Gun Advocates Push That Female Students Be Armed To Deter Rapes

Legislators from 10 states want to arm female American students as a means of deterring rapes. The proposal seeks to reverse the prohibition of carrying guns on college campuses in 41 states prescribed by law or university policy.

“If these young, hot little girls on campus have a firearm, I wonder how many men will want to assault them. The sexual assaults that are occurring would do down once these sexual predators get a bullet in their head,” MSNBC quotes Nevada Assemblywoman Michele Flore.

Florida State Representative Dennis Baxley adds, “If you’ve got a person that’s raped because you wouldn’t let them carry a firearm to defend themselves. I think you’re responsible,” quoted the New York Times.

Similar bills have been introduced in Indiana, Montana, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota Tennessee, Texas and Wyoming.

However, MSNBC insisted it won’t cut campus sexual molestations or violence because it assumes the rapist is likely a man hidden in the bushes and would pounce on their hapless prey while walking home late at night. But MSNBC pointed out that studies have shown most of campus victims of rapes had partners, friends or close acquaintances as their rapists.

It also cited statistics from the Department of Justice that having guns at home further worsens domestic violence. From 2000 through 2012, 7,454 women were shot to death in the US by their intimate partners. It added that having a gun boosts by 500 percent the risk of homicide for people in an abusive dating relationship, making gun possession a death sentence.

Even in situations when the women used the gun for self-protection, MSNBC noted that some of them ended up still in trouble, like Florida resident Marissa Alexander, a survivor of domestic violence, who was jailed for three years and now under house arrest for firing a warning shot in the air as her response to threats from the abuser.

Students who favour the legislation have joined the lobby group Students for Concealed Carry. One of those who signed up and is the first female member of the national board, Crayle Vanest, an Indiana University senior, wants to bring her licenced .38 caliber Bersa Thunder pistol on campus for self-protection because she has to walk after late-night shifts at a library food court.

Interestingly, Florida State University President John Thrasher, a known gun rights supporter, is against guns on campus because of an experience wherein the freshman daughter of one of his friends died because a student fired a rifle in a fraternity house because he wasn’t aware it was loaded.

Thrasher stressed, “A college campus is not a place to be carrying guns around; our campus police agree with that, and so does law enforcement.”

To contact the writer, email: v.hernandez@ibtimes.com.au