Open carry demonstrators plan 'mock shooting' during UT finals week

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This story has been updated.

AUSTIN - The University of Texas at Austin has told a group of pro-gun activists they could be arrested if they attempt to stage a "mock shooting" on campus this weekend, prompting the group to move their protest just off school grounds.

"Only the university itself, faculty, staff and student groups may engage in such activities on campus. This applies equally to an outside protest group," UT-Austin spokesman J.B. Bird said of the event, which was originally planning to take place Saturday afternoon on the flagship's campus.

"When outside individuals come on campus and violate our rules regarding use of our grounds and facilities, they are asked to leave. If they do not, it becomes a criminal trespass matter," Bird added. "We suggest that any outside organizations planning such events on campus relocate them to other space where they would be allowed."

As of Wednesday, more than 100 members of the pro-gun groups Come and Take It Texas and DontComply.com had RSVP'd on Facebook to participate in the protest, which organizer Murdoch Pizgatti described as a "public theatrical performance against gun-free zones."

No real guns will be used in the demonstration, he said. Rather, the group will utilize cardboard cutouts of firearms during the event.

"It's basically going to be a hostage situation where people are shot and then the one person with a concealed handgun will come in and save the situation and reduce the body count," said Pizgatti. "It's pretty much going to be portraying the incidents in gun free zones and why they happen. The bad guys don't obey gun free zone signs and good people do."

Fellow organizer Jason Orsek said later Wednesday the group still planned to carry out the protest, but would do "on the public sidewalk off campus" instead of on it. Orsek will meet with UT Dean of Students Soncia Reagans-Lilly on Thursday to "review UT rules and procedures," Bird said.

"If they give us a problem about being there, we'll utilize the public property spaces near there," said Orsek. "I don't know they are being such buttholes. We made shirts just like they had."

When asked to clarify, Orsek said Come and Take It Texas had printed a number of bright orange t-shirts that look like those worn by Gun-Free UT, a large group of anti-gun staffers, faculty and students at UT-Austin. He said their mock shooting scenario will feature victims wearing the shirts.

When asked whether Gun-Free UT might perceive this as a threat, or in bad taste, Orsek replied, "It's the first amendment."

"We're not using real guns," he added. "We were going to show the hypocrisy of how gun-free zones don't work."

This isn't the first time UT-Austin has been the target for an unusual protest involving guns. Next fall, thousands of people have pledged to storm the campus strapped with dildos and other sex tops in opposition to recently-passed campus carry law that will soon allow more concealed weapons at public colleges and universities in Texas.

University officials said they would not block the dildo-wielding protesters who show up next year, as long as they "remain civil."

UT-Austin has been the epicenter of the opposition to the new law in other ways as well, with staff and faculty threatening to sue the university if it does not keep much of the campus gun free.

Jessica Jin, organizer of the dildo protest, posted this on the mock shooting organizer's Facebook page: "It must not be very fun to have to use fake guns for your 'crisis performance,' so in lieu of that sad cardboard, I came to extend an offer to borrow from our arsenal of dildos!"

"They deleted my post! So now I'm trying to see if anyone is interested in showing up to play along... with dildos," she later told the Chronicle.

Gun Free UT's members said the mock shooting protest was insulting to the memories of the 16 people who were shot dead by Marine sniper Charles Whitman in the now infamous UT Tower shooting, the nation's first mass shooting on a college campus.

"Campus carry advocates want us to trust and respect them as so-called law-abiding gun owners. This event shows why we don't," said Joan Neuberger, a professor of Russian history. Radio and television professor Ellen Spiro added, "This is a deep insult to the memories and lives of every American that we have lost to gun violence."

"Gun Free UT will treat them as if they are invisible. They do not deserve to be seen and heard by our children via the nightly news."

The mock shooting protest even garnered criticism from other pro-gun groups.

"I'm astounded that eighteen months after most of the state's open carry groups figured out that carrying rifles and shotguns into restaurants and grocery stores isn't a solid public-relations strategy, one such group apparently thinks that introducing openly carried long guns, fake blood, and the sound of gunshots into a university community that is highly uncertain about the new campus carry law and understandably concerned about recent high-profile mass shootings is a smart idea," said Antonia Okafor, Southwest regional director for Students for Concealed Carry.