It's the actor, not whatever handy thing he happens to grab hold of. Remember, we blame the bad guys who misuse guns, not the guns themselves.
Is a shovel used to ‘define’ evil?
I don't think you can use an inanimate object to define "evil" at all. Or an inanimate idea.
General-le speaking, what do you believe?
A. Two similar clusters of matter came into physical contact with each other at a single point in space and time. One cluster dominated, remaining intact; while the other began to break down into its component elements.B. A 26-year old man lost his life today in a violent and racially motivated attack, according to Thompson County police. Reginald K. Carter was at his desk when, according to eyewitness reports, Zachariah Jones, a new employee at the Clark Center, entered the building apparently carrying an illegally-obtained handgun. According to several eyewitnesses, Jones immediately walked into Carter's cubicle and shouted that "his kind should be eliminated from the earth," before shooting him several times at point-blank range.
There's always the middle ground of an object constructed for the express purpose of enabling evil (pick any medieval torture device). Sure, it was the creator of the object who's evil, and the object is, after all, inanimate. But at the same time the object is an embodiment of evil, and may well evoke in its viewers the very response intended by the evildoer.
For example, both an iron maiden, and the castle outside of which it's hanging, may be inanimate objects, but they would most likely evoke a feeling of dread (or moral outrage) in passers-by. There is no "actor" in that scenario, merely the recognition of the evil purposes to which those items are intended to by put.
So are the objects "evil?" Probably not, but they act upon us as if they, and not their user, were evil.