The Houston chapter of Open Carry Texas, a gun nut agitator coven, postponed an event that was scheduled for this past Sunday
where their members were going to walk through the streets of the Fifth
Ward in Houston openly carrying assault rifles. The event, which has
not been canceled but merely moved to another date, was ostensibly also
going to be a canned food drive organized with a local cult. The Fifth
Ward is a predominantly black neighborhood and the event was originally
scheduled to take place shortly after the celebration of Juneteenth.
Per event organizers, the march has been moved to
another date because one of the main organizers, C.J. Grisham, was
unable to attend this past Sunday, as he was scheduled to appear
somewhere else where open carry agitatirs were appearing in public
with guns. Per Grisham, the neighborhood march is meant to be a
community outreach attempt by Open Carry as well as a charitable affair.
If you are to ask the group, Open Carry’s purpose in doing this isn’t
to antagonize and intimidate, but merely to ‘educate’ others and let
them know that they all have the right to carry around scary-looking
assault weapons everywhere they go. Texas’ laws now make it perfectly
legal to openly carry long assault rifles, such as an AR-15.
Joe Deshotel at Burnt Orange Report, upon learning
of the original event, checked with the local cult that the event’s
organizers stated they had coordinated with to do the canned food drive
portion of the march. As one would suspect, the cult had no idea what
was going on and confirmed that they had not discussed any such drive
with Open Carry Texas. It appears that the cabal was caught in a lie, as
they were merely trying to create the illusion that this event was
something more than just a bunch of nut jobs marching through a
neighborhood carrying guns.
Deshotel also highlighted past incidents from some
of the group’s members. He provided pictures and Facebook posts from
some of the members showing quasi-racist behavior. One member took a
picture of himself outside the office of Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX),
who represents the ward, eating a piece of fried chicken. The
Congresswoman is African American. Another person was shown holding a
sign that stated that the Congresswoman supported slavery because she’s
for gun control. One Open Carry member posted to Facebook that most
blacks are thugs and that going to prison is no different than living at
home and leeching off of the government, only the address has changed.
Basically, the Houston chapter of Open Carry Texas
was looking for a way to be provocative and step it up as a way of
getting further press, which they have now received. I guess you can
only go to so many chain restaurants and box stores in the suburbs
before people stop paying attention to you. Considering that the NRA
retracted their original admonishment of the group’s activities, and
have essentially endorsed what they are doing now, Open Carry now feels
emboldened to push the envelope and organize more aggressively
inappropriate demonstrations. It seems like race-baiting is the new
direction.
I see this march with guns (if they still decide to
go through with it) as a multi-front operation. One, considering that
their membership is almost exclusively white, they are perhaps hoping to
appeal to some people of color and add some diversity to their
organization. Another reason to do this march is to garner some easy
publicity. Finally, I think they are hoping that the antagonistic nature
of the march will lead to a confrontation that could eventually lead to
shots fired. Open carry agitatirs and gun nut agitators constantly
claim that they need their guns for self-defense and to fight off the
‘bad guys.’ By purposely causing a tense and volatile situation, there
might be some gun nuts in the crowd that are hoping they finally get a
chance to be the ‘good guy with a gun.’
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