Okay, here it comes, the inevitable comparison of cell phones and the First Amendment right to use them while driving to firearms and the Second Amendment right to keep a closet full of them in your house.
Just the same as in the case of firearms, we want people to be able to own them and use them legally and safely, but we do not want people to use them in ways that endanger the rest of us. Hence, we restrict their use by enacting bans on phoning while driving, or by enforcing laws that prohibit inattentive driving.
These laws don't work.
People keep right on phoning and texting (interesting how "text" has become a verb) while behind the wheel. They ignore phone laws the same way they ignore gun laws. (Yes, I realize the phone scofflaws and the firearms scofflaws are not the same individuals.)
Some of them comply with the law and get hands-free phones, but most don't.
Every single last one of them insists he or she is fully capable of talking on the phone while operating a motor vehicle in a safe and responsible manner. It's the other drivers out there who need to hang up. This is nearly identical to the person who says, "I use my guns in a safe and legal manner. It's the criminals who ruin it for the rest of us."
Of course, we can't ban cell phone use while driving. It's too popular. There might even be a way to apply the First Amendment to cell phones the way we apply the Second Amendment to handguns. We're a talkin' nation, just as we're a gun totin' nation.
The solution, of course, is to treat crashes and fatalities caused by cell phones the same way we treat crashes and fatalities caused by alcohol. If somebody is yakking on the phone and runs down a pedestrian, easily verified or disproved by the electronic record, that person gets a mandatory year in jail, denied cell phone service, etc. depending on how strict state legislators decide to get. Eventually, we would end up in a situation where only the most hardcore cell phone users persisted in talking behind the wheel. This is similar to our situation with drunk driving, where only the most dedicated drinkers, alcoholics or those on their way to becoming alcoholics, continue to drive drunk.
And it is interesting how we react differently when facing a danger posed by something we like and enjoy and use every day (cell phones), as opposed to the danger posed by something most of us don't own and use and carry around everywhere we go (handguns). We're willing to accept the distinct and growing possibility we might be killed by a cell phone, while we refuse to accept the much smaller and shrinking chance we'll be killed by a handgun. (Yes, I understand these odds do not apply in East LA or the South Bronx.)
What is the difference, really? Why must we allow you to talk on the phone and run over some innocent child who steps into the street, but we cannot allow someone to own a pistol because some innocent child might shoot himself with it? Why is your right to talk on the phone more important than someone's life? Why is my right to own a gun less important than someone's life? And why is your right to talk while driving more important than my right to carry a 9mm?
Please, please, please do not reply that cell phones are nearly universal, eminently useful, save hours of time in our hectic schedules, absolutely necessary so little Julia and Jennifer and Jason and Justin and Jeremy and Jake can be at soccer practice, dance class, etc. Firearms were once regarded as similarly useful, but now we largely do without them. A few years ago, we didn't have cell phones, but all the children whose names begin with "J" still made it to wherever they were going just fine.
