How would Plato, Socrates, or Aristotle feel about guns and gun control?

Would Socrates consider any of the professional academics on this site, who offer themselves for anyone who wants to ask anything, philosophers?

Hi, I love your website and I have enjoyed reading the articles. Please could you help me with a question? I would like to ask the question regarding 'negative numbers'. Can there be such a thing as a negative? Please allow me to explain. My daughter recently brought home some Math homework that asked what -20 + -10 =. So this had me thinking, -20 (or-10) does not exist. There is no difference between having no apples to having minus a million apples both equal me having no apples. I don't think this is the same as debt as the amount in question (as in financial debt) does physically exist, even if you owe it. My daughters teacher explained that you have to see it as a scale. But I do not feel this explains the question either. For example if a car travels one direction on a scale (say North) at 100mph, if the scale is reversed the car is not travelling minus 100mph, it is now simply travelling South at 100mph. Scale I feel is inaccurate, surly its a measure of direction along an axis i.e. left or right...

Is it a contradiction to believe in God and also in science? I believe in evolution and look at the Big Bang theory skeptically, but I also believe in God as the creator of everything. Many have often told me that you can't really accept these theories and also believe in God without causing a contradiction, but I always thought of it as science answering how things happen, whereas my faith in God answers why things happen. What do you think?

Are we responsible for forgetting things? It certainly doesn't seem like it, since we don't seem to have control over what we forget, but we are often held to the standard of always remembering all pertinent facts.

Isn't racist to find the word "nigger" racist? As in when it's merely said around you and not directed towards you. When someone calls another an "asshole," there isn't a normally a particular ethnicity that comes to mind -- yet The "N" Word is automatically associated with people of African descent. This all seems to fit into the ideology of race making racism possible.

Is Searle's 'chinese room' internally consistent? Does it not presuppose an agent who can understand the manipulation of symbols? If so, why not conceptualize our consciousness analogously to a computer's more fundamental structures bestowing it the capacity to 'run' softwares?

Is the relation of the mind to the brain analogous in some way to the relationship between a magnetic field and a magnet? I have in mind the way in which a magnetic field clearly depends on the physical state of an object--the magnet--but is distinct, and quite different from this object. Thanks!

Can a thing being distinct from something else be considered a property of that thing? (If my mind is distinct from my body can "being distinct from my body" be considered a property of my mind. It seems to me that if something is distinct from something else it is separate from it and therefore cannot somehow be considered a property of it. But I have a feeling I am missing something. Thank you Samantha R.

I'm against Designer Babies. Is there any rule in ethics that makes it wrong? We can think of many problems with it, like kids who have better genes will bully others, and the parents get to choose talents that might not be enjoyable to the kid later in life. Any other problems that you can think of? Thank You for your time! Sincerely, Bailey