Texas Gun Activists Stage an Armed Showdown at SXSW

At high noon on Wednesday, a diverse crowd of armed Texans strolled down Austin’s Sixth Street. The open carry march, organized by the local chapter of Come and Take It Texas, paraded in full view of titillated, and worried, tech nerds and indie rockers in town for South By Southwest.

This demonstration of about a dozen people came in advance of what the gun activists say will be a much larger march on Saturday.

None of the weapons were loaded, and marchers were told to keep their widow-makers, gats, and sidearms pointed to the sky so passersby wouldn’t be alarmed.

In Texas, anyone can legally carry — and display — a rifle or a shotgun in public. If you want to bring your pistol, however, you’d need to have a concealed carry license and stuff that .45 down your pants.

But last year CJ Grisham, president of Temple-based Open Carry Texas, discovered first-hand that the law is more complicated than it seems.

“I was out hiking through the country with my son, openly carrying an AR-15, and someone called the police. The police tried to take my gun and I wouldn’t let them. I ended up getting arrested for resisting arrest,” Grisham told VICE News.

“In Texas, you shouldn’t have to spend almost a year in jail for something that’s legal,” Grisham said. He founded Open Carry Texas to raise awareness of gun owners’ rights and says they’ve held hundreds of peaceful demonstrations over the past year. “Politicians are starting to pay attention, now that tens of thousands of people are speaking out.”

The Come And Take It Austin group says it wants to “educate Texans on their right to openly carry shotguns and rifles in a safe manner” and “to condition Texans to feel safe around those that carry them.” Apparently, conditioning sleep-deprived, still drunk indie rockers is another one of their goals — this being their second walk down the main SXSW thoroughfare this week.

Last Saturday, the group marched to protest a poorly attended gun control panel at SXSW: “Disrupting the Gun Lobby with Digital Organizing.”

Two of the gun control lobbies — Moms Demand Action and ex-Mayor of NYC Michael Bloomberg’s Mayors Against Illegal Guns — recently won victories changing the way Facebook and Instagram display ads for weapons and other gun-related content.

Last year the Texas legislature declined to legalize open carry of pistols, but both gubernatorial candidates — including Democrat Wendy Davis, beloved by feminists and moms — have thrown their support behind gun enthusiasts. This means that, whoever wins the race for governor, Texas is poised to return to its Wild West roots.

Grisham has doubts about both candidates: “Wendy Davis has an established history in the Texas Senate of opposing guns and signing gun control legislation. Her support of open carry doesn’t hold water with gun owners.” Grisham also says that Greg Abbott, the Republican candidate, “hasn’t done anything” about the widespread arrests of gun owners who should be considered within their rights in his role as Texas Attorney General.

The sight of throngs of large men, and pregnant women, with rifles slung across their backs freaked out SXSW visitors so much that the Austin Chronicle ran a piece on Wednesday titled “No, Armed Protests Are Not Normal In Austin.” This article suggested that the demonstration was a publicity stunt cheered on by noted conspiracy wacko Alex Jones of Infowars.

According to the Chronicle, the “outliers” in the Austin gun march “may be hitched to our fine town, but they aren’t churched.”

Photo via Flickr/Gregory Wild-Smith