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Armybrat wrote:Having been a student at the U. of Texas in the summer of 1966, I had the misfortune of witnessing most of Charles Whitman's shooting rampage from the top of the UT Tower. I can certainly emphasize with the terror the VT kids felt, but at least I and my roommate could crouch behind a car to watch for over almost an hour.
Whitman killed 12 & wounded 29 in that time, but was prevented from running the numbers higher because students who kept hunting rifles in their dorm rooms & apartments fired back at him, thereby forcing him to take cover. Before that return fire started up, we could clearly see him leaning over the parapet shooting with his Remington bolt action. Then he was forced to shoot through the drain holes, which greatly reduced his field of fire. Of the three men who confronted Whitman on the Tower's observation deck, two were uniformed policemen, and the third was a civilian bookstore manager who had his own handgun with him.

In all the time afterward, I never felt the need for gun bans of any kind.