Austin, Texas, was home to two very different types of protests this past Saturday. Shortly after gun rights advocates staged a “mass mock shooting” aimed at highlighting what they see as dangers posed by gun-free zones near the University of Texas campus, protesters waving sex toys and fart machines assembled nearby in an effort to counteract the scare tactics of the day’s earlier event.
“This isn’t about guns necessarily,” fart protest organizer Andrew Dobbs reportedly told the assembled flatulent masses. “This is about scaring our community. This is about a choice between fear and a little bit of good humor. We are in a scary time right now and lots of scary things are happening, and some people want us to be more afraid.”
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It’s that “little bit of good humor” which led an estimated 100 protesters to chant things like “Texas…farts!” and (the Monty Python-inspired) “We fart in your general direction!” as they wove their way down Austin’s Guadalupe street, reports the Houston Chronicle. And while the cheeky march maybe have taken place too late in the day to actually disrupt the mass mock shooting, it was much better attended—only a dozen or so of the pro-gun advocates reportedly turned out for their event, which featured cardboard firearms and fake blood.
Police & Media Arrive Too Late For Mock Mass Shooting
Posted by Dan Olivaw on Saturday, December 12, 2015
At issue is a new Texas law which will soon allow for the open carry of handguns on parts of public college campuses. Firearms advocates—such as those behind Saturday’s mock mass shooting—worry that the law will be counteracted by universities declaring some spaces “gun-free zones.”
This is not the first time dildos have been used to highlight gun control advocates’ frustrations with the new Texas law. Earlier this fall, UT Austin student Jessica Lin began organizing “Campus (DILDO) Carry” in which opponents of the open-carry legislation would brandish sex toys—items which can result in a campus citation—in protest against the impending influx of soon-to-be legal guns. Dildos are “just about as effective at protecting us from sociopathic shooters,” wrote Lin at the time, “but much safer for recreational play.”
It’s that same silly-belying-serious concern that Dobbs echoed during his fart-centric protest. “I choose to believe that fear is not the solution to the threat of our time. That laughing in the face of fear is a courageous act and toting a gun around everywhere you go, maybe not so much,” the Houston Chronicle quotes him as saying. “When you come to my community, to the university that I love, and you threaten the lives of my friends, what I have to say is, I’m going to fart in your face!”
[via houston chronicle, think progress]
