A group of open carry gun advocates who are upset over the the University of Texas being a gun free zone are planning a heinous demonstration on the campus of the state’s flagship school during finals week. From the Austin Statesman:
The Open Carry Walk and Crisis Performance Event will involve actors “shot” by perpetrators armed with cardboard weapons, said Matthew Short, a spokesman for the gun rights groups Come and Take It Texas and DontComply.com.
“It’s a fake mass shooting, and we’ll use fake blood,” he said. He said gun noises will be blared from bullhorns. Other people will then play the role of rescuers, also armed with cardboard weapons.
Just what these students need during a stressful finals week—a gross demonstration of the mass shootings we see time and time again in the news. And before the mock massacre takes place, demonstrators will be hosting an open carry walk directly next to the campus, encouraging demonstrators to display all their legally allowed rifles and handguns.
What could go wrong here? At least one faculty member is noting how entirely disrespectful the entire demonstration is, particularly on a campus that had a mass shooting in 1966. More from the Austin Statesman:
UT history professor Joan Neuberger, who helps lead Gun Free UT, an organization supported by thousands of UT students and faculty that aims to keep guns out of the UT campus, said that putting on such an event is an act of intimidation.
“Staging a mass shooting during an anxious time for students — finals week — not only breaks rules but shows real disrespect for the feelings of students, faculty and staff who don’t want to have guns around them in the first place, but will be forced to put up with guns in public places in 2016,” Neuberger said.
As for the students, at least one student with a sense of humor (who is organizing an open carry dildo event next fall) is hoping students will join her in a counter protest:
Jessica Jin, organizer of the dildo protest, posted this on the mock shooting organizer's Facebook page: "It must not be very fun to have to use fake guns for your 'crisis performance,' so in lieu of that sad cardboard, I came to extend an offer to borrow from our arsenal of dildos!"
"They deleted my post! So now I'm trying to see if anyone is interested in showing up to play along... with dildos," she later told the Chronicle.
