As Albany’s legislative session came to a close in June the State Senate passed a victims’ rights bill that never made it out of the Assembly, despite support by Eliot Spitzer and over 110 assembly co-sponsors. The bill would have required that defendants in sex crime cases submit to HIV testing so that their victims could have piece of mind and not have to live every waking moment worried and fearful of contracting the deadly disease as a secondary result of their already horrific rape or molestation.

Even though this bill makes all the sense in the world and had the support of the majority of the Assembly it could not come to vote as the Assembly leadership would not allow it to escape the procedural aspects of bill passage. It remained listlessly in the rules committee which is chaired by none other than Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver himself. Through the news media he openly showed support for the bill but when it truly mattered he caved-in to the few but very vocal dissenters in the Assembly who represent his peers, those on the very far left. These people not only believed the bill to be an assault on civil rights but also thought that the bill would make victims out of those living with HIV by giving the disease a negative stigma.

Never mind the rights of the poor rape victim. Never mind the Common Good. Only in New York could the needs of the few outweigh the needs of the many.

Such is the norm with the governance of rights in New York State. Good laws are never passed while bad ones somehow seem to get passed, the liberal downstate interests influencing laws to the point of actually empowering sexual predators while taking away the rights of their prey.

This imbalance was fully realized last fall when Joan Diver’s body was found along the Clarence bike path, the victim of a brutal murder. Fearing that the Buffalo area Bike Path Rapist or a similar deviant was on the rampage again, authorities in Erie County strongly suggested - if not demanded – that women exercise at home or indoors and not venture out on the paths and trails.

By any standard, becoming shut-ins fearful of the outdoors is the only route health-conscious women could take under such circumstances. With a monster on the loose, a jaunt in the park could become a dangerous thing because women’s rights to protect themselves were thrown under the bus by Albany politics. Every single option that is available on the market in most states by which to give a woman an edge over a sexual predator is not an option here.

What if she wants a small pistol to keep on her person? A woman has to go through loopholes to get a pistol permit in NY, one of only twelve states that require such a permit, something in extreme defiance of our second amendment.

What if she wants to possess a stun gun? She can’t in New York, one of only six states in the whole US in which they are illegal despite their incredible level of safety.

What if she wants to carry pepper spray as a weapon? She has only a few places where she can buy it and she can only buy so much for New York is, once again, one of just a handful of states (8) with a limitation.

Basically, the women of New York State are left defenseless against their attackers. Without the access to self-defense weapons there is very little that a 120-pound woman can do against a 250-pound pervert intent on taking away her body’s sanctity and her mind’s sanity. Our Big Government lawmakers have guaranteed this over the years, doing everything in their power to make our women powerless and rapists empowered. Couple this insanity with the Assembly’s recent denial of the HIV-testing bill and the sex offender "wins" not only during the sickening crime but also well after it has been committed.