Co-Ed Rape=Not "Rape-Rape"

We've talked occasionally about not letting liberals off the hook so easily when they shoot their mouths off. Well, the mouth shooting-off was in rare form this week, thanks to a couple of blowhards. Meet Todd Akin's leftist counterparts.

This week, no doubt in reaction to recent furor over guns, the Colorado State House passed a bill that would ban concealed-carry on all state college campuses. (This is also proof that the state needs to go ahead and conduct a purge of all California-born residents, but I digress.) There were all the usual reasons cited: guns in the hands of intoxicated youths are bad, concealed-carry makes random shootings more likely, blah blah blah. I want to point out, though, that for once, Republicans did something smart; rather than talk vaguely about liberty and such, they made the issue specific, arguing that gun control takes away the ability of people to defend themselves--not least threatened young women. A gun-rights advocate said of concealed-carry:

"The types of people who go through the process to obtain a concealed carry permit are exactly the people who any mother or father would want to be able to defend themselves on campus. A woman shouldn't have to wait until it's too late to find out if she's actually going to be raped or not. We should allow competent, trained women the ability to defend themselves."

This is really very smart messaging. It puts the matter in concrete terms--people might be divided on gun rights, but nobody wants to stop a woman from defending herself. Also, this could serve as a bridge to certain demographics which typically do not vote Republican: Young, single, professional women in this case. But it could easily work in creating a dialogue with other groups. I've even heard many openly gay people support wide-ranging gun rights, if only to protect themselves from potential "hate crimes." And then there's the fact that such an argument forces Democrats to try and explain how this doesn't leave women vulnerable, with a high chance that they'll end up saying something really stupid. Which they did.

Witness one Democratic state rep, Joe Salazar, who in the course of debate on the bill defended the legislation by saying that although women might feel like they could get raped, there's no way of knowing for sure. "It's why we have call boxes, it's why we have safe zones, it's why we have whistles. Because you just don't know who you're gonna be shooting at. And...[if you feel like you're being threatened when you actually aren't] you pop out that gun and you pop...pop around at somebody."

First of all, "pop around at somebody"? I'm pretty sure, based on that alone, that Mr. Salazar has never handled a gun in his life. Secondly, safe zones? Really? I've spent most of the past seven years on college campuses, and I couldn't point out a safe zone to you if I tried. But I guess they have magical properties that prevent thugs from getting anyone inside them. Maybe that's why I don't know of any. They're invisible to young men, or something.

But I haven't even reached the piece de resistance yet. I don't watch Fox's The Five often; apart from Gutfeld, most of the people on there are just too shallow. But the show does reveal a lot about liberals and conservatives through their gut reactions to news pieces. For proof of this, look no further than the panel's representative from the Left, Bob Beckel, who on Tuesday, as this issue from Colorado was being discussed, defended the Dems by arguing that campus rape was not a good reason for concealed-carry, because turns out, it doesn't actually exist. Really. His words were "When was the last time you heard about a rape on campus?" and he then went on to suggest that date rape didn't count. Well, then! I mean, even Akin didn't suggest that rape wasn't a thing.

Look, Beckel is, as I said, a blowhard, and one could make the excuse that he was speaking off the cuff and the words came out wrong. But that doesn't change the fact that however frequent liberals believe campus rape to be, they would rather put this nanny-state project above the welfare of young women. If you think that's too harsh, consider the University of Colorado's guidelines, presumably written out after calm deliberation, about what women should do in a threatening situation. Among the winners: "If your life is in danger, passive resistance may be your best defense." "Tell your attacker that you have a disease or are menstruating." "Vomiting or urinating may also convince the attacker to leave you alone." So there you go, ladies....you can't use lethal force to defend your body, but you can humiliate yourselves to your heart's content. I know I shouldn't speak for women or whatever, but if I had two X chromosomes and were placed in that position, I think I'd rather say "Stop or I'll shoot!" than "Wait, I'm on my period!" But that could just be me being misogynistic.

Anyway, this whole episode, despite the possible signing into law of this terrible bill, is good for our side. Not only did it provide an effective counter to Republican missteps concerning women's rights (or at least it would have if the media had given it equal coverage), it shows how the Left can't even provide a coherent platform. They claim to support empowering women, but when a dear cause like gun control comes up, that goes right out the window. We need more episodes like this.