This day in history - October 16

[seamusTX]

1859 - Abolitionist John Brown led a raid at Harper's Ferry in Virginia that resulted in his death.
1962 - The Cuban Missile Crisis began.
1964 - China set off an atomic bomb for the first time.
1991 - Maniac George Hennard crashed a pickup truck into a Luby's restaurant in Killeen, Texas, and started shooting indiscrimiately. He killed 23 people and wounded another 20 before taking himself out of circulation.

Subsequent investigations revealed him to be a lunatic who had grudges against people he had not even met - mostly women.

One Suzanna Gratia Hupp, who was present at the massacre and saw her elderly parents killed, was instrumental in the passage of the concealed handgun law in 1995 and was elected to the Texas Legislature in 1996.

- Jim

[MTICop]

Thanks for the history lesson. I, for one, appreciate it.

[Venus Pax]

+1.

[seamusTX]

People who were infants when the Killeen massacre occurred are adults today. Many others who moved to Texas in recent years know nothing about it. It needs to be remembered.

- Jim

[jimlongley]

People who were infants when the Killeen massacre occurred are adults today. Many others who moved to Texas in recent years know nothing about it. It needs to be remembered.

- Jim

A co-worker, today, was starting to tell me about the Luby's massacre. I narrated a portion of it back to him before he had a chance to go to far, and it became obvious that he had little knowledge of it himself as he did not know who Suzanna Gratia Hupp was. His intentions were good, he was trying to justify CHL and gun ownership and self defense, he was just preaching to the bishop.

[bryang]

1859 - Abolitionist John Brown led a raid at Harper's Ferry in Virginia that resulted in his death.
1962 - The Cuban Missile Crisis began.
1964 - China set off an atomic bomb for the first time.
1991 - Maniac George Hennard crashed a pickup truck into a Luby's restaurant in Killeen, Texas, and started shooting indiscrimiately. He killed 23 people and wounded another 20 before taking himself out of circulation.

Subsequent investigations revealed him to be a lunatic who had grudges against people he had not even met - mostly women.

One Suzanna Gratia Hupp, who was present at the massacre and saw her elderly parents killed, was instrumental in the passage of the concealed handgun law in 1995 and was elected to the Texas Legislature in 1996.

- Jim

Thanks, again, Jim for the history lesson. I don't want to say this to loud, but...I was here for all but one of the events and remember them very well, however, the maniac that attacked Luby's restaurant in Killeen seems like only yesterday and is still very vivid in my memory. It really had an effect on me and it was mainly because of this event and Suzanna Hupp testimony that persuaded me to seek my CHL.

Thanks,
-geo

[seamusTX]

I was also alive for all but one. I was a little kid during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and have only a vague memory of the adults that I knew being frantic about it.

I have a clearer memory of China popping off a nuke. I remember people saying we were on the verge of World War III and a Communist takeover. Now they're our best buddies.

(I don't know why the Communists were supposed to be able to take over the U.S., but that's water under the bridge.)

- Jim

[bryang]

I was also alive for all but one. I was a little kid during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and have only a vague memory of the adults that I knew being frantic about it.

I have a clearer memory of China popping off a nuke. I remember people saying we were on the verge of World War III and a Communist takeover. Now they're our best buddies.

(I don't know why the Communists were supposed to be able to take over the U.S., but that's water under the bridge.)

- Jim

Yeah, I know, there was a communists under every rock during those times. I remember our school had us all gather in the auditorium and watch a film on what to do if we were attacked by a nuclear bomb...duck under your desk, hit the ground and cover your head... ah, the good old days.

-geo

[seamusTX]

My not-so-favorite memory of that time was my parents telling me that the ChiComs would put our eardrums out with chopsticks so that we could not hear the Gospel.

I don't know where they heard that, but I have no doubt they were sincere about it.

- Jim

[bryang]

There were a lot of strange things going on back then. As I look back it seems like they were trying to scare the dickens out of us kids, however, I have no doubt that our parents and the schools were doing what they thought was best for us. That film I was talking about I still remember watching, and I can still see in my mind, that horrific explosion and the mushroom cloud that followed, and then the pictures of the devastation for miles and miles from ground zero..and I use to think what good would it do for us to duck under our desks...

-geo

[NcongruNt]

There were a lot of strange things going on back then. As I look back it seems like they were trying to scare the dickens out of us kids, however, I have no doubt that our parents and the schools were doing what they thought was best for us. That film I was talking about I still remember watching, and I can still see in my mind, that horrific explosion and the mushroom cloud that followed, and then the pictures of the devastation for miles and miles from ground zero..and I use to think what good would it do for us to duck under our desks...

-geo

Yeah, I remember the nuclear attack drills as recently as 1988 (5th grade for me), and when I looked back at them in my high school years, it did seem pretty ridiculous. Ducking under a desk isn't going to do squat to prevent any ill-effects from a nuclear attack.

[seamusTX]

Crawling under your desk won't do any good it you're at ground zero, but ...

In the atomic bomb explosions at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, many people who might have survived uninjured were blinded by looking at the bomb as it went off, or were injured by flying glass shards. If you were far enough from ground zero, crawling under your desk might actually help.

It also made people feel like they could do something, instead of being a helpless victim.

- Jim