Students protest new Texas gun law

Thousands of dildos were handed out last week at antigun rallies timed to the start of the academic year at the University of Texas (UT) at Austin. The “Cocks Not Glocks: Campus (Dildo) Carry” events protested the new Texas law that allows people to carry concealed handguns on public university campuses (see Physics Today, July 2016, page 26 ). The law went into effect on 1 August.

“If people are afraid of harmless sex toys and find them disgusting, they should be shocked by the normalization of gun culture,” says UT Austin alumnus Jessica Jin, who spearheaded the rally with the campus organization Gun-Free UT. She and others handed out between 4000 and 5000 dildos. There were dildos dangling from backpacks, dildo earrings, and dildo cupcakes. More than 50 000 students attend the university.

Speakers at the rally included state representative Elliott Naishtat, a city council member, faculty, alumni, and students.

Among faculty, there is still some confusion about the implementation of the campus-carry law, says physicist Raphael Flauger. For example, although staff members can designate their offices gun-free, “it’s not clear what exactly you have to do.” It surprised Flauger when the UT Board of Regents, rejecting a proposal by a campus working group, decided in July to allow people to store rounds of ammunition in the chambers of semiautomatic weapons. “That’s not typically done in the military,” Flauger says. “So why on a university campus?”

On 22 August, two days before classes began, US district judge Lee Yeakel rejected a bid by three professors to keep their classrooms gun-free. The professors argued that the possibility of students carrying guns to class could stifle discussion. Texas attorney general Kenneth Paxton, a defendant in the case, called the lawsuit “frivolous.” The case may yet go to trial.