UT-Austin Students Protest Open Carry Law By Strapping Dildos to Their Bags

Texas students are protesting months-old legislation that allows you to carry a gun on campus by highlighting what you can’t carry: a dildo.

On August 1, 2016, Senate Bill 11, which allows students to carry concealed weapons on most areas of campus, will officially go into effect. Meanwhile, the Texas penal code and the University of Texas’ rulebook says that engaging with any sort of obscene content in public is prohibited and punishable by fine. Thus, a hilarious juxtaposition of inconsistent legal nonsense.

UT student Jessica Jin is organizing based on this inconsistency.

A Facebook event (subtitled #CocksNotGlocks) hosted by Jin is urging UT students to start strapping dildos on their backpacks in August 2016. As of Monday morning, the event had secured 3,900 confirmed attendees, 768 maybes, and dozens of trolls insulting the cause.

“The State of Texas has decided that it is not at all obnoxious to allow deadly concealed weapons in classrooms, however it DOES have strict rules about free sexual expression, to protect your innocence. You would receive a citation for taking a DILDO to class before you would get in trouble for taking a gun to class,” the Facebook event reads. “Heaven forbid the penis.”

The Washington Post reports that others at UT have protested the new law more traditionally:

[Students, faculty, and staff] urged school president Greg Fenves to severely limit campus carry at two public forums last month, the Houston Chronicle reports. Last week, long-time history professor Daniel Hamermesh announced that he would be leaving UT Austin because of the bill’s implications.

“With a huge group of students, my perception is that the risk that a disgruntled student might bring a gun into the classroom and start shooting at me has been substantially enhanced by the concealed-carry law,” Hamermesh wrote in a letter to Fenves.

According to the Daily Texan, the university’s campus paper, there are 475 students enrolled in Hamermersh’s class.

“The classroom in particular is a special space, a space that has extra reasons for us to keep it a safe space,” said UT history professor Joan Neuberger to the Houston Chronicle. “People get very heated… if I know there’s a possibility that someone has a gun in the classroom, I’m not going to hold these same discussions. I’m not going to encourage students to speak openly.”

According to the Austin Chronicle, Jin is leaving abusive posts on the Facebook event up.

“For the time being, I am leaving abusive posts up in order for everybody to see them and understand the misogyny, fear, abuse, and hatred that a harmless dildo can incite. It is proof in plain sight that assertions that the general public can remain calm while in possession of firearms in tense situations, when they can’t even handle a a dildo, might be a bit off.”