Learned something today about guns. I’ve always been opposed to handguns, never having seen any purpose to them other than killing another person. I’ve read the statistics about how the US has the highest (by far) rate of handguns per capita and handgun deaths per capita. I’ve always believed in an outright ban on all handguns. I’ve been re-evaluating that position lately, but today, I learned how emotional and knee-jerk my attitude towards handguns has been.

I’m quite sure I’ve said, “If we’re not going to ban all hanguns, at least let’s ban automatic and semi-automatic weapons.” Reading in the Volokh Conspiracy today, I realized that, as far as semi-automatics go, I had no idea what I was talking about!

If you see a cylinder above the trigger, it’s a revolver, because when you shoot, the bullet leaves the gun and the cylinder revolves to put the next bullet in place.

If you don’t see a revolving cylinder, it’s a semi-automatic. Why do we call it a semi-automatic? There’s a magazine — that’s what holds the bullets — which you stick into the handle of the gun. But you can’t shoot bullets that are in the handle of your gun! So there’s a mechanism to move the bullets from the magazine into the chamber. When you shoot the gun, the bullet leaves the gun, the metal case is ejected (wear eye protection!), and an extra bullet is automatically moved from the magazine into the barrel. But when you pull the trigger once, you only shoot once. Hence, semi-automatic.

So, anyway, don’t use “semi-automatic” to mean “an especially scary gun”! Almost any handgun out there is a semi-automatic.

A long time ago — 1990 –, in a galaxy far, far away– Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn to be exact — I was a high school teacher. One day, after arriving early, I slipped on some spilled coffee in a stairwell and went down a flight of stairs on my back. I was out of commission for a couple of months with herniated and dessicated disks, unable to make the hour-long trainride from Huntington, Long Island into school. Eventually, I was able to get past the pain. I used the time I spent at home well, learning the computer and teaching myself to be an expert in graphic design and desktop publishing software. When I was able to, I set up my own business doing newsletters, brochures, posters and the like for all the small businesses in our town. Things led to things, and after a couple of stops, I wound up here in Maryland as a multimedia developer with an e-learning company.

Friday night, we had family staying over, and realizing I had left the caged cat’s food downstairs, I headed down the two flights to the kitchen, leaving the lights off so as not to disturb anyone. (You can see it coming, can’t you?) Portia, the little female cat was sleeping on a step as she often does, and I, in the darkness, realized that I was just about to step on her. Yanking my foot back, I lost balance, slipped on the carpet, and flailed my way down the remaining 14 steps, landing in a crumpled heap on the kitchen linoleum.

I waited a moment, replaying the events of the last couple of seconds. It seemed, even though I was in total darkness, that I had watched myself falling, viewing a montage of quick-cuts from several cameras, seeing my arms wind-milling, my legs scrambling, blurred into cyclonic fury like some cartoon character. It was my own “Odessa Steps” sequence.

I didn’t move for a couple of minutes, afraid to find out that maybe I couldn’t move. I heard Jenn come downstairs, asking, “Are you okay? What happened?” “I’m okay,” I said. “I just tripped. I’ll be up in a minute.” I pulled myself up, feeling it in my back, right where I’d felt it the last time. Grabbing the cat food, I headed back up the two flights of stairs, grimacing with each step. It wasn’t until I bent down to take off my shoes that I realized how serious it was. My vision narrowed down to a tunnel as the pain radiated up my neck and down my legs. I don’t know if I made any noise, because Jenn had fallen mostly back to sleep by then. When I finally managed to get my clothes off, I slowly lowered myself into the bed and passed out, flat on my back.

The rest of the weekend was a blur of icepacks and frequent naps. I tried to be a good uncle, but there was no way I was going to be able to handle going to the National Aquarium with my nieces. They went, and I spent the time sleeping. They left early Monday, after I went to work.

Getting into my car on Monday morning was the first time I’d sat down since the injury. It didn’t feel good. Nor did it feel good sitting in my crappy chair in my cubicle. I kept thinking of the two dozen Aeron chairs sitting unused in one of the conference rooms upstairs, and wondering whether anyone would say anything if I was to go steal one.

First thing I did after 9 a.m. came around was call the chiropractor in the shopping center near my house. He was able to fit me in at 3:30, so I endured until then. He took some x-rays, gave me he ultrasound and electro-stim treatments, then some point manipulation (which hurt!), and he scheduled me for another appointment this morning.

Looking at the x-rays this morning, I found out that the disc between my L5 vertebra and my sacrum is compressed and somewhat deteriorated, probably as a result of my earlier injury. But no nerve damage, nothing broken, no need for surgery! Just a few weeks of chiro visits. Still, it’s pretty scary…