There has long been an apocryphal story about a lawman in Texas in the later part of the 19th century owning a Colt revolver inscribed with the following poem etched onto its bone grips.

“Be not afraid of any man;
No matter what his size;
When danger threatens, call on me—
And I will equalize!”

Indeed, Samuel Colt’s 1873 Singe Action Army revolver, also known as “the Peacemaker,” was one of the firearms that democratized the west, giving a single person of average size and skill, regardless of sex or age, a fighting chance against one more violent criminals.

As time and technology have advanced from the 1800s, smaller and safer handguns have been paired with technologically advanced ammunition to give even the most petite and frail among us the opportunity to defend themselves against the biggest and most violent of prison-hardened criminals.

The biggest problem we have in defending our lives against criminals in this country isn’t technology, but the outdated laws that forbid when and where citizens may defend their lives. These so-called “gun free zones” are—not surprisingly—the favored killing grounds of mass killers. 92-percent of all mass killings occur in these “gun free zones,” with schools and colleges being a particularly fertile hunting ground for mass killers.

Of course, college campuses are much more often the scene of much more common and lesser known crimes, from armed robbery and muggings to sexual assault.

So-called “campus carry” bills advancing are advancing in a number of states in the hopes of removing those “gun free zone” signs, and giving college students a fighting chance against the criminals who intentionally target disarmed students. Campus carry  would allow college students, faculty and staff with concealed carry permits to carry their firearms on campus as they do everywhere else without problems.

Bills advancing concealed carry are in front of the legislatures of Florida, Indiana, Montana, Nevada, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, and Wyoming, and this new front in the battle for gun rights has the gun control supporting forces of radical feminism completely freaked out.

From the New York Times to hysterics-prone webzine Slate, it seems that the last thing so-called “feminists” actually want is for college students to have the ability to defend their lives, and they seem particularly concerned that some people supporting campus carry have made the argument that female students might be able to deter some campus sexual assaults if allowed to carry a concealed weapon.

Terrified feminist critics of campus carry point out that the vast majority of campus sexual assault is carried out as acquaintance rape, and that in these situations, women may not have access to a firearm.

And they’re entirely right.

Acquaintance rape typically happens in alcohol and drug-fueled parties both on and off campus, in dorms and in apartments, where most students aren’t like to bring firearms. But not all acquaintance rape is the rape of a an inebriated student, and not all campus rape is acquaintance rape.

Some rapes on campus are the age-old tale of a lone female attempting to walk to her car or apartment, who lacks the strength to physically fight her attacker. A compact 9mm pistol or .38 revolver in her hands would certainly go a long way towards “equalizing” the situation, a fact that these fake feminists seem to fear. It’s almost like an angry little cult that lives on creating fears of predatory men is frightened that campus carry might reduce the number of predatory men, and thus, their best recruiting tool.

Hmmm…

Of course, campus carry isn’t just a potential rape prevention tool.

One of the students injured in the November shooting at Florida State University’s Strozier Library was a licensed concealed carried disarmed by current laws who says that he could have taken out the shooter before police arrived if he had his weapon.

It’s amazing what people can do, when antiquated laws don’t get in the way.