In 2007, Seung-Hui Cho fatally shot 32 people at Virginia Tech University. In 1999, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold attacked classmates at Columbine High School, killing 13 and wounding 23. In the five decades since the UT Tower shooting, students have become some of the most prolific mass shooters. It is, Duwe writes in his book, “one of the clearest examples of the copycat or contagion effect.” A few months after Whitman’s rampage, an 18-year-old man in Arizona named Robert Smith shot five people to death, saying in a note that he was inspired by Whitman. Some researchers think mass shootings are contagious. “The UT-Austin shooting was the bellwether for the unprecedented rise in mass public shootings in the last half-century,” Duwe said. Grant Duwe, a criminologist and author of “Mass Murder in the United States,” said that in the 50 years before Whitman’s attack, there were 25 mass public shootings, defined as the killing of four or more people in a public place without a connection to drug deals, gang disputes or other underlying criminal motive. The headline on the cover of Time magazine, “The Psychotic & Society,” started a debate about mental illness and mass shooters that continues today.īut the acceleration of mass shootings represents its most enduring - and disturbing - impact. Police historians say the shooting was a catalyst for departments around the country to create SWAT teams. Much of the nation has forgotten the attack, too, though its legacy has been profound. And many of UT’s 50,000 students walk by the tower every day with no idea what happened there. Most of the holes have been plastered over. The only reminders are a few bullet holes in the tower’s limestone from rounds fired from below. Tour guides for prospective students and their parents do not mention the rampage unless they are asked.
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It was built in 1937 with Indiana limestone, according to a history on UT’s website, and serves as “the University’s most distinguishing landmark and as a symbol of academic excellence and personal opportunity.”Īdministrators have struggled for decades over how to publicly acknowledge that day. “Those Longhorns had the right idea back in 1966,” Clemens wrote. The resistance demonstrated that day should be admired, not discouraged, he maintained. “Liberal critics deplore that the new law takes effect on the anniversary of the ‘gun-related’ Texas Tower massacre,” David Clemens, a Monterey Peninsula College professor, wrote in mid-July in a National Review blog post, “but the timing couldn’t be more appropriate.” The student had apparently just been outside shooting at Whitman and said he needed to check on his grade.Ĭampus concealed-carry supporters see Monday’s convergence as a fortuitous coincidence. Friedman, now 77 and still teaching, remembers being terrified as Whitman landed shots near his office, but also afterward when he encountered a student in the hallway carrying a rifle. He considers it a calculated attempt by gun rights advocates to overshadow the anniversary. I don’t see them as linked.”Īlan Friedman, who started teaching English at UT in 1964, certainly does. “We are dealing with the implementation of the law and the anniversary as separate issues. “By having it start earlier, the law will be fully implemented before the fall semester begins,” UT President Gregory L. Though Texas laws typically go into effect on Sept. 1, most Texas universities start in mid-August and needed the law in place sooner, he explained in a statement. Brian Birdwell, who wrote the law, said that the date was not intentionally tied to the Whitman anniversary. “Guns preserved the peace and kept people safe.” “The upshot of the Whitman story is that these armed students and citizens kept human carnage to a minimum,” David Codrea, a prominent gun rights advocate, wrote last year in a post on. In their push to expand campus-carry laws across the country, they have cited the impromptu cavalry that took on Whitman as evidence that armed law-abiding citizens are the best defense against mass shooters. The extraordinary timing of the new law, which permits only concealed weapons, distresses gun-control supporters and survivors of Whitman’s attack. That same day, Texas becomes the nation’s eighth state to allow students to brings guns onto university campuses and, in some cases, into classrooms and dorms. On Monday, survivors will attend the unveiling of a memorial on the 50th anniversary of Whitman’s rampage, which left 17 dead and more than 30 wounded. “There was a lot of lead flying up there at him.” “These guys were pretty good shots,” said Bill Helmer, then a graduate student who witnessed the mayhem.
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