“If a firearm is used by a criminal or psychopath with evil intentions, then it is a tool for evil. But if it is used for good (to defend life and property), then it is a tool for good. A firearm by itself has no sentience, no volition, no moral force, and no politics. The proper term for this is an adiaphorous object--something that is neither good nor evil. A firearm is simply a cleverly-designed construction of metal, wood, and plastic in the form of a precision tool.”
Source: Tools For Survival (2009), p. 150
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James Wesley Rawles26
Survivalist-fiction author and blogger 1960Related quotes
James Wesley Rawles (1960) Survivalist-fiction author and blogger
Source: Tools For Survival (2009), P.149
Michel De Montaigne (1533–1592) (1533-1592) French-Occitan author, humanistic philosopher, statesman
Source: The Essays: A Selection
“We’re neither good nor evil. We’re simply interested in things as they are.”
Lloyd Alexander The Chronicles of Prydain
Source: The Chronicles of Prydain (1964–1968), Book II: The Black Cauldron (1965), Chapter 14
George Washington (1732–1799) first President of the United States
This is the conclusion to an article entitled "Older Ideas of Firearms" by C. S. Wheatley; it was published in the September 1926 issue of Hunter, Trader, Trapper (vol. 53, no. 3), p. 34. Wheatley had referred to George Washington's address to the second session of the first Congress immediately before this passage, which may have given rise to the mistaken attribution. See this piece http://quoteinvestigator.com/2015/02/26/firearm/ at Quote Investigator <br class="br">Misattributed
“Life is neither good or evil, but only a place for good and evil.”
Marcus Aurelius book Meditations
Source: Meditations
Richard Dawkins (1941) English ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author
Source: River out of Eden (1995), pp. 131–132
Context: The total amount of suffering per year in the natural world is beyond all decent contemplation. During the minute it takes me to compose this sentence, thousands of animals are being eaten alive; others are running for their lives, whimpering with fear; others are being slowly devoured from within by rasping parasites; thousands of all kinds are dying of starvation, thirst and disease. [... ] In a universe of blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won't find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference. DNA neither knows nor cares. DNA just is. And we dance to its music.
Paul J. McAuley (1955) British writer
Source: Four Hundred Billion Stars (1988), Chapter 1 “Camp Zero” (p. 38)