Colorado Representative Joe Salazar has made the headlines recently for his part in the debate to disarm college students (Colorado bill HB13-1226). The bill would eliminate the right of a concealed handgun licensee to possess a handgun on a college campus.
When faced with an attacker, most people would opt for the most effective and least complicated means of protection available. With today’s technology and legal parameters, that means a handgun.
But Representative Salazar does not appear to be concerned about the victims of rape. In his speech, appearing to target college women, he highlights the myriad of options available to women for their safety:
“It’s why we have call boxes, it’s why we have safe zones, it’s why we have the whistles. Because you just don’t know who you’re gonna be shooting at. And you don’t know if you feel like you’re gonna be raped, or if you feel like someone’s been following you around or if you feel like you’re in trouble when you may actually not be, that you pop out that gun and you pop … pop around at somebody.”
Lets explore the effectiveness of such advice.
Call boxes:
Call boxes are emergency phones located throughout campus, where a person can get a hold of campus security or police. By citing this as a rape prevention strategy, Salazar is ignoring several factors.
- Doesn’t the potential victim have a cell phone already?
- Will the potential victim be able to get to a call box in time?
- What is the response time for authorities to reach this call box?
- If there is an altercation in progress, how likely is it the victim able to get to a phone, or be able to use it?
- How far can the attacker move a victim away from a callbox after the call has been made and before authorities arrive in that amount of time (forced movement at gunpoint)?
The call box is a great idea as a baseline communication tool, but assumes a great deal of forewarning,awareness, and determination of motive on the victim’s part. A person using the call box to prevent an attack would have to recognize an attack was imminent, from afar, to have the time to make the call.
An ultimate hypocrisy of Salazar’s statement is that he cites a lack of motive determination in his quote (the fear of shooting someone who was not a threat), but the same concern diminishes the usefulness of call boxes as a prevention mechanism. But, when the threat is very real and very easily discerned, the call box is useless and the firearm is not.
Safe zones
The only reference to a safe zone I could find on the University of Colorado website is a training series for alternative sexuality concerns. In fact, the University of Colorado Boulder campus map makes no mention of geographic areas designated as “safe zones”. But, assuming these zones exist, we can look at the effectiveness of designating a certain area as “safe”
Places marked as gun free zones have repeatedly seen tragedy lately. There is no reason to suspect that the designation of ‘safe zone’ will prevent rape or assault when other areas so designated have been the site of multiple counts of homicide.
- Why is a safe zone safe?
- Is there a guard or policeman on duty in that area?
- Is there some other increased deterrence against committing a crime in a designated safe zone?
- If this mentality was effective, why not declare the entire planet a Safe Zone?
Rape whistles
It is true that a criminal needs a degree of seclusion to perform an attack such as rape (or an uncaring/indifferent scenario), and that using a loud whistle can make obtaining that seclusion more difficult (hearing is a 360 degree and non line-of-sight sense). But, the whistle is not necessarily going to be stowed properly, and digging through one’s purse while situational awareness should be maintained isn’t a good idea.
In fact, the rape whistle is no more effective than the call box because someone hearing the whistling may not even act on it.
Pop a round?
This argument is absurd, and characterizes how out of touch this lawmaker is with reality. Time and time again, the liberal anti-gun agenda has declared that the presence of firearms will turn every parking lot snafu into a Wild West scenario, and the streets will run red with blood. This ridiculous argument has been made as every state in the union save a couple changed from selective issue of a CPL to Shall Issue for a CPL. It has proven utterly untrue in every state, and remains untrue here. There is no indication that the residents of Colorado are different than anywhere else, and are unlikely to go ‘popping a round’ indiscriminately at the first inkling of suspicion.
As of today, these bills have moved forward in Colorado, fueled by federal support and against local Colorado objection. It is a clear indication of federal influence putting their desired policies first and state decisions a distant second. But more than that, it is clear that many policy makers are completely out of touch with mainstream America, where Joe Average must protect himself and his loved ones. These policymakers believe so much in their laws and think that criminals will somehow adhere to them that they are willing to put their constituents at risk.
Good luck Coloradans. Fight for your freedom, before those like Representative Joe Salazar and his ilk will make you unable to fight for your lives.
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