Pen v Gun. Which is the Deadlier Weapon?
/By Robert Fell
Here in prison, the pen is our most essential tool. It’s our only weapon, and more deadly than a gun.
photo by jay rembert on upsplash
A gun can injure you, or worse, kill you or someone else, but a gun can also save your life. The gun saved my life many times when I defended this country at war. A gun also fucked up my life forever. A gun can’t get you justice, but it can get you locked in here with me.
photo by glen carrie on upsplash
With the pen, you can educate yourself, write grievances and file court appeals, and in rare cases even gain decisions which change laws in your favor. Sometimes I use my pen to draw little sketches, remembering a scene or place like our dock on a small lake in Michigan. Or a flower I’m writing about. I love to write.
My pen doesn’t require batteries. There is no hard drive to become corrupted. Nothing I write is lost or erased because it’s written with a pen and stored on paper. You can put a pen behind your ear or carry it in your pocket. A pen doesn’t require power. It can’t catch a virus or be a victim to magnetic warfare.
The pen is my best friend. I’d be lost without my pen. It’s my only means of sanity in this dreadful place. Everything I share with you is part of my history. That is thanks to the pen.
The pen is deadlier than the gun. Judges use their pen to sentence men to death. News reporters are lethal with their pen. It takes only one reporter to jot down negative thoughts to change the course of someone’s life.
photo by marco chilese on unsplash
Here in prison, the corrections officers use pens to keep records on us and write us up, so they can lock us up for longer. A pen allows the Parole commission to check the release box. But it seems they’re out of ink when that time comes for me. On nine occasions, the pen was dry.
Our president signs laws into order, signs peace treaties, and with his signature can declare war upon another nation. One signature of the pen can stop millions from being killed or being locked up for life.
Prison is the most fucked up place on earth. It can bring any sane person’s self-esteem down to shambles in little or no time. But, not me. The pen is my escape into another realm. In my mind, and then on paper, I can leave this dreadful place any time. They can keep my physical body in here but never my mind, which is free to wander. To get the full effect of my daydream adventures, I write them down.
The pen is an extension of my soul crying out to share my feelings, my thoughts, my desires and needs with you. Without the pen, you wouldn’t know me. I am Robert Fell # 072139.
Robert Fell graduated Cornell University with a Bachelors of Agricultural Science. He’s certified as a specialist vegetable grower in intensive growing methods and has over 5000 hours in facilitating other inmates and DOC staff in intensive farming methods. Robert is serving a life sentence for murder.
For more stories from the inside, listen to our 10-part prison series inspired by the men host Allison Langer taught memoir in prison. Click to listen to the series.
