Cupp: Why Is it Okay for Men to Tell Women How to Defend Themselves?

Vice President Joe Biden gestures while speaking during a campaign rally at the Covelli Centre, Monday, Oct. 29, 2012, in Youngstown, Ohio. (Photo: AP) 

Joe simply cannot help himself. In an interview with PARENTS magazine, the Vice President told women, presumably, that AR-15s are too hard to shoot and that instead, if we’re worried about self-defense, we should “buy a shotgun.” He said that’s the advice he’s given his own wife, Jill.

Let’s put aside the fact that Biden’s pitch to increase, not decrease, gun ownership probably wasn’t appreciated by his boss, the president.

And let’s also put aside the preposterous notion that an AR-15 is too hard for a woman to shoot – the reason, in fact, that gun control advocates want them banned is because they are supposedly far too easy to shoot.

But as much as I love Joe Biden’s public service announcement for gun ownership, and wish more Democrats would take to the airwaves to urge Americans to buy guns, the underlying message was far more dangerous than the superficial comments were silly.

What no one’s asking is, Why is it okay for men to tell women how to defend themselves?

Biden is hardly alone in this. Obviously there are hundreds of men in Congress and thousands in state legislatures who regularly craft laws on women’s self-defense issues, and many of them, I’m sure, do so from an earnest and compassionate place.

But doesn’t the “my body, my choice” mantra on the left cover my ability to save my body from rape and death? Or is it only my body and my choice when I’ve created another person, with another person?

The renewed calls for gun control have really brought out the lunatics on the left, many of them men who seem to think they know how I can best stave off an attack – from another man. Colorado Democratic State Rep. Joe Salazar said on the floor of the House that I should, apparently, buy a rape whistle. Why? Because as a woman, I can’t be trusted to shoot a gun. I wouldn’t encourage any would-be attackers out there to test that theory with me.

“It’s why we have call boxes, it’s why we have safe zones, it’s why we have whistles,” he said. Indeed, compelling points. So then why do we still have rape on college campuses? Why, according to the Department of Justice, will one in five college women be raped during their college years with all the call boxes and safe zones? Why are college aged women four times more likely to be sexually assaulted than the average female population if they are all effectively armed with whistles?

Colorado State Rep. Joe Salazar (Youtube)

He went on to insist that we women shouldn’t own guns for self-defense because “you just don’t know who you’re going to be shooting at.” Yes, that does put us at a disadvantage with men, who always know the criminals they encounter. And we’ve all heard of thousands of instances where a woman mistakenly shoots her best friend instead of the knife-wielding predator straddling her on the ground with his hand over her mouth.

He continued: “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 may actually not be, that you pop out that gun and you pop a round at somebody.”

How does that work? Men, you tell me – do you “know if you feel like you’re gonna be” robbed or murdered? The further we go down Salazar’s kooky rabbit hole, the more he starts sounding like Todd Akin. I’m pretty sure if you unpacked his meandering treatise on a woman’s inability to properly exert her trigger finger, you’d find a case for “legitimate rape.”

Elsewhere in Colorado, the state House passed a package of gun safety bills this week, one of which includes banning concealed carry on college campuses.

No problem there, because the University of Colorado has some awesome tips for women, posted as an updated advisory on their website. One recommendation?  “Kick off your shoes” because, presumably, the stiletto’s we wear to class might be hard to run in.

Another? “Don’t take time to look back; just get away.” If only someone had told college rape victims to “just get away” earlier, think how many women could have been saved from sexual assault.

Ominously, they also warn us that “some actions on your part might lead to more harm” but don’t bother delineating what those are. Women are essentially told to roll the dice and see what happens.

And finally, the University of Colorado wants us to vomit or urinate on our attackers. Alright sir.

As silly and dangerous as these suggestions are, and as asinine as some of these Democratic male legislators sound, the idea that I can’t be trusted to defend myself with a weapon is offensive, paternalistic and even misogynistic. And where is the National Organization for Women or Planned Parenthood or any other liberal women’s group denouncing these boneheaded men and institutions for telling us how to protect our bodies? Silence.

It’s one thing to make an argument for gun control that reflects on efficacy, crime, mental health and safety. But when men make an argument for gun control based on the best ways women can defend themselves – against other men – they’ve overstepped their bounds. So dudes, when you feel comfortable going to the wrong side of town with merely a whistle, then we can talk.

S.E. Cupp appears on 'Real News' on TheBlaze TV Monday Through Friday at 6pm EST