In the two years since former University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill students Annie Clark and Andrea Pino complained to the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, a movement has formed that takes colleges to task for mishandling or ignoring sexual assault allegations, CBS News reports. Another movement, championed by sexual assault victims on the other side of the U.S., ties the issue to concealed-carry gun rights. Clark worries it could distract from efforts to fix how colleges handle sexual assault allegations and prevention. “I think we should be talking about the perpetrators,” said Clark, a co-founder of the advocacy group End Rape on Campus. “Telling women to carry guns, first of all puts the burden on the woman to prevent this and secondly, it’s not a solution.”
The group Women for Concealed Carry frames concealed carry as a victims’ rights issue. Director Katherine Whitney said it wasn’t formed in opposition to other victims’ rights groups. “There seems to be kind of a dichotomy in this discussion where people assume either campus carry should be legalized or college campuses should take steps to reduce campus assault,” she said. “It should be both. We need colleges to acknowledge that campus assault happens, and we need administrators to do everything they can to prevent victimization.” The Leadership Institute, a non-profit that provides training in campaigning and fundraising for young conservatives, has posted a YouTube instructional video on how to run on-campus “Strong Women Fight Back” concealed carry campaigns.