Give a voice to the voiceless!

Open Carry Texas, that group of fun-loving, gun-toting morons, is planning a march next month in Houston. I’m letting you know now so you can be as far away as possible.

From the group: “On August 16, 2014, Open Carry Texas will be holding an event in the 5th Ward district of Houston. Like all of our events, the public is invited to take part in this event to celebrate our right to keep and bear arms and protest our antiquated gun laws.” The problem is, this “celebration” will take place in Houston’s Fifth Ward, a predominantly African-American neighborhood founded in 1866 as an area for freed slaves.

A bunch of heavily armed white people marching through a black neighborhood … what could possibly go wrong here? Again, this isn’t really a problem per se, but more of Open Carry Texas trying to help black people. Again, from the group:

“Open Carry Texas believes that Texas’ gun laws continue to be rooted in racism. In order to obtain a concealed handgun license in Texas, one needs to shell out over $250 in fees and requirements to do so. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the poverty rate in Texas was 14.4% in 2010, the date of the last census. In the African-American community, the poverty rate was 27.1%, nearly twice the state poverty rate and almost three times higher than non-Hispanic whites. In other words, the extreme cost to obtain a license in Texas — over $250 — disproportionately prevents African-Americans from getting one.”

So, the open-carry issue is actually a race issue. How can those pesky liberals and unfun groups like Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America argue with it now? OCT goes on to say that “much like the Jim Crow laws of the past, Texas gun laws seem geared towards preventing the minority community from exercising their rights. We aim to change that.” Aim. Ha.

This is an interesting new argument from the open-carry crowd. Gun laws are racist and applying for a gun license disenfranchises a certain group of people. I wonder if Open Carry Texas will challenge that nefarious Texas voter identification law, a law that is, as The Guardian’s Ana Marie Cox succinctly put it, “racist on purpose.” By the way, a concealed handgun permit is one of the seven acceptable forms of voter ID you can produce when voting in Texas. College IDs, nope.

TheBlot Magazine has highlighted some of OCT’s shenanigans before. You may remember when they stormed and then secured that Dallas area Chipotle. Showing such valor. To draw from Churchill, never before has so many owed so little to some who apparently eat so much.

Here is video of the group descending on a Texas Chili’s. That poor general manager … as soon as he produced that corporate pamphlet, you knew he was literally and figuratively outgunned.

So, residents of Houston’s Fifth Ward. Open Carry Texas actually has your back. But actually turning your back on these trigger-happy idiots is done so at your own peril.

Give a voice to the voiceless!