We use G.H. Mead's perspective on the meaning of social objects; and his th
eory of the past and Harold Garfinkel's application of indexicality to desc
ribe how people respond to social objects as evil. Mead's notion of an impl
ied objective past illuminates how social actors not only connect objects t
o past evils but also invoke an objective past to index evil in the future.
Focusing on guns and illegal drugs, we maintain that responses to each dra
w on conceptions of the past in ways that attempt to make Their connection
to evil in the past and future justifiable. Such responses create meaningfu
l categories that actors then use to anticipate future responses to objects
. We note that while people appear to be comfortable using pasts and indexi
cal expressions to define Schedule I drugs as evil in themselves, the attem
pt to make guns into evil objects has met with strong resistance and requir
es elaborate contextualization.