In the midst of all the anti-gun rhetoric being spewed from Capitol Hill, it is surprising to me that the person leading the anti-gun charge is a woman.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), as many of you know, has been vehemently pushing for a resurrection of the 1994 Federal Assault Weapons Ban in yet another governmental attempt to lobotomize personal behavior, destroy property rights, disarm our citizenry and broaden gun control.
Usually, the pro-gun, anti-government, Tea Party-esque arguments are aligned with the far right, libertarians or market anarchists who are pigeonholed as Ron Paul-loving, Gadsden flag-flying types. But I think it’s time that women, especially women who identify themselves as feminists, jump on the pro-gun bandwagon.
According to the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network, one out of every six American women has been the victim of an attempted or completed rape in her lifetime.
Compare those numbers to the 3 percent of men who fall victim to sexual assault, and it becomes apparent who is committing sexual violence and who the victims are.
Now, the reason why being anti-gun is equivalent to being anti-women is that disarming society, or even suggesting an increase of impediments when purchasing a firearm (waiting periods, increased background checks) is that, at worst, these measures disarm women and, at best, make it harder for women to arm themselves.
Because women fall prey to sexual violence much more often than men, it can be argued that women, more than any other demographic, need access to the use of lethal force and self-defense. Although hypothetical — and hopefully only momentarily hypothetical at that — imagine how disincentivizing rape and sexual assault would be if more women had access to and were encouraged to carry — or at least own — firearms.
If feminists, and women in general, are serious about the rape epidemic, anti-woman politicians, such as Feinstein, should be abandoned by said constituencies.
Thomas Ryan is a political science major at Sante Fe College. You can contact him via opinions@alligator.org.
