Let’s be real for a second. It’s time to talk about rape, or, more specifically, the insufficient ‘self-defense’ choices women are left with when guns have been removed from the equation.
Following the Centennial State’s recent passage of stricter gun control legislation — one measure makes it illegal to carry a concealed weapon at a public university, regardless of a permit to do so — the University of Colorado released a list of suggested defense strategies for female students being attacked by would-be rapists, including urinating and vomiting.
The University’s list immediately caught flak on news websites and social media platforms, and the school removed the list, claiming it had been taken out of context. In a statement on their website, the school asserted that the list was intended to be “last resort options when all other defense methods have been exhausted.”
Yet for Colorado college students, don’t expect one of those defense methods to be a handgun.
One of the Colorado state representatives who pushed for the new legislation, Democrat Joe Salazar, argued that women on college campuses have all the necessary safety precautions in rape whistles, call boxes and ‘safe zones.’ He also said that women carrying guns might accidentally shoot innocent people if they believe they are being threatened.
But ask a woman if she feels safer because of call boxes and rape whistles and she’d probably say ‘no.’ Even martial arts or self-defense training might be useless against an assailant who is stronger and heavier than his female victim.
Rape victim Amanda Collins knows firsthand how useless university ‘protections’ can be. Collins was raped at gun point on the University of Nevada campus, a place that is considered a ‘safe zone.’ She spoke on NRA News Radio and condemned Salazar’s remarks, saying that a call box and safe zone weren’t the solutions.
“I can tell you that a call box above my head while I was straddled on the parking garage floor being brutally raped wouldn’t have helped me one bit,” she said. “The safe zones? Well I was in a safe zone and my attacker didn’t care.”
She added, “The campuses are designated as a safe zone, or as I take it, a gun free zone. All it does is ensure the perpetrator that they are going to be unmatched when they pick a victim.”
Salazar later apologized for his insulting remarks about women being unable to use guns properly, but that still doesn’t solve the issue that Colorado elected officials seem to think women get enough protection from these passive defense strategies.
Call boxes and rape whistles serve a purpose, but the fact that a woman might have to humiliate herself by urinating — instead of being able to actually protect herself with a gun — is downright ludicrous.
Whatever happened to ‘the best defense is a good offense’?
