Earlier this year, Texas joined 8 other states in allowing CCW permit holders to carry on state university campuses.  To obtain a Texas CCW permit, as far as I can ascertain from the website, the applicant must be 21 or over, go through a through background  – check including a fingerprint check – and undergo firearms training, which is live fire.  This is run of the mill for me at this point, my IL and NE permits both required fingerprints and live fire training.  My FL permit required fingerprints but the training was classroom only.

I lived in SD for a while.  Campus carry there was at the discretion of the school.  At the school I went to, the policy was “don’t ask, don’t tell, just keep it concealed.”  Where I did my undergrad in Indiana, I used to clean my guns in my dorm room when I went shooting during break.  I got in trouble with the RA, only because I made the dorm smell like CLP.  Campus policy was students could bring guns but they were supposed to be stored with campus security when not in use.  I was dating a townie and stored them at her place.  Heck, my undergrad had a shooting club funded by the school and put on three open shoots every year.  The point is, guns on campus is nothing new for me, going back 14 years.  In all that time do you know how many violent encounters I experienced with drunken college kids with their guns?  If you guessed “none,” you win.

Of course none of this matters to some people, who imagine that concealed carry on campus will turn every state school into the OK Corral.  So some students at UT-Austin (National Rank No. 52 – hence the title of the post) have decided to protest TX Campus Carry by carrying their own … protest items … er … recreational prosthetic male accouterments (link possibly NSFW).

I just … um … can’t even…

I mean, I get it.  You know the tried trope: guns are phallic extensions.  So how better to protest carrying guns than carrying literal phallic extensions?  Except this brand of stupid is so thick I could use it patch cracks in a asphalt driveway.

“‘You’re carrying a gun to class? Yeah well I’m carrying a HUGE [ARTIFICIAL MALE APPENDAGE],'” Jessica Jin (protest group founder) says in the group’s description. “Just about as effective at protecting us from sociopathic shooters, but much safer for recreational play.”

Seriously?  A marital aid is just as effective as a gun at defending oneself against a mass shooter?  Somehow I don’t think that’s accurate.  Unless, maybe, getting pelted with flying silicone phalli causes the shooter to die of shame.  Also, I’d be a little afraid to have relations with Ms. Jin.

Recently, politicians, the media, and social media has been awash with comments and criticisms of campus rape culture (which of course doesn’t exist) and the rate of sexual assault on campus (which isn’t as bad as it is claimed to be).  So I am astounded at the monumental doublethink that is happening here where 1) campuses are a hotbed of rape and abuse of women, 2) let’s protest giving women the ability to defend themselves against rape by carrying sex objects.

As a borderline-libertarian conservative,  I get cognitive dissonance really badly. Cognitive dissonance is the psychological term for the discomfort you get when your brain is trying to reject doublethink, and these people are giving me a migraine.  All I can say at this point is: I’m embarrassed for these kids.  Life is hard, it’s even harder when you’re stupid.  Based on that, I think this kids are going to have a real rough time when they get out of college.