Heads Up! No, Down! Hell, I Dunno. Put Your Head Somewhere!
Okay, here’s the deal. I am not making this stuff up.
The gun-freaks in Texas have a charming and delightful idea right here before celebrating the birth of the Prince of Peace.
Gun rights groups say they will conduct a mock mass shooting this weekend at the University of Texas campus as they try to end gun-free zones.
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.
What could possibly go wrong? You know, except good guys with a gun showing up and shooting everybody acting the fool. There’s that. You know, because people on a college campus with guns is a perfectly safe thing to see.
The gun holders will first walk around Austin with fully loaded weapons before heading to campus. That is called foreplay.
Also, it’s the week before finals so students can’t just stay at home that day. Stressed out people mixed with wild eyed crazybutt people is gonna make a mess.
These dudes have a Facebook page, but fair warning – your eyes will burn.
Just minutes ago this happened.
A University of Texas spokesman says the planned mock mass shooting demonstration this weekend would be considered criminal trespass if participants do not leave when asked.
Look, I’m not saying this is in bad taste right after San Bernardino and Paris, but … Oh hell, Holy Damn Crap, this is just raw genuine awful.
The head of the gun nuts asked about this being a tad scary, and he replied, “We love freedom and we’re trying to make more freedom.”
Somebody, please, tell me what the fool tarnation that means?
Thanks to Carol for the first heads up.
At first, I thought this was something from The Onion. Would that it were. Beam me up, Scotty. Now I’ve heard everything.
1Just what a college campus needs: a group of illiterate ammosexuals running around acting the fool. Only possible good outcome from this will be any student considering dropping out of college will elect to stay.
2Are they trying to recreate the panic and fear that Charles Whitman brought to UT on August 1, 1966? He “introduced the nation to the idea of mass murder in a public space.” http://www.texasmonthly.com/articles/96-minutes/ “By the time he was gunned down by an Austin police officer early that afternoon, he had shot 43 people, thirteen of whom died.” http://www.texasmonthly.com/category/topics/ut-tower-shooting/
UT has a very good, historical, reason for declaring their campus gun-free. Just because it happened almost 50 years ago, and was caused by a man with a brain tumor, is no reason to forget the tragedy. My high school German teacher (then a UT professor) missed being one of the statistics because a question-asking student delayed him leaving to eat his lunch in his accustomed place under the tower. There are plenty of people still alive who remember that day.
3Now see, what these sissy boys would like to do is whip out their personal ‘pee’ shooters and prance around. Unfortunately too many would come up short. Pity.
4The head of the gun nuts asked about this being a tad scary, and he replied, “We love freedom and we’re trying to make more freedom.”
Somebody, please, tell me what the fool tarnation that means?
It means, with or without guns, this group needs to stay away from places of higher learning.
5You know what might really get their point across? Having the national guard come in and make up for the CF at Kent state. Instead of shooting unarmed students, they would be protecting students from terrorists. And yes, this is exactly what terrorism is.
6Hasn’t the US proven that an armed society, has dead people society?
7These people are nuts.
I can’t even begin to understand them.
Why don’t they stage this at their local place of worship, then they can pray to Jesus for forgiveness afterwards.
Diane, if life was fair, all these moronic ammosexuals would be confined to the Bundy Ranch and shot on sight if attempting to leave. Let Bundy pay for his back taxes by supporting these reprobates.
8What will happen when a good guy with a gun doesn’t get the word about this demonstration. Will he step up and take out the perceived bad guy, using live ammo? Will Darwin rule the day? Will stand your ground or self defense come into the picture? What is college for, if not a learning experience? Texas my Texas.
9I hate to mention this, but come August 1 all Texas campuses will not be gun-free. We’ve been told we will have a *little* say in where they can be carried into, but to face it, guns on campus will be a reality.
10I only wish I could go ahead and retire now. Three years may be too late!
My only consolation is that I have mostly young women in my classes, and many of those are African-American. I don’t think they are the most likely to carry. I’ll just have to remember to stay in my building.
It scares the merde out of me. I fear for the future of our young people. But then, maybe it’s the young people that I’m teaching now that will put a stop to this asinine belief that it’s safe to have all those guns around.
Thanks for the heads up. Off to text my two children who are busy studying for their finals at U-T. One of them has all three finals on Saturday. They might not want to mess with her as she will likely not be in a good frame of mind.
I hate those people.
11“gun rights groups Come and Take It Texas and DontComply.com.”
Right there I’m seeing boys who lacked discipline, or the right kind of discipline, and didn’t grow up properly. They have that “You can’t make me!” snotty attitude that has to be shed before a man or woman becomes an adult. Hence the stupid playacting, making a mockery of other people’s deaths.
12JAKvirginia, do we really need to resort to queer-baiting with your words about “sissy boys” and “prancing around” to make a point? I usually really appreciate your comments, but please keep the homo hate to yourself.
13The butterfly net squad needs to be in place for all this nuttery. And they had better bring a lot of armless sweaters. Everyone of these bozos needs a mental competency test. And the same for whoever allows them to get away with this.
14True Freedom – The Freedom to hate or kill anyone you damn well choose. It’s in the Constitution and the Bible.
Reminds my of an old song…
“Well, now give me my pistol, man
And three round balls
I’m gonna shoot everybody
That I don’t like at all
Like at all, like at all”
Hot Tuna – 99 Year Blues
And the immortal words of Conservative demi God
“Joe the Plumber: ‘Your dead kids don’t trump my constitutional rights’
15http://www.msnbc.com/morning-joe/joe-the-plumber-california-shooting
If only there was an amendment to the Constitution that guaranteed freedom from a$$holes.
16Mark J: If you have read my comments then you would know I’m gay. If not, you do now. “Sissy boys” and “prancing around” have nothing to do with being gay. I’m sorry you think they do. You might check youownself when it comes, um, what was that cute turn of phrase? Ah yes… homo hate. Nice word choice.
17My bride is a tea sip and I am an Aggie but this is one we agree on: These Nut Cases are dangerous.
18JAKV, to be honest, I always read your comments and I really didn’t know you were gay. I probably did at some point, from some comment, but I really don’t much categorize people on this site (or most others) into the gay / not gay spectrum so it wouldn’t have meant much to me to remember. So now I know and now I will remember.
One of the things I love about JJ’s TWMDBS comments section is that everyone is rather polite.
And I found your sissy prancing comments very impolite.
Personally, I find “sissy boy” to be an offensive phrase, regardless of your sexuality. It is a phrase meant to emasculate and denigrate, and is used to imply homosexuality. In a not very nice way. For the record, I’ve never been to a club or party or reception or event and had someone say to me: “now that is a nice sissy boy over there … you should go and introduce yourself.”
Maybe it is just my group of friends?
“Prancing” as well. Unless you are talking about a horse, JAKV, prancing is generally used to refer to men who act effeminate and to imply that they are somehow less than real men.
Prancing is often heard in the same sentence as “mincing.”
For the record, I know some “sissy boys” who are tough as nails because they must be and who, while they are “prancing around” can kick some serious ass.
I don’t know your age or sex JAKV, but I’m a fifty-something gay man and when I was growing up “sissy” and “faggot” were pretty much interchangeable. I find both horribly offensive. Perhaps you are younger and don’t feel the same.
Generations change things.
But honestly, JAKV, your comment was in fact meant to emasculate and equate the actions of this group with being less than real men. By using the words “sissy” and “prancing.” That was the entire point of your comment. And your words “sissy” and “prancing” were meant to emasculate. With their little pee-pees. Those are the words that gay men hear all the time in an attempt to make us less than. They have no place in a polite discussion.
I’m not sure why my phrase “homo hate” finds you in such distress. How about homophobia? Is that better? I find the word “sissy” pretty hateful and your comment, regardless of your gayness, rather homophobic. Gay people can be homophobic, don’tcha know.
Again, I always appreciate your usually very considered comments. I always read your comments. I appreciate your insight. This time, it was a bit off the mark.
And for the record, I have, I am well aware, made some perhaps questionable comments here on occasion. Up too late, too much wine, too much cranky gay guy, too much living in East Texas, too much crazy Republican relatives, too much whatever. Sometimes I go off. I appreciate when people call me out, and they have. I try to own it and apologize. And move on. This time, “prancing sissies” is not me being too much. It is you being too much whatever. Sorry.
19Gee. I wonder how open carry would work out against a well-armed, trained shooter 28 stories up.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Whitman
20Cardboard guns better have red or orange on the muzzle or police will be forced to shoot because the guns look real.
21Um, sorry to rain on your rant parade MarkJ, but JAK is using that phrase to describe, not “emasculate and denigrate” these “persons” in a perfectly proper fashion. If you reflect back on the comments here and go back to the NSFW pictorial from earlier this week, you will find that the opinion of many is that these individuals are substituting large powerful weapons that spray bullets for some much smaller part of their anatomy that spits genetic material – all of which that they are convinced is lacking. They have been “emasculated and denigrated” by a society that no longer respects their inherent white masculine superiority and denigrated by the rejection of their genetic material by what they consider to be suitable mates. They have a grudge against everybody as a result, and then decide to flame out taking as many other people as possible with them in a blaze of some twisted notoriety seeking “glory” and the idea of their being allowed or encouraged to carry their manhood enhancements openly is just a little frightening! The fact that these same sorts of men have made a career out of bullying people who are different and using perjoratives that can now be accurately used to describe themselves? I call that “karma” myself! LBGT people exhibit the same spectrum of expression that everyone else does, because “they” are an artificial subset of “us” so “sissy” and “prancing” only really apply to a caricature of a glittering generality, right? And as for prancing, have you SEEN any NFL cheerleaders lately? It’s not only for horses! The connotation those words have for you, a gay man in his 50s, is not necessarily the same one the rest of us have, and the WMDBS is not a “safe space” for any of us; we’re gonna get our toes stepped on now and then. It was your turn today; I didn’t particularly care for a reference to the Alamo yesterday. It’s not the end of the world! PS: for women involved in this open carry crapola, see also “penis envy” and trying too hard!
22@LynnN
23From your post to Karmas ears.
The “freedumb” disease has spread to Virginia, where Jerry Failwell has declared that it’s OK for residents at “Liberty” dorms to have guns.
24Dumb! Dumber! Dumbest!
Sure as God made little green apples. This whole exercise in Dumb! just goes to show….. once again…..you cannot cure Stupid!
25Oh, Lord. This has all the earmarks of a murder by misunderstanding or a Darwin Award in the making. Possibly both. What with fake guns, fake gunfire, and fake blood, all it will take is one gun that looks too real to a member of the campus police.
26@JAK
@Mark J
@Aggieland Lizzie
When my kids were little, 4 or 5 or 6, they definitely “pranced” around playing.
I have an Australian Cattle Dog that when she has a good day and is the mood, she prances for edible rewards.
Maybe it was a different group than the one under discussion, but I have seen with my own eyes a group of 2A-mmo-sexuals, armed with AR15-like rifles prancing on a sidewalk. They looked exactly like the 4 year olds and exactly like the self-satisfied ACD excited for a treat. Sadly, no differences.
Should tell us something about the comparative maturity of the people.
BTW, while neither the dog nor the kids are gay, the kids grew out of prancing so far as I know. The dog prolly never.
27I have a much clearer memory of being a scared 9 year old kid in the back seat on the drive up to Austin from Corpus that hot summer day 50 years ago than I do of the drive back from the in laws’ after Turkey Day two weeks ago.
When, when is the pendulum going to start to swing back?
28Meanwhile the students are taking FINALS!!!!!
29There should be a police presence to stop this insanity before it gets started.
JAKV and Mark … knock it off, we’re family here, unless you two want to put on, IDK, Indian war bonnets and leopard print speedos and duke it out.
30Such an interesting thread going on in this one today!
JAKvirginia … I knew where you were going with your first comment. Was a little surprised by Mark’s comeback. Hope it’s all been explained to everyone’s satisfaction.
Perhaps the students, on campus, taking their finals, will simply stay inside and away from the nut cases and hope to God no one actually gets shot!!
31I hope that once this “demonstration” begins that a lot of bystanders will phone the police and report armed suspicious characters present.
If the police have any intelligence the downside of not responding will be evident and they will have to respond or be accountable for a hellacious public response if there is an ‘injury incident’.
Once the ‘demonstrators’ start seeing armed and uniformed (those few demonstrators with any imagination) response teams both in uniform and those who are amongst their own numbers…it will begin to dawn on them that flying bullets tend to (1) hurt a lot and (2) can’t really tell ‘good guys’ from ‘bad guys’ or ‘oops, a mistake’ scenarios once they are fired.
I also wonder when the companies moving so many families to this state will start to look at this kind of thing and slow/stop their moves. Money is a great motivator but what price on your kids and grandkids lives.
32Feeling very thankful today for the dept head at a major TX campus (also the mayor, a serious Good Ol’ Boy) who told me that my getting tenure didn’t entitle me to a raise, I’d just have to get a really good offer somewhere else. So I got an offer from Harvard and left. Otherwise I’d probably still be in a classroom Somewhere in TX, waiting to see which of my students in final exam today would put a bullet in self out of despair, in another student for suspected cheating, or in me for making the exam too hard.
Luckily my campus in CA is gun-free, so I’m just bringing brownies to the final for the victims, errrm, students.
Seriously, what is WRONG with snacilbupeR down there, y’all? Don’t any of them have kids in college, or family who are teachers? Can’t anyone shake them out of their delusional visions of wild-west shootouts in lectures and dorms?
33When the good guys with guns come to save the day does the script call for any of them to be casualties or are they going to wait until the bullhorns stop blaring gunfire signifying that the bad guys have exhausted their ammunition?
34I have spent most of my working life banging around the internet, and one thing I have learned (through painful personal experience) to be really wary of in communicating with someone who’s face I can’t see or who’s voice I can’t hear is jumping to a conclusion and getting pi$$ed. That only jacks up my blood pressure, and derails the conversation from the merit of what’s being said to the merit of how it’s being said.
Comment sections often turn into cages full of apes flinging poo at one another. Thank you, simply, for not.
35@Dice
During part of my misspent youth I stayed with grands and suchlike family near the city park zoo in Greenville, Texas. Therein lived a big gorilla named Lucky. He definitely would fling his excrements when riled, which WAS entertaining, if one was outside his chunking range. BUT even more entertaining was his smoking of cigarettes of various sorts.
Animal lovers please don’t dump on me over this. Yes I was and am wrong for being amused. It’s not the worst thing I’ve ever done. Not going to he77 for (just) that.
36Linda Phipps: Sorry to have ruined your day by defending myself from an unfair accusation.
37http://www.reuters.com/article/us-texas-university-guns-idUSKBN0TT2B720151210#LTz11WbKKX73w0Rf.97
A University of Texas advisory committee has reluctantly recommended allowing handguns in classrooms when a state law goes into effect next year, saying on Thursday it cannot bar the firearms under the state measure.
38The last I heard UT barred this bunch from campus using the trespass laws as a basis. They had to rig up something t the last minute to march down a street. By the way, UT honchos used language against this group such as “disrespectful”. I would have gone much harder considering the mass murder perpetrated years ago from the tower on campus.
39Thank God, they had the sense to stop it, but you can bet there will not only be cardboard guns. That crowd will show up with the real thing, wherever they hold it.
40