WASHINGTON — Should have kept this in the holster.
Democratic Texas Senate hopeful James Talarico tapped the former leader of a protest movement called “Cocks Not Glocks” at the University of Texas at Austin to be his legislative aide, a job that included drafting gun control legislation.
Ana Lopez helped Talarico craft three major firearm restriction bills that he rolled out in the state legislature in 2019, all of which failed to pass.
Lopez took over the leadership of “Cocks Not Glocks,” which once handed out more than 4,500 dildos on the UT-Austin campus to protest a 2015 law allowing licensed gun owners to carry concealed weapons at state universities and community colleges, from founder Jessica Jin — an alum of the school, like Talarico.
Lopez told Study Breaks Magazine in 2017 that Jin had moved to California after graduation and passed the “torch down to me.”
With its motto of “fighting absurdity with absurdity,” members of “Cocks Not Glocks” marched on campus with t-shirts and banners depicting male genitalia emblazoned with perverse takes on pro-Second Amendment slogans such as “take it and come,” while others donned dog collar sex toys.
Jin, who started the movement as a joke on social media, said she wanted to “put a dildo in the hands of every pissed off college student who hasn’t been heard in this safety conversation.”
“Strap it on, feel the discomfort, feel the weird looks. Wear it loud, wear it proud, and don’t take them off until people take their guns home,” she added, per the Houston Chronicle.
“As long as you have a d— on your backpack, people will be thinking about the guns,” the Texas Tribune quoted her as saying.
Lopez later complained about the backlash to the group, telling Study Breaks Magazine, “It’s usually just men who can’t take a joke.”
She eventually became the co-founder of Students Against Campus Carry, and wrote a 53-page thesis paper in 2019 analyzing gun culture.
Lopez served as a legislative aide to Talarico from January through May of that year, and her LinkedIn profile touts work on bills to end concealed carry reciprocity in Texas, require background checks to rent firearms at sport shooting ranges, and tighten requirements to obtain gun licenses.
“There are also other forms of self-defense. You could carry a knife, you could carry pepper spray, you could take jiu-jitsu classes. Not everyone has to be armed with an AK-47 to feel safe,” she argued in the 2017 Study Breaks interview.
Lopez did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Talarico has similarly taken a strong stand against lax gun laws, arguing that President Trump has “allowed weapons of war on our streets and in our classrooms.”
The Texas Democrat has also stressed that the Second Amendment and other aspects of the Bill of Rights are “not absolute” and are subject to limits.
At the same time, Talarico has maintained that he’s “not interested in taking anyone’s guns” away.
“James agrees with the vast majority of Texans that we must protect the Second Amendment while also enacting popular, common-sense measures like universal background checks that keep guns out of the hands of dangerous criminals,” Talarico spokesperson JT Ennis told The Post.
“While Ken Paxton tries to distract from apparently breaking yet another law he’s supposed to be enforcing, James will continue demanding that Paxton release the Hoffman Files so Texans can get answers about the corrupt deal that let a pedophile back on our streets.”
