Reflections on Cell Phones, Guns, and University Campuses

I am currently doing a stint instructing at a public university. This goes, in some ways, very much against my grain since I am forbidden from carrying on campus. However, one does what one must, and it has given me much to think about.

I read a university wide alert this week in my e-mail that one of our promising young students died from injuries sustained in a car wreck on Tuesday evening. She was wearing a seatbelt and seated in the back seat. Neither speed nor alcohol figured in the cause of the collision. The driver was only on his cell phone when the vehicle swerved into the other lane and crashed head on into a truck.

Another article a month ago, noted that a student at the campus was critically injured while crossing the street, in a cross walk, by a driver who was texting while driving. 

I read another article advising students to always carry their cell phones because a known sex offender has been seen stalking students running on university grounds.

At this point I should make my position clear on the cellular telephone. I blog. I am fond of e-mail, texts, phone calls, and even some chat sites that keep me in touch with my knight when he is off slaying dragons. I am not a technophobe. But I have a flip phone. Pay-as-you-go, drug-dealer-special type. I do not need to access e-mail from my phone; I do not need the phone to compute the tip at a restaurant; I do not demand photographs from every occasion. I'm not adverse to these things; they simply are not useful to me.

I do enjoy receiving e-mails and texts from my friends. But I also maintain a sense of perspective, I do not need to check my phone every three minutes. It is not that important.

While teaching, though, I have noticed that, among many folks, it has become that important. My students, before they have had my class***, are in the habit of checking their phones every two to four minutes. Even at 8am!

They allow the phones to ring during class. They text; they openly disregard the lecture because 'lol, so, like totally want to get coffee after this' is clearly more important than the upcoming exam.

But I digress.  The CCW permit holders I know would not dream of checking their magazines every five minutes. We would not whip out our weapons in class. We would not allow them to distract us from our jobs.  We would not be driving while brandishing and cause a tragic accident. However, if this suspect character in the alert did try something, we would be able to stop it. A cell phone will not.

And yet, we are forbidden from carrying this self defense device that only ever appears in emergencies but we are encouraged to carry an item that seems to cause such disasters such as automobile wrecks, widespread distraction, death, and injuries? I remain puzzled.

Accidental deaths due to distraction by cellular telephones: 2600*

Accidental deaths due to careless handling of defensive firearms: 789*

I'm keeping score, oh university mine, are you?

* According to a traffic study in 2005 done by the University of Utah.

** According to the 2005 death reports to the US Government, cdc.gov. 

*** I have a policy, inherited from a much beloved professor of mine. If I hear it or see it, there will be a quiz. It used to scare them into turning them off. But just the other week, I gave three cell phone quizzes in the first 30 minutes of class. After two: I offered a minute during which to remove cells from their hiding spots and turn them off. Almost five minutes after that, 'ring/ring/ring'.

Alas poor Yorik's grade: I knew it well before it became an F.

Why I Carry

Sometimes people ask me why I carry a gun. Unlike some, I have not had the traumatic experience that serves as a trigger, pun not intended, for concealed carry. So here is my story: why I carry, and how I reached the decision.

I never really thought about carrying a handgun; my grandfather did once upon a time ago, when he worked at the race track, and my grandparents and parents shot but carry just didn't really run in the family. Growing up I learned to shoot BB guns by the age of five or six, I don't remember not knowing how to use them, but again, larger guns just weren't in the house. I'm the youngest grandchild and by the time I was old enough to learn a heavier caliber, Granddad had lost his vision and never got to teach me. I didn't think about it at all for years and years. I took the BB guns out and popped soda cans every now and again but not more than that.

One summer I took a Women on Target class at the local range and I was completely hooked. . . on rifles. I was simply enamored with my CZ452 in .22lr and silhouette shoots. Rifles, long rifles, in particular, were the end all be all for me.

Eventually, I decided to buy a handgun, a little Ruger Bearcat, to excercise my constitutional right maybe, but mostly because the Bearcat was a cute little revolver. I loved it. I still do. It's fun to shoot, easy to clean, and it looks like it marched straight out of a B-grade western. I still never really thought abut carrying it.

About that time, I met my knight. For the first time in my life, I started to think about what would happen if I weren't around. 

It's not that my knight couldn't protect me. Truth be told, he'd be better at it than almost anyone else I've met. Thing is, he's a knight, and he's often off protecting other people. You see, he deployed to Afghanistan the same year I moved to a more urban area for my work. During that first year, there was an armed mugging in the parking lot, mere minutes after I had departed for the day from that self same lot.

Perhaps that should have woken me up itself. But it wasn't until my knight came back a few months later that I started to think about my life being worth something. My knight had gone overseas to protect all of the freedom and safety I enjoyed here. He clearly thought I was worth protecting, with his life if need be. Why should I be any less willing to protect myself?

I shouldn't, was the decision I reached. I won't let him down by risking taking away one of the things he already fought to defend. 

So I carry. Not because I don't believe in knights in shining armor, but because those knights carry for me. I carry so their efforts aren't wasted. And I carry for my knight, because sometimes he needs me just as much as I need him.

The 'Just In Case' Factor

Every now and again, someone will ask me if I expect to have to use my gun. I generally reply: "I pray to God I never do," or something along those lines. Usually that's that, end of conversation, but sometimes the asker looks confused or presses further with a 'Then why do you carry it? Do you go to bad places?'

No, I don't go stupid place, or do stupid things. At least, as much as humanly possible I try to avoid such. I don't get into situations where I expect to need my gun. I carry it just in case.

Often in the gun community, I hear similar echoes from concealed carry permit holders. They often run along these lines. I don't carry because I want to use it, or because I expect to, I carry it just in case. It's the same reason I do hundreds of other things:

When I get into my car, I put my seatbelt on, not because I expect to drive dangerously or wreck my vehicle, but just in case. 

When I cross the one lane dirt road adjacent to my driveway, I look both ways. Do I really expect a lot of traffic? No, certainly not. But I do it anyway, just in case. 

I take my cat to get her rabies vaccine every year. I did it even when she lived as an indoor cat before we moved. Because I expected my house guests to bite her and give her rabies? No, but she might escape and she might need it.

I have candles in my house because the power might go out. I have smoke alarms not because I'm a pyromaniac, but just in case.

For us, who do carry and accept it as a piece of our lives, putting on your gun is like putting on your seatbelt. Just in case. But I can hear the protests to these arguments and I have to admit there is one that is pretty good: "But putting on a seatbelt won't kill you. It isn't dangerous."

Those who make this protest have a valid point. The point they're making, whether or not they know it, is that there is a difference between active and passive safety measures, to steal terms from the automobile industry.

Passive safety measures rely on objects or others to function the way they are supposed to and keep us safe. They usually don't require much training or effort to use. The seatbelt is one: putting it on doesn't require a lot of training. The 911 system is another. We can call it in an emergency and they will send help, not much effort needed. Fire alarms, airbags, deadbolts, reflective vests, helmets, shoes, tetanus shots, and so on, are passive safety measures. 

These things are great. The only problem is, they sometimes fail and they can be defeated with enough determination. The burglar with bolt cutters or an ax, the airbag that fails to trigger, the drained battery in a fire alarm, the person who doesn't see the reflective strip. You get the picture.

Active safety measures, on the other hand, are a tad different. Defensive driving, swimming lessons, fire extinguishers, and CPR are the examples I'm going to use.

Trying to avoid a crash can end worse than taking the hit if an inexperienced driver swerves suddenly on a slick roadway. Without full understanding and good techniques, defensive driving can be dangerous.

Installing a swimming pool isn't a way to make yourself less likely to drown at the beach unless you go ahead and take the swimming lessons. In fact, you're more likely to drown in your own back yard!

Someone may have a fire extinguisher in their home but if they use a water-based extinguisher on an electrical fire things could go horribly wrong. Not to mention the risk of exposure to chemical agents from some types. Extinguishers may be great in some cases, but they are also dangerous if you don't know what you're doing.

First aid and especially CPR are another example. Someone with limited or no training may try to render aid to the collapsed man in the restaurant yet CPR is dangerous too. It involves turning the chest of the recipient into so much broken rib jelly, it often induces vomiting, and once started should (read must) be carried on until someone arrives to relieve you. This is incredibly unsafe. You risk exhaustion, infection with the flu, tuberculosis, or blood born pathogens such as HIV. If some disaster is happening around you (did he collapse from carbon monoxide inhalation?), you risk getting caught in the carnage. And especially, there is the risk of making a mistake and causing more harm to the person you're trying to help.

This doesn't mean we shouldn't have fire extinguishers in our homes, pools in our backyards, consider dodging out of the way of the oncoming tractor trailer truck, receive training in CPR and first aid. It simply means we must get the training and be aware of the responsibility that comes with it.

Guns and carrying a firearm are the same sort of active safety measure. In the hands of an untrained individual they have the potential to be dangerous, just like CPR learned from a TV show. But when handled and carried by someone who knows the drill, they are quite safe and often quite useful. Just like that same CPR applied by a well trained stranger.

So we carry, just in case, but not the way we put on a seatbelt; just in case the way we take a CPR certification course, or put a fire extinguisher in our hall closet, with the awareness that we must know how to use it, and knowing that, we can be confident in our just in case measures.

The Brink

I am standing on the brink, almost ready to jump, staring at the little white sheet of paper in my hands. Do I really want to do this?

'There's no harm in filling it out.' I tell myself as I pick up a pen and begin to write in my height, weight, name, address and all the other little details. 'You don't have to turn it in; if you decide not to.'

No sooner have I signed my name when I find myself headed back to the building. Looks like I'm going to hand this form over to the powers at be after all. I hesitate briefly outside the door and take a deep breath as I push it open. O.K. I am going to do this.

The nice lady at the desk smiles and nods as I hand her the paper. I pull out my checkbook to pay the fee listed on the paper.

"Oh, we don't charge for these in Podunk, Nowhere." she tells me. I'm impressed, surprised, and wickedly gleeful. "I'll give you a call in about a week."

I thank her and leave. So far, nothing has changed.

One week later, I'm retrieving an even smaller sheet of white paper from the same nice lady. It looks like a credit card receipt from the old days when you made them out on carbon paper with a typewriter.  The top line sends a chill down my spine. 'State of Nowhere Pistol/Revolver License'.

It's official. I've taken the leap. I am a CCW permit holder.

Nothing has changed, it's only a little piece of paper after all, but everything is different. Now the journey truly begins.

Hello World

Once upon the present, there is a damsel with a penchant for tales.

This is the tale of a damsel who is not in distress, and has no plans of ever being in distress but who, if she ends up in distress, has every intention of rescuing herself. Sometimes the knight in shiny armor simply isn't in the tower when you need him.

Follow along if you like, laugh when it's funny, think a bit when it's serious, and cheer when damsel and knight ride off into the sunset.