University of Texas Austin campus carry protest (courtesy twiter.com)

I think this picture speaks for itself, save the tweet from Cassi Pollock that accompanied the image: “~5 minutes before ‘Gun-Free UT’ protest is set to begin, students + faculty chant ‘gun- free UT’ & pose for photo.”

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82 COMMENTS

  3. Maybe they have taken a page from the MDA playbook and are counting hits on a website as “supporters”.

    • This is why when people compare membership numbers of MDA vs the NRA I start laughing uncontrollably.

      To be an NRA member you have to sign up, pay your annual membership dues, and get your membership card.
      To be an MDA/Everytown member you have to click “Like” on a post on Facebook, sometimes not even that.

      • EDIT: This is also why they “just can’t figure out” why we hold sway among the election-fearing congressman and women, and they generally get ignored. They’re organization is comprised of mostly shadow-puppets. People who don’t really care, aren’t really involved, and while they may like the idea of gun control (when they think about it) their time is generally occupied with things that are much more important to them – like who the Kardashians are sleeping with this week.

        Its why we win almost every. single. time.

        • We’ve won every single time? Where’s my assault weapon and machine gun and tax free silencer and depending on were I live, my 30 round magazine and flash suppressor and….. well, maybe we loose an awful lot too.

  4. If a picture is worth a thousand words, a dozen teaching assistants must be worth a thousand professors.

  5. Amateurs. If this photo had been taken by a Washington Post or New York Times photographer, it would have been carefully staged and framed to make that pitiful handful of people look like a huge mob.

  6. A wide-angle lens would have better captured the vast numbers attending the protest. I hate when they only focus in on a small portion of large group. Note the “1000” number on the sign was added. I guess they finally gave up changing it once the protest became too large.

    • Since none of them are from the STEM departments they could not do the math that’s why they settles on 1000

  10. The funniest part is that they seem to think that “1000” number is impressive. Even if they legitimately have a thousand UT faculty members on board (a highly dubious claim), that’s still just a tiny fraction of the total UT system faculty.

    • Heck forget the entire system, if you just count UT Austin 1,000 is only ~2% of the campus population.

      • But does UT-Austin have 1000 *faculty* members? I’d believe that the entire UT system does, but that seems like a lot of professors on one campus.

        My college had 30,000 students, and it didn’t seem like we had that many professors, but who knows.

  12. Can you PLEASE research a little better. You showed the picture with the least amount of people in it. There are others that look like they got well over 100. Honestly those pictures show more antigun protests then I have ever seen in one location. (If TAG starts pulling that kind of move, then credibility is really gong to start slipping)

    • I’ve seen the pictures they posted later (follow the link to the Tweeter’s page for more images). I wouldn’t say hundreds, but there were certainly more people, perhaps double. By their own admission, they collared passers-by to swell their numbers.

      I chose this one with the caption because it reflected the truth of the matter at that point. As such, I don’t think it was unfair. A judgement call, but I stand by it.

      • Yes your post is literally true; however, it suggests or infers that this was the total turnout for the event (an inference some of the commentators here made), which as you admit it was not, that the turnout as shown in a later photo was about double.

    • Agreed. I saw some other photos, too, taken later. While nowhere near “1000,” it was a bigger turnout than this TTAG piece suggests. OTOH, unknown is how many of the moderately bigger crowd were just astroturfed meat puppets versus real supporters of their silly cause.

  14. It’s “gun safety” math–it beats Common Core by a mile. Plummeting homicide numbers = a “gun violence epidemic”, while a handful of expense-paid rent-a-protestors = “millions of grass-roots members”. It’s like magic…

  15. You’d think, given the fields of study that most of the protestors hail from, they’d have chosen “300” for their banner.

    Then again, maybe not.

  18. And, I’m getting a little sick of the emotional loading of the term “violence” the more I think about it.

    Violence is, as William Aprill defines it, “using force, or the threat of force, to get a desired result.”

    By that definition, violence is neutral – neither “good” nor “bad.”

    A parent can use force to yank his kid off the street when a car is coming, and technically that is “violence.” That’s admirable by even the most rabid anti-gunner I’d assume.

    Every Sunday, millions of people cheer the violence used in an attempt to cross a line with a little ball. That’s considered “fun” by most and harmless by even more than “most.”

    Violence is used all the time to harvest food to feed the masses. Even violence against {gasp!!} plants!

    So, the assumption behind “More Guns = More Violence” is that violence is, itself, inherently bad. This is more “control the language” emotional loading of words by the Proggies.

    Who knows…maybe “More Guns = More Violence” is true, if by violence you mean the estimated 100,000-2,000,000 times each year gun is used by a law abiding citizen to force the result of a criminal leaving them the hell alone.

    DGU’s, after all, are technically “Violent” by Aprill’s definition. And therein shows not only how the Progressives manipulate numbers to lie in their propaganda, but it also shows how evil their worldview is that they actually DO favor the violence of criminals victimizing innocent people over those innocent people even have tool to avoid victimization.

    How on earth do they have any political power (ie, win elections) whatsoever? They really are batcrap insane.

    • Because they control the media, popular culture, and academia. Running those three institutions means they have a head start in indoctrinating the masses to their way of thinking because most people don’t think for themselves i.e. are stupid, including many gun owners here. They just don’t care because it does not affect a little ball moving over some lines every weekend like you said, whatever stupid, mindless shit is on T.V./Internet, still have plenty of food, and most people have jobs. As long as those things are not affected the majority of people just do not care who is in power or what the system has become so long as their four favorite activities are not harmed.

    • “Violence is, as William Aprill defines it, “using force, or the threat of force, to get a desired result.”

      Like asking for “can I get a little muscle, here” to get a journalist ‘out of your face’ at a rally they themselves called?

      • I heard that audio yesterday and was duly chilled. That’s some scary stuff.

        Something about those not understanding history and repeating it, and being doomed, comes to mind.

        Scary stuff indeed.

        • In that particular case, it was stupid lefties eating their own. I read the response from one of the “student journalists”, he was all for the protestors, couldn’t understand why they were reacting the way they did.

    • Let’s also not forget that, at its core level, government is simply the threat of violence. If you don’t comply with the government’s rules, the only tool they have to compel compliance is, ultimately, sending armed men to confront you. I highly doubt many gun control proponents would want to abolish that sort of violence.

      • True, and well said. That’s part of my point.

        They are not against “violence.” They use violence, or the threat thereof, or its aftermath, etc, every day to achieve their ends.

        The emotional loading of the sign “More Guns = More Violence” in that picture is very much a manipulation of words.

        They are not against “gun violence” at all when it is, for example, the hypothetical of Federal agents firing on folks standing around the Bundy Ranch

        Many other similar examples can be drawn. Their position is morally repugnant.

    • “Fire all these leftist profs.”

      Oh, Hell no!

      As the Wise Philosopher Butthead once said to Beavis when Beavis asked him:

      “Why do we have things that suck? Why can’t everything be cool?”

      Butthead replied:

      “We must have things that suck. How else will we know what is cool?”

      We need these Jack-wads to illustrate by their example their stupidity…

      • Perhaps, but we don’t need them teaching others.

        You want them around to show what the ‘dark side’ looks like? Fine. Keep ’em around just for that. I’ll kick in a nickel or so to help keep ’em fed if you like.

        But don’t give them any power, authority over others such as they have in the classroom. Their non-thinking cancerous ideology can spreads that way.

        • In general concept I agree.

          What those protesters are doing with that hyper-sensitized offense reflex they seem to be bent on developing (with a nasty streak of self-righteousness) may be headed for a very nasty backlash.

          I’m kind of amused at what they seem to think is going to happen to them when they exit academia and try that stunt with their future employers.Bosses have an expectation that work will be performed the way *they* want it done, and that will blow their little minds.

          I’ve been hearing the stories of the helicopter mothers complaining to their Millennial special snowflake’s HR departments about absolutely batshit perceived slights.

          Just wait ’till reality bites them in the ass with a chainsaw. The upside to that is *we* will be sought-after for employment when HR departments everywhere realizes what worthless employees they will make. I’ve been reading in places like Forbes and Bloomberg that employers are starting to see this happening.

  23. I wonder if they are available for engagements? I can think of a few Baltimore neighborhoods where this standing around chanting would surely make “the difference”.

    If all it took was a sign and a law, all crime would have been eradicated long ago.

  24. These people are welcome not carrying guns and not having guns in their dorm. Why do they have to force their opinion on everybody else?

    • Fire them for what? Exercising their first amendment rights to gather and say stupid shit? As long as they’re still doing the job the school hired them for, what’s the firing offense?

      • YES , for Gods sake , since they call themselves teachers , I think stupidity is a ‘ getting fired offence ‘ and would send a very clear message .
        If I hired you because you managed to trick me into believing you were qualified to do a specific job that required rational cognitive skills and you display opposite irrational cognitive non skills , I would fire you .
        It was once a practiced behavior by boss over employee .

  26. I can find 10,000 or even 100,000 teachers opposed to just about anything. Maybe not teacher pay increases but just about anything else.

    This is not a real surprise.

    Liberals hate guns.

  27. The other 973 protesters are in lockdown while these brave few risk their lives to oppose personal safety and civic responsibility.

  30. So now in higher education “1000 UT Faculty” means 27+ people. No wonder this nation scores so low in Math compared to the rest of the world.

  31. I think they need to get someone from the Math department to join their group. When I was studying, “imaginary numbers” involved the use of the square root of -1.

  32. With the news about Yale Shrieking Girl, and Mizzou #blacklies matters media prof assault,
    and the well documented decline in credibility of the now discredited Bloomberg sockpuppets- MDA, Everytown, and various sub-spawned collections of nitwits, like these at UT Austin,

    I think the lefties are shooting themselves in the foot.

    More proof in comments here at https://twitter.com/hashtag/campuscarry?src=hash

    Personally, I dont tweet, nor FakeBook, but I think it says something that even in that “younger/shallow-end-of-gene-pool” of your average self-promoting-loser users, the overall tide is turning against the left.

    Keep Calm and Carry On.

  33. What is motivating the cry-bullies to protest?
    http://www.austinchronicle.com/news/2015-10-30/campus-carry-pushback-heats-up/

    “Tina Maldonado, with the Applied Research Laboratories, is one of the few UT staff members that publicly support campus carry. The CHL instructor said the reason there aren’t as many vocal supporters is because the bill is already on track to become law. “Having a CHL is a responsibility and private thing, and many people don’t want their peers to know they are the ones that will be carrying,” she said. “You are hearing that opposition because the faculty are not used to being told they can’t have their way, and UT doesn’t really have much of a choice in the matter.”

    • Exactly. Just like every other Statist. “How DARE you defy me!” It’s not even a question when they say it, because they just believe they are ‘right.’

  34. When are these idiots going to figure out that their protests are entirely meaningless. This is not a school policy, it is a state law, and the only way to change a state law is to (a) lobby the Legislature or (b) file a lawsuit and seek an injunction. This little protest accomplishes nothing. Well, wait, maybe it makes them feel better, and I guess that is “something.”

    • “This little protest accomplishes nothing. Well, wait, maybe it makes them feel better, and I guess that is “something.”
      “

      It reminds me of a story I’ve related here before.

      In the early 90’s, there was a series of high profile rapes on UNC-Chapel Hill Campus. Thought at the time was that there was a serial rapist, and these were true, violent forcible rapes. It was quite serious, in other words.

      The “official” public response?

      Declare the campus a “Rape Free Zone.” They had a rally. They also put up little cardboard signs around that said…”This is a Rape Free Zone.”

      In subsequent years (2011 was the last one that I know of), they even sold “Rape Free Zone” T-Shirts.

      The thing about the rally that I remember (I went to it naively thinking it was a ‘meeting’ of sorts to discuss grown-up solutions and suggestions) was that it was exactly this…very poorly attended.

      It was nothing but political theater, and there were MAYBE 10 people at the rally chanting cutesy slogans like “Rape Free Zone, Rape Free Zone.” No substance whatsoever.

      And, as I recall, several additional girls were raped after this.

      They simply don’t care if their crap gets people hurt. Individuals don’t matter to the Collectivist Mind. The Collective matters; that’s all. That’s one reason they are so insistent to pigeon-hole everyone into group identity. Individuals just don’t matter.

  37. Its always about control with liberals. That being said, the liberals are isolated in a few big career fields, most notably…

    Media. (Where they can control information )

    Government. (Where they can control the people)

    Academia. (Where they can control future and developing minds as well as professional development)

    Introducing guns, to one of their enclaves, college campuses, has scared them beyond belief, and they are losing the information wars, thanks to the Internet. Because if conservatives and libertarians can take back these liberal enclaves from them, we can shape the future.

  38. You can smell their despair . . . .

    Trust me (I have my sources in some of the saner quarters at UT, as I lecture there a couple of times each year), the word has quietly gone around to the UT faculty circles that while they might not like it, campus carry is state law now, and no matter how much they wail about it UT simply won’t be able to ban guns from their classrooms or office buildings once the law becomes effective next year. The realization that it’s coming and there isn’t a damn thing that they can do to stop it is truly driving them crazy.

    The buzz I’m hearing from several quarters is that some of the “usual suspects” are now planning to sue UT (under various harebrained legal theories) if the administration doesn’t essentially ignore the law and declare the bulk of the campus to be a gun-free zone. Of course, they wouldn’t be looking at such options if they thought the administration was going to do that anyway. Methinks they’ve been told that this pizza has already been baked.

    You’ll also recall how some of these folks threatened that they would not teach if guns weren’t banned from their classrooms:

    http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2015/10/daniel-zimmerman/breaking-ut-history-prof-advocates-defiance-and-an-alum-responds-with-a-proposal/

    In response, Governor Abbott’s office swiftly reminded them that they are state employees, and as such are obligated to obey state law and do their job. Notice how since then, we’re not heard many more such threats about defying the law. Methinks saner minds have reminded the humanities professors that going up against the GOP-controlled legislature and governor on this would be about like bringing a picture of a knife to a gunfight, and how critically dependent they are on the legis for essential funding.

    Ergo, my predictions:

    (1) UT will issue protocols that only ban weapons from a few labs and similar venues (where you probably wouldn’t want to carry anyway), but will pretty much leave the bulk of the campus unmolested. Sure, it’ll be accompanied with tearful statements about how they don’t like it and wish the law was changed, etc., but at the end of the day the UT administration has too much to lose and so isn’t going to take on the Governor and legislature over this.

    (2) There will be no shortage of shrieks of anguish when this happens (and lots more pointless rallies in response), but you’ll not see strikes or widespread work stoppages next August. For the few professors who might actually follow through on their threats not to teach, the hammer will come down pretty quickly.

    (3) There will be some BS lawsuits filed seeking to invalidate the UT protocols and essentially declare campus carry unconstitutional. These suits will die quick and well-deserved deaths (hopefully with sanctions against the signatory attorneys, but that’s probably asking too much from judges in Travis County).

    (4) I do suspect that you’ll see some profs purport to “require” students in their classes to agree not to carry as a condition of taking the class. Hopefully, there will be some enterprising students or organizations who will BOLO for and report on this (paging James O’Keefe and Project Veritas!), and would be willing to be the test-case complainants in actions to compel such profs to obey the law.

    It’ll be interesting . . . .

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