vagina monologues

N.H. Lawmaker Defends Vaginas’ Right to Bear Arms

Photo: Jim Cole/Corbis

New Hampshire Republicans are less than thrilled about the state legislature’s recent vote to repeal stand-your-ground laws, which protect your right to shoot other people in self-defense without trying to retreat or flee first. For example, State Representative Peter Hansen wants to know: Who will think of the vaginas and children?

In response to an opponent’s anti-stand-your-ground speech, Hansen e-mailed the all-legislature listserv the following, obtained by a local blogger Susan the Bruce (h/t Salon):

“What could possibly be missing from those factual tales of successful retreat in VT, Germany, and the bowels of Amsterdam? Why children and vagina’s of course. While the tales relate the actions of a solitary male the outcome cannot relate to similar situations where children and women and mothers are the potential victims.” 

Hansen is not alone in his belief that stand-your-ground laws protect women, who can’t flee their attackers because, like bears, they must protect their young. During stand-your-ground debates last month, Representative Lenette Peterson spoke of carrying a gun on backpacking trips with her daughters. The Huffington Post reports:

Unlike men, women cannot go into the woods alone, Peterson said, and if she ran from an attacker it would separate her from her children.

“HB 135 is declaring open season on women in New Hampshire,” Peterson said.

But Hansen is the only known elected official to take a stand on behalf of “vagina’s” — and back up that claim with a straight face. After a fellow lawmaker chastised Hansen for being crude on a legislative listserv, he replied-all:

“Having a fairly well educated mind I do not need self appointed wardens to A: try to put words in my mouth for political gain and B: Turn a well founded strategy in communication into an insulting accusation, and finally if you find the noun vagina insulting or in some way offensive then perhaps a better exercise might be for you to re-examine your psyche.”

To which we will only add that Hansen sounds like a total penis. A penis who can’t punctuate.

N.H. Defends Vaginas’ Right to Bear Arms