Gun-rights activist Phil Newsome, right, carries a gun and flags as he takes part in a march near the University of Texas, Saturday. The group is planning a mock mass shooting near the campus. (Eric Gay, Associated Press)(Photo: AP)
AUSTIN —<span style="color: Red;">*</span>Gun-rights activists, many<span style="color: Red;">*</span>openly carrying their weapons,<span style="color: Red;">*</span>staged a march near<span style="color: Red;">*</span>the University of Texas' campus in Austin on Saturday, as part of a protest and planned mock<span style="color: Red;">*</span>mass shooting<span style="color: Red;">*</span>to oppose gun-free zones.
About a dozen protesters with Come and Take it Texas and DontComply.com<span style="color: Red;">*</span>marched down down a<span style="color: Red;">*</span>street next to the university. Several carried<span style="color: Red;">*</span>rifles, and one carried a<span style="color: Red;">*</span>sign saying "End Killing Zones."
Jason Orsek, vice<span style="color: Red;">*</span>president of the groups, said<span style="color: Red;">*</span>they’ve held similar "open-carry" marches before to bring “awareness to Second Amendment rights.”
A<span style="color: Red;">*</span>group of students, however, interrupted the gathering, chanting "Mock shooting, mock victims" and "Our history is not a joke."
Charlie Henry, sophomore and one of the counter-protesters, called the mock shooting, planned for later Saturday with cardboard cutout guns,<span style="color: Red;">*</span>“inflammatory" and "really insensitive," given the school's history.
Nearly 50 years ago, a heavily armed man<span style="color: Red;">*</span>climbed the campus' clock tower and went on a 90-minute shooting spree that killed 15 and wounded 32.
“The fact that these groups to want to do a fake shooting with cardboard guns and fake blood is completely ridiculous," Henry said.
Murdoch Pizgatti, president and founder of Come and Take it Texas,<span style="color: Red;">*</span>said the<span style="color: Red;">*</span>fake<span style="color: Red;">*</span>mass<span style="color: Red;">*</span>shooting would be a "theatrical performance" to demonstrate the difference between a<span style="color: Red;">*</span>"gun-free zone where a criminal that wants to do harm confronts an unarmed population, as opposed to one where the criminal is stopped by handgun owners.”
The march and mock shooting<span style="color: Red;">*</span>originally were intended to be held on<span style="color: Red;">*</span>campus, but<span style="color: Red;">*</span>the school objected and organizers agreed to move their efforts just outside the campus boundary. The students opposed to the mock shooting<span style="color: Red;">*</span>were<span style="color: Red;">*</span>scrambling to equip themselves with noise-making toys<span style="color: Red;">*</span>to stage their own "mass farting" protest<span style="color: Red;">*</span>nearby.
Pizgatti<span style="color: Red;">*</span>said counter-protesters posed no<span style="color: Red;">*</span>problem. "It's freedom of speech. I encourage people to speak their minds," he said. "We want<span style="color: Red;">*</span>the least amount of disturbance."
He argued that many of the nation's<span style="color: Red;">*</span>mass shootings,<span style="color: Red;">*</span>including the deadliest ever at Virginia Tech in 2007 that left 32 dead, occurred in places where guns were not allowed. The outcomes would have been different had victims<span style="color: Red;">*</span>carried<span style="color: Red;">*</span>firearms,<span style="color: Red;">*</span>Pizgatti said.
Contributing: Fredreka Schouten and<span style="color: Red;">*</span>Gregg Zoroya
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