Last week Fox News commentator Bob Beckel was arguing on air with some more conservative colleauges about allowing guns on college campuses. Addressing the idea that women might use guns to ward off potential rapists, Beckel said, “When was the last time you heard about a rape on campus?”
Now, Beckel is clearly a blowhard and has made a number of outrageous and insensitive comments, so this shouldn’t really surprise anyone too much. Rapes do happen on college campuses, probably with greater frequency than in many other places. But I feel like this video depicts a lose-lose conversation; I don’t want to live in a world where women have to carry guns so they won’t be raped, even if those guns could be proved to pose no risk to society.
Women should feel safe from rape because no one (or almost no one; we’ll never achieve perfection) tries to rape them.