After a spate of mass shootings that killed more than a dozen people, a pro-gun group that advocates for the right to openly carry firearms is planning to stage a mock mass shooting at the University of Texas campus on Saturday.
The gun industry and gun rights activists often claim that shooters target so-called “gun-free zones” like schools or churches where guns are banned, because they know no one will be able to stop them from carrying out a massacre. To illustrate that point, the open carry activists have hired actors who will enact a mass shooting with cardboard guns and the sounds of actual gunshots over a stereo. Before The Open Walk and Crisis Performance Event, they will march through Austin with loaded weapons.
The University of Texas is currently a gun-free zone but a new law will force public schools to allow licensed students to carry firearms next school year. Matthew Short, the public relations director for the groups Come and Take It Texas and DontComply.com, told the Austin Statesman the demonstration was appropriate so soon after the mass shootings in San Bernardino and Colorado Springs because “people were able to be murdered because no one was armed.”
But there’s no evidence that mass shootings only happen in gun-free zones. The classic line that a bad guy with a gun can only be stopped by a good guy with a gun also has no basis in fact. Armed civilians have never stopped a mass shooting, and guns are rarely used in self-defense.
Texas’ new open carry law will take effect New Year’s Day, allowing license holders to display their firearms as they go about their daily business. Some researchers have determined that right-to-carry gun laws are linked to a significant increase in aggravated assaults.
Texas gun stores reported huge spikes in sales in the week following the shooting in San Bernardino, California, which killed 14 people and wounded 17.