University of Texas at Austin: the mock mass shooting “Life and Liberty Walk to End Gun-Free Zones” planned by avid gun supporters was rendered impotent today by counter protesters open carrying dildos and flatulent noise makers. The Austin American-Statesman reports that only about 15 gun supporters showed up to stage the mock mass shooting, and they had some issues completing the act:
But at 2:30, all that remained as evidence of the protest were crude chalk outlines on the sidewalks along Guadalupe, meant to represent dead bodies after a mass shooting. The group said it intended to stage the mock mass shooting during the announced break, while most bystanders were checking out the counter protests nearby, to show the unpredictability of a mass shooting.
According to their Facebook page the goal of staging a fake mass shooting at UT was:
In the wake of yet another gun free zone shooting, Obama is using it to aggressively push his gun confiscation agenda. Now is the time to stand up, take a walk, speak out against the lies and put an end to the gun free killing zones.
Incidentally, since they have been keeping track, Austin compared to other large Texas and even the rest of the U.S. cities has been relatively freer of mass shootings. The last major incident was in 1966 when an ex-marine opened fire from the clock tower of the very campus this group chose to stage a mock mass killing.
Charles Whitman takes a stockpile of guns and ammunition to the observatory platform atop a 300-foot tower at the University of Texas and proceeds to shoot 46 people, killing 14 people and wounding 31.
So it is in particularly poor taste to choose UT to stage a mass shooting here. Not sure what the fascination for shooters with schools is either. According to Austin Police Chief Art Acevedo the key to stopping mass shootings in Austin has been:
Acevedo said ongoing training is key to the department’s success, including for active shooter situations, for which law enforcement strategies are changing.
“More often than not in recent years, people aren’t interested in negotiating, people aren’t interested in holding hostages, people are only interested in causing as much death and injury as they can,” he said.
Now officers responding to a shooter are trained to engage right away rather than waiting to assess the situation or for more officers to arrive.
The group finally managed to pull off their demonstration an hour after it was planned, according to their Facebook page. They are pictured here proposing that if they are allowed to carry their guns on the UT campus this scene would potentially not happen:
They even managed to include the lady from gun nut conspiracies that supposedly appears at the scene of mass shootings.
The demonstrators chose to include the conspiracy theory that some government entity is staging mass shootings in order to take guns away from Americans. They are wandering deeply into conspiracy nut territory. Maybe choosing to demonstrate this is a good thing, and this actually backfired for them. It shows exactly how ridiculous they come off to people who don’t share their obsession. They unwittingly demonstrated why sane gun legislation is necessary.
