I have lived in Austin for 35 years, and I have seen some weird shit here. But when my friend Lola and I decided on Saturday that enough is enough with the kind of people who take out their guns for play dates, I have to admit that it was my first time actually seeing that particular kind of people ... in person.

In person, and while I was topless.

After all those gun-rights advocates brandished their weapons at Chipotle and Target this spring, everyone knows it's legal to openly carry around your firearms in Texas. Not many folks know that it's also legal for women to go topless in the state's capital city. But I did: in the late '80s, I took part in a lot of performance art that included nudity, so I was familiar with baring my breasts in public.

Now, unlike the wave of people who advocate for their second amendment rights by waving around their guns, I don't normally go shopping without my shirt on – it's a matter of basic respect for others. But since these ammo-sexuals feel it necessary to exercise their right to take a gun out for a date, Lola and I decided to exercise our own.

We found out that the group "Come and Take It Texas" holds monthly arms marches around the statehouse here, in which the goals are to condition the rest of us to "feel safe" around random people toting their guns around – and to pressure lawmakers to "pass less restrictive open-carry legislation". Lola's gone out topless to several of these events in counter-protest before, and this time, fed up with the idea of random armed men in my streets, I decided to join her.

We arrived at the parking garage for Austin's capitol building a little before noon on Saturday, and as soon as we walked near the open-carry fetishists with our signs aloft and our breasts bared, the open-carry activists started to argue with us – and, of course, insult our appearance.

The cracks about my tits were too funny: yes, boys, they hang! I fed three kids with them, and I am almost 47 years old. They are not perfect, nor do I wish them to be: my breasts are mine and we get along very well, thank you very much.

One guy even kept demanding to know who was paying us. Paying us to protest topless? I have friends that would pay me to keep my tits covered.

Now, meaner characters than these open-carry chuckleheads have called me various names throughout my life, but, as a young punk in Texas, I learned to tune out skinheads. So I wasn't surprised to encounter some of them littered amongst the gun crowd on Saturday: at one point in a gelato shop, two of the men we were protesting told us that we were a disgrace to our race. That just fueled my fire: "What race is that?", I asked. "The gun-fetish race?"

I will admit to engaging them just a bit – but then it dawned on me that confrontation was what they wanted, so I closed my pie-hole and just did my thing whether the guys with guns acted angry, amused, distracted, outraged or whatever.

We walked with the open-carry group from the capitol about five blocks south to 6th Street, as they took pictures and videos of us, insulted us and demanded to know whom we were working for. They certainly seemed to think it was strange that we weren't intimidated by them or they weapons – which gives the lie to their assertions that open-carry activists are just trying to make sure everyone else feels comfortable.

For all their claims about the constitution and their right to carry guns whenever and where ever they want – and our need to just get used to it – the people who participated in the open-carry protest do not stand for freedom: they are just there to intimidate anyone who disagrees with them. But the reality is that all the new Austin hipsters could care less about their big weapons, my own kids are cringing at how they make Texas look, and my peers here are simply passionate into different things.

So, maybe it's just up to me and Lola to draw attention to how absurd they are. We plan to march with the the open-carry gang on the last Saturday of every month – and hopefully some more people will join us. Toplessness won't be required, but it sure does make some ammo-sexuals angry.



Maybe I need to make a boobie flag to wave at them.