Five decades later, gun law recognizes need

Five decades later, gun law recognizes need

“There were people who were responding and were actually shooting back at Whitman, and in fact after people starting shooting back, … to my knowledge nobody else was killed after that because it was very difficult for Whitman to get a shot off. He had to start shooting through peep holes.” – GOA’s Executive Director Erich Pratt 


Five decades later, gun law recognizes need

Earlier this week the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas denied a request by three University of Texas professors who sued to block enforcement of Texas’ new campus carry law. The decision comes 50 years after an infamous massacre on that campus in which a sniper killed 16 people and severely wounded 32 more.

Erich Pratt, is executive director of Gun Owners of America, says Charles Whitman’s rampage could have been far worse were it not for law-abiding citizens in the vicinity who owned rifles.

“There were people who were responding and were actually shooting back at Whitman,” he recalls, “and in fact after people starting shooting back, … to my knowledge nobody else was killed after that because it was very difficult for Whitman to get a shot off. He had to start shooting through peep holes.”

Dr. Richard Land, president of Southern Evangelical Seminary, is a sixth-generation Texan. He remembers the events in Austin that day.

Land, Dr. Richard (SBC, ERLC)”They had high-powered rifles and they had him pinned down,” he shares. “And … after the 96-minute siege was over with [the police themselves] said that the people of Texas owed a great debt of gratitude to the Texas students who had defended their fellow students by opening fire on Charles Whitman.”

Consequently, says Land, it is “appropriate” that the Texas legislature passed the new law that went into effect on the anniversary of that massacre.

Whitman’s reign of terror ended when an Austin police officer shot him at point-blank range.

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