They're also keeping Texas safe from Yeti attacks

A group of armed protesters stood around with guns and signs outside a mosque in Irving, Texas, Saturday to protect the Lone Star State from the imminent threats of sharia law and/or terrorism. After a few hours of making mosque members nervous and getting approving honks and thumbs up from passing traffic, they left satisfied that disaster had, for the moment, been averted. One protester, in his early 20s, brought his mom along, possibly in case of accident. Several protesters wore masks to protect their identity from those who would do America harm.

[contextly_sidebar id="gP2WAnxWCY64NK0IVtsFe1SEwYTtfrjL"]Irving, you may recall, is the charming town where they don't care for Muslim kids playing around with clock innards. After being arrested for bringing a home-reassembled clock to school, Ahmed Mohamed got to meet President Obama, and then his family moved to Qatar, which is friendlier than Irving freaking Texas. So congratulations, dickbags, you chased the one smart kid out of town. But maybe there were more smart Muslims hiding in the mosque?

The protesters outside the Islamic Center of Irving didn't specifically mention the threat of 14-year-olds tinkering with electronics, but they were very concerned about the Paris attacks and wanted to send a message that they do not want any Syrian refugees coming to Irving, where they might build more clocks or launch jihad. Rally organizer David Wright, who brought a "tactical shotgun" along, explained to Dallas Morning news reporter Avi Selk that the group was carrying the boomsticks "mostly for self-protection." But, he continued, "I’m not going to lie. We do want to show force. We’re not sitting ducks." Wright's group calls itself the "Bureau of American Islamic Relations," a play on the Council on American Islamic Relations.

Get it? They're loaded for BAIR.

Wright also claimed he had heard Muslims in Irving had made death threats against Mayor Beth Van Duyne, who's become a minor rightwing hero for her loud warnings earlier this year that area Muslims were setting up sharia courts. (The fuss was actually over a private mediation service, which was no different from those run by Catholic or Jewish groups, except it involved Muslims, therefore Creeping Sharia.) Selk duly noted that the Dallas Morning News hasn't seen any verification of the supposed death threats, but Wright insisted they were real enough to justify being prepared to use deadly force:

“We don’t want people to think we’re out to kill people or shoot people,” Wright said as dozens of Muslim worshipers and students at the Islamic school pulled out of the parking lot past him, some standing in groups to stare at the protests in wonderment. “It would be ridiculous to protest Islam without defending ourselves.”

[contextly_sidebar id="sN49qWSIz3dLS0pdK4CMMdEq5hJ1IVjg"]This is absolutely true, because other ridiculous protests at mosques have also involved guys carrying semi-automatic rifles to defend themselves from scary Muslims.

Irving City Council member David Palmer, who was notified of the protest by a member of the mosque, dropped by the protest wearing non-tactical sweatpants to see what the bother was all about.

“Does it look like there’s any threat here? Nobody’s even close to them,” Palmer said, standing in a parking lot where police cars nearly outnumbered the four or five mosque members who watched the spectacle.

“My initial impression was they were using them for intimidation,” Palmer said. “I doubt that they’d be happy if some of the Muslim churchgoers here showed up at their Christian church, their Baptist church, their Methodist church tomorrow morning with rifles slung over their shoulders.”

That seems awfully cynical, Councilman Palmer! We're quite certain the anti-Islam gun-humpers would rush out to congratulate the Muslims on their fine understanding of their Second Amendment rights, and perhaps to engage in an impromptu exchange of firepower for the sake of comparison purposes.

Mosque leaders warned members to avoid engaging with the protesters, and they kept clear of the gun-toting patriots. Selk said the small number of mosque members watching the demonstration either declined to comment, or said that they thought freedom of speech is a wonderful thing. Even when it's weird speech.

One of the protesters, who wore a name tag reading "Big Daddy Infidel" and withheld his real name for safety's sake, told Selk that while he isn't looking forward to it, he is prepared to kill to defend Texas from radical Islam if he has to:

“You know, I hope 10 years from now, we just stood out here and froze to say what we wanted to say, and nothing ever came of it on either side,” he said quietly. “I hope the supplies I have in my house, the food and the water and medical supplies, I have to use up in my retirement years.”

But, he concluded, “This stuff is among us. People are blind if they don’t think it is.”

Big Daddy Infidel did not specify whether he'd purchased his supplies of dried food from Glenn Beck, WND, or Jim Bakker.

After a couple of hours, the protesters headed home, and as of Monday morning, it would appear that Texas has still not fallen under radical Sharia law. Raving paranoia may still be a threat, however, so it couldn't hurt to buy more guns and supplies for your bunker.

[Dallas Morning News via ThinkProgress / WaPo / Image from Avi Selk on Twitter]