Charles Whitman and Future Shock

Tuesday, April 17th, 2007

This past weekend, while chatting at a party, I happened to mention the famous case of the Austin sniper, Charles Whitman, and how, since he was shooting at folks in Texas in the 1960s, the Texans all went to their trucks and got their own rifles to shoot back. Don’t mess with Texas!

The story’s a bit deeper than that though, as Charles Whitman and Futureshock, 40 Years Later (which I cited last year) points out:

What struck me as most fascinating were the accounts from several sources of how the police dealt with the lack of covering fire that a SWAT team would provide today. They just went to citizens in the area and asked them to bring their rifles and shoot at the tower, and they all went to their pickups, got their deer rifles and did what they could to help. Their covering fire kept Whitman down and limited him to shooting through a drain opening, pretty much stopping the killing and giving officers the opportunity to get into the building. The officers also deputized one of the citizens to go with them into the tower to give them a bit more firepower, although he didn’t end up facing Whitman.

What a different world. First, it was taken for granted that a bunch of people in the area would be carrying powerful rifles openly in their trucks in the middle of the state’s capitol city. What’s more, the police felt no hesitation in asking those citizens to help out in a dangerous situation and the citizens were eager to do their part. None of this was seen as out of the ordinary or unexpected at the time. Everyone had guns openly in public and they were willing to take responsibility and use them when asked. Perhaps most remarkably, the police saw armed citizens as an asset rather than as a threat.

(Emphasis mine.)

Naturally one has to wonder about the situation at Virginia Tech.

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