Texas Students Protest Gun Laws with Dildos
On Friday, an 18-year-old freshman at Texas Southern University was shot and killed by a gunman on campus. According to the New York Times, it was the fourth shooting on the Houston campus since August. On June 1, Texas Governor Greg Abbott passed legislation that makes it legal to carry firearms on college campuses, effective August 1, 2016. Now, in response to the rising culture of fear and insecurity on our nation’s college campuses due to the fact that any random person in the chem lab could be carrying a gun and a grudge, some students at University of Texas Austin have decided to fight back with a protest in which they carry something they’re not allowed to openly carry on campus: Dildos.
That’s right, it is completely legal to carry a tool for killing people around the UT-Austin campus, but a sparkly little Rabbit is strictly verboten and could get a student punished or fined. Student Jessica Jin has responded by organizing a #CocksNotGlocks protest in which students will go to class with some big, shiny dildos dangling from their backpacks.
”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,” reads an announcement she posted on the event’s Facebook page. ”Heaven forbid the penis.”
It’s a a clever protest and, as The Washington Post points out, a clever twist on the old 1960s rallying cry, “Make love, not war.” Of course, people can be odious in the face of opinions they disagree with, and a lot of dissenters have taken to hurling vicious invectives against Jin and her cohort. Jin, however, says she is leaving the racism, misogyny, threats and abuse visible on the page, because the sound and fury support her bigger point.
”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,” she said. “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.”
(Photo: Michael Luhrenberg/iStockPhoto/Getty Images)
