Before there were Twin Towers, there was only one. On August 1, 1966 Charles Whitman decided to kill his wife, mother, and fourteen strangers just because. If you go looking for motives in this kind of thing you'll go as crazy as the shooter, because there isn't any. He did leave a note explaining that even he didn't understand the forces driving him. He papered the town with hot checks purchasing an M1 Carbine, two magazines, and six boxes of bullets. He also bought gun cleaning solvent (go figure.) He then bought a 12 gauge shotgun at Sears. He then lugged all this firepower up the stairs of the University of Texas Tower steps, killing as he went, positioning himself and beginning his assault on the student body.
The first shot killed Claire Wilson, who was eight months pregnant, and then killed her boyfriend as he stooped to help her. It was all downhill from there. After about twenty minutes Whitman began to receive return fire from police and citizens! This is important, people. You see, back in the day, a rifle or shotgun in the rear window of a pickup truck was a common sight. While the first bit of his rampage went fairly well, he was soon hard pressed to stick his head up long enough to aim, and his body count dropped accordingly. He was restricted to firing through water spouts, which severely limited his choice of targets. Three officers, and a civilian dispatched Whitman, and the rest is left to history.
I want you to note that there was not a great cry throughout the land to disarm Texas after this. In the Good Old Boy philosophy it was understood that guns weren't the problem, the fool on the tower was. There was a tumor on Whitman’s brain, and every doctor involved came to a different conclusion. Charles Whitman was bat-crap crazy. He didn't have an ideology, he wasn't driven by a specific hate, or philosophy, he was just crazy. He was a pure natural born killer, driven to attain the largest body count possible before cashing in.
While Whitman’s Tower didn't substantially change a thing in Texas, the Twin Towers changed history. With the Patriot Act, the NSA, Homeland Security and all the rest, we all still stumble through the rubble of Ground Zero. Now we have the insane paradox of putting up with all these intrusions into our lives, and we have a president who won't even utter the phrase, “Radical Islam!” If there is no Radical Islam why do I have to board a plane carrying my shoes? Muslims have become a protected species in America, and they're not even cool about it. Just today I watched an Imam casually discussing killing homosexuals as being an act of mercy.
Now, I want you to contrast this; remember the civilians keeping Whitman’s head down? Well nobody kept Omar’s head down! He was in a “gun free zone.” No guns allowed, all but Omar’s, he had lots. That reasoning is just about the craziest thing I have ever heard. A very small minority uses guns to kill, and the solution is to disarm the population in the hope that an religious nut will give up on his plan when encountering a little resistance to purchasing a gun. Folks, I'm just a simple old boy from Austin, but did I miss something here? Fact: If one guy in that club had one gun Omar’s body count might have been much, much lower.
It's not very often that you can readily identify a threat. There was no way to profile Charles Whitman. He couldn't even profile himself. However, you can profile radical Islam. You can slice out a segment of the population that is likely to commit a violent crime. You can have these people leave. Oh, and don't get me started. The FBI! Omar was “on their radar!” Better turn the power up on the radar boys, this one got by. And Omar’s father? “I do not believe my son was radicalized!” You mean more radicalized than you, goat man? We, as Americans, have given up a whole bunch of our freedom just to board a plane, isn't it time that Ali Babba give up some? Maybe time to go back to the old country? Maybe time to tear down all those Mosques here. Maybe time to meet that Imam touting killing people based of his twisted view of life in a parking lot and “enlighten” him a bit?
We, in Texas, handled Whitman, and his legacy far differently than the rest of the country handled the events of 9/11. We applied common sense, guts, and more than a little understanding of bad guys with guns. . The University of Texas Tower, today, is a place of tranquility, where students, once again pass without a second thought. The shadow of the World Trade Center still dominates the New York skyline because they never resolved it. They brought the perpetrators right to our shores to finish the job! Look at Texas, people. Before the Twin Towers there was only one!
The first shot killed Claire Wilson, who was eight months pregnant, and then killed her boyfriend as he stooped to help her. It was all downhill from there. After about twenty minutes Whitman began to receive return fire from police and citizens! This is important, people. You see, back in the day, a rifle or shotgun in the rear window of a pickup truck was a common sight. While the first bit of his rampage went fairly well, he was soon hard pressed to stick his head up long enough to aim, and his body count dropped accordingly. He was restricted to firing through water spouts, which severely limited his choice of targets. Three officers, and a civilian dispatched Whitman, and the rest is left to history.
I want you to note that there was not a great cry throughout the land to disarm Texas after this. In the Good Old Boy philosophy it was understood that guns weren't the problem, the fool on the tower was. There was a tumor on Whitman’s brain, and every doctor involved came to a different conclusion. Charles Whitman was bat-crap crazy. He didn't have an ideology, he wasn't driven by a specific hate, or philosophy, he was just crazy. He was a pure natural born killer, driven to attain the largest body count possible before cashing in.
While Whitman’s Tower didn't substantially change a thing in Texas, the Twin Towers changed history. With the Patriot Act, the NSA, Homeland Security and all the rest, we all still stumble through the rubble of Ground Zero. Now we have the insane paradox of putting up with all these intrusions into our lives, and we have a president who won't even utter the phrase, “Radical Islam!” If there is no Radical Islam why do I have to board a plane carrying my shoes? Muslims have become a protected species in America, and they're not even cool about it. Just today I watched an Imam casually discussing killing homosexuals as being an act of mercy.
Now, I want you to contrast this; remember the civilians keeping Whitman’s head down? Well nobody kept Omar’s head down! He was in a “gun free zone.” No guns allowed, all but Omar’s, he had lots. That reasoning is just about the craziest thing I have ever heard. A very small minority uses guns to kill, and the solution is to disarm the population in the hope that an religious nut will give up on his plan when encountering a little resistance to purchasing a gun. Folks, I'm just a simple old boy from Austin, but did I miss something here? Fact: If one guy in that club had one gun Omar’s body count might have been much, much lower.
It's not very often that you can readily identify a threat. There was no way to profile Charles Whitman. He couldn't even profile himself. However, you can profile radical Islam. You can slice out a segment of the population that is likely to commit a violent crime. You can have these people leave. Oh, and don't get me started. The FBI! Omar was “on their radar!” Better turn the power up on the radar boys, this one got by. And Omar’s father? “I do not believe my son was radicalized!” You mean more radicalized than you, goat man? We, as Americans, have given up a whole bunch of our freedom just to board a plane, isn't it time that Ali Babba give up some? Maybe time to go back to the old country? Maybe time to tear down all those Mosques here. Maybe time to meet that Imam touting killing people based of his twisted view of life in a parking lot and “enlighten” him a bit?
We, in Texas, handled Whitman, and his legacy far differently than the rest of the country handled the events of 9/11. We applied common sense, guts, and more than a little understanding of bad guys with guns. . The University of Texas Tower, today, is a place of tranquility, where students, once again pass without a second thought. The shadow of the World Trade Center still dominates the New York skyline because they never resolved it. They brought the perpetrators right to our shores to finish the job! Look at Texas, people. Before the Twin Towers there was only one!
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