[Last updated (12/10/2015, 7:46 a.m.) with a new plan by organizers to conduct the event next to, not on, the Austin campus.]
Proponents of concealed-carry legislation will host a “fake mass shooting” near the University of Texas at Austin this weekend, the Austin American-Statesman reports. The event, which organizers are calling the Open Carry Walk and Crisis Performance Event, will use fake blood, cardboard weapons, and the sounds of gunfire played from loudspeakers.
The newspaper reports that the gun-rights groups organizing the event, Come and Take It Texas and DontComply.com, were not seeking permission from the university.
The university is not wild about the idea. In a written statement in response to the plan, the university’s spokesman, J.B. Bird, said outside groups that seek to use the university’s grounds “and violate our rules regarding use of our grounds and facilities” are asked to leave. “If they do not,” the statement says, “it becomes a criminal-trespass matter.”
The university said on Wednesday that the office of the dean of students was trying to contact the groups to “make sure they are aware of our Board of Regents’ rules and procedures.”
Later on Wednesday, organizers of the event told the Statesman that they would conduct it adjacent to the campus, using the university “as a backdrop.”
The planned demonstration comes as university officials deliberate over how to comply with new state legislation that will allow people with concealed-handgun permits to carry their weapons into campus buildings and classrooms. It takes effect in August 2016.
“Criminals that want to do evil things and commit murder go places where people are not going to be able to stop them,” a spokesman for the organizing groups, Matthew Short, told the newspaper. “When seconds count, the cops are minutes away.”
