Two things

Today, the NRA spokesperson Wayne LaPierre gave a speech in which he framed gun ownership rights as a women's issue, saying that women deserved the right to protect themselves from sexual assault with guns.

Well, yeah. But where LaPierre went way off base was appearing to suggest that a "good woman with a gun" would prevent rape from happening in many cases. I'm using vague terms because I don't want to put words in his mouth. But it's clear from looking at what he said that LaPierre wanted to use rhetoric to imply that "woman with gun" equals "no rape ever."

And that's bullshit. For starters, the majority of rapes and sexual assaults happen between a victim and perpetrator who already know each other. They happen between intimate partners. They happen when adults molest children in their own families. Anyone who wants to talk about rape prevention needs to start from a point of understanding that rape is always a scary-looking man jumping out from a shadow is a myth.

And then there's this. Also this week, the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Personnel finally spent some time on the very real issue of sexual assault in the military. According to the Pentagon, there are 19,000 sexual assaults per year in the U.S. military. 19,000. Almost all of which go unreported and unprosecuted.

These are women (and men) with extensive professional training in how to defend themselves with and without firearms. And they're still raped and sexually assaulted. What does the NRA have to say about that? Actually, never mind - I'm not sure I want to know.