The foes of Amarillo’s recently approved cellphone ban ordinance are dredging up all kinds of red herrings to state their case.

My favorite canard suggests that the cellphone ban symbolizes a loss of freedom.

To do what? To operate a motor vehicle while trying to call up someone on a handheld device … in the middle of traffic, or when children are present? The “freedom” argument is nonsense.

It should be noted that the City Commission decision to ban cellphone use while driving doesn’t prohibit the activity altogether. Here’s all you have to do: When the phone rings, pull your vehicle over – if you are able to do so safely, of course – stop your vehicle and then answer your phone. Then you can blab all you want, freely and without interruption.

The other option is to let the phone keep ringing until the caller hangs up. My little flip-phone tells me when I’ve missed a call; it even tells me who tried to call me. So I can call the person back when I get to a safe location.

The lost-freedom society out there ignores another basic truth, which is that we have all kinds of laws that result in similar losses of freedom. As my wife wondered this morning, “Why stop when the stop sign tells me to stop when I can just keep driving through the intersection?” She joked that stop signs deprive her of the “freedom” to keep driving, but she chooses to stop – “especially when cars are coming from the other direction.”

The cellphone ban is a public safety issue. Being a good-government kind of guy, I think one of government’s primary duties is to protect the public.