RAPIST PROTECTION ZONE: Midday rape at Tiffin University

By Chad D. Baus

She can vote. She can join the Armed Services in defense of her country. But in the eyes of Ohio law, she cannot be trusted to carry a firearm in defense of her dignity at her chosen place of higher learning.

As if we needed any more evidence of the terrible danger of marking off Ohio's college campuses as defenseless victim zones, the Toledo Blade is reporting that an 18-year-old female student at Tiffin University was dragged out of a campus computer lab and raped.

From the story:

    Tiffin police Chief Dave LaGrange said the young woman, who is an international student, entered the computer lab in the basement of the main classroom building on Miami Street about 1:40 p.m. Saturday. She logged on to a computer and then was grabbed from behind, dragged to a nearby men's restroom, and assaulted, he said.

    Within minutes of the attack, the victim went to a residence hall and called police. Chief LaGrange said she was treated at Tiffin Mercy Hospital and examined by a sexual assault nurse examiner.

    ...The victim described her assailant as a tall, thin, African-American male in his 20s. He had a tattoo on his chest, although she could not provide a description of it.

    "We don't know at this point if it's a student or if it's a stranger," the chief said. "It's an open campus just along the street in that section of the city. Either is possible."

    Visitors do not need an identification card to enter the building or the computer lab, he said.

    ...Neither of the Tiffin campuses has its own police force.

Tired of reading about incidents like the one at Tiffin University? Keep this in mind:

Having made the mistake of listening to gun ban extremists whose predictions have, of course, failed to come to pass, Ohio legislators allowed the creation of many "no-guns" victim zones across the state when they passed Ohio's concealed carry law in 2004.

The ironic timing of this terrible incident cannot be overlooked, coming as it did just hours after the “Virginia Tech Review Panel” released its report on April’s horrific mass shooting on that "gun free" campus, and in the wake of many Ohio campuses concluding that more security cameras and quicker response times to alert defenseless students are the answer to preventing future such attacks.

This tragedy is full of lessons for any responsible adult (or parent in the process of teaching their children) about the realities involved in self-protection (realities which anti-self-defense bigots refuse to acknowledge):

  • Lesson: "No-guns" college campuses do nothing to protect our daughters from sexual predators, but they DO protect sexual predators who attack our daughters.
  • Lesson: Security cameras do nothing to deter a tenacious criminal, or to stop a crime in progress.
  • Lesson: Campus security guards or off-campus police forces do nothing to deter a tenacious criminal, and can't stop a crime in progress if they don't know it's happening.
  • Lesson: If a person can be trusted take up arms in defense of their country, they should be trusted to exercise their Constitutional right to bear arms for self-defense back at home.

    What is particularly disturbing about the lessons being learned in Ohio's "no-guns" victim zones through the blood and humiliation of crime victims is that they are not new.


    In 1966 the police in Orlando, Florida, responded to a rape epidemic by embarking on a highly publicized program to train 2,500 women in firearm use. The next year rape fell by 88 percent in Orlando (the only major city to experience a decrease that year); burglary fell by 25 percent. Not one of the 2,500 women actually ended up firing her weapon; the deterrent effect of the publicity sufficed." (Congressional Record, 90th Cong., 2d sess., January 30, 1968, p. 1496, n. 7) Five years later Orlando's rape rate was still 13 percent below the pre-program level, whereas the surrounding standard metropolitan area had suffered a 308 percent increase.

    Ready to see some REAL action taken to prevent it from happening again? Here are a few suggestions:

  • Ohio legislators should act this year to remove college campuses from the list of defenseless victim zones, and to lower the age for obtaining an Ohio concealed handgun license to 18.
  • Upon passage of this law, universities should announce that CHL-classes will be offered on campus, and should encourage students old enough to legally qualify to obtain training and apply for their license.
  • For those students who are not old enough to obtain a CHL, campus officials should sponsor awareness classes, such as NRA Refuse To Be Victim.

    Until these actions are taken, bureaucrats will continue to resort to the kinds of useless, feel-good measures that did nothing to help this poor Tiffin University student, and the crime victims will continue to pile up at our state's university campuses .

    Related Stories:
    Guns On Campus: A Preponderance Of Public Policy and Interest

    Guns Should Be Allowed On Campus

    Gun-free zones are fatal mistakes

    Time for the sun to set on the Culture of Sheep

    Academic Freedom and Guns DO Mix

    Unarmed Ohio campus security guards - and they'll stay that way

    The Case For Self-Defense at Ohio State University

    College girls step out against violence, but do they stand up for self-defense?

    Victims of violence on state-mandated ''no-guns'' campus offered free assistance

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