mention that sometimes killing is a positive, or at least necessary, thing. Should we ignore all the good that firearms do, like putting food on the table for poor people in Appalachia? Would we claim that using that gun to kill a whitetail is bad because the gun was designed to kill? No.

Again, your analogy is wrong, because it links an item to a moral determination, which is not logically valid. The gun is like any other tool, it does work. To what end that work is directed relates to the person doing it, not to the tool used.

Sorry, your analogy begs a question, and is incorrect. You presume that "guns are bad because they are designed to kill" but fail to back that up (because it can't be backed up because an inanimate object cannot be bad), and then use that premise to come to your conclusion.